Justin Germino Ramblings

Well since today is a relatively free day before Christmas Eve I didn’t have much to say in my blog posts, I actually have to write a few reviews of this restaurant I went to last week called Uncorked which was amazing and write my review of the Odysseo show I saw last week, but instead I found a collection of screenshots from my Guild Wars 2 game and saw my Rykard Parker character who is a Charr (named cleverly from Life of Pi movie).

Here is Rykard Parker through his first levels and with various weaponry, I am a level 23 Charr Guardian now and my preference is a two handed sword in one slot and the Scepter and Shield in my off-hand slot.

What is your favorite weapon combo for a Guardian in Guild Wars 2?

I have been a Spotify user and a Roku owner for quite a while but now the two have paired with the Spotify Roku channel.  This allows me to listen to my Spotify playlists in the living room or when I am in CA without having to bring and plugin my iPod into a dock.  Granted this is probably more ideal for those of you who have nice speaker systems rather than using your built in TV speakers.

If you are a Roku user and a Spotify user go and add your Spotify channel now and start listening to your music through your living room sound system.

I have done a lot of tweaking to maximize the return on investment for sweepstakes or giveaways I run through DragonBlogger.com with Punchtab and created a template excel spreadsheet that helps show advertisers their return on investment.

In this spreadsheet, you simply enter the Sponsor’s name, how much they provided (either prize or cash value of prize they put as sponsorship) and then you add up the total number of followers they gained from the giveaway.

For our Lenovo Laptop Giveaway, Blog Engage put in $100 as a sponsorship amount, they earned a total of 5,188 new followers.  3,425 were on Twitter and 1,763 become a fan on Facebok.  This means they had an ROI of .019 or just under 2 cents per follower gained.

Compare this to something like Featured Users which is a service by IZEA that features your social media profile and estimates how many likes and your ROI for advertising with them.

I went to buy a package to get more followers for my Twitter account and they offered 13,440 views with an estimate of 45 followers for $39.  This is an estimated .86 CPF (cost per follower) and truthfully most services will offer between .30 and $1.50 per follower.  So you can see the .02 cents per follower by being a giveaway or sweepstake sponsor of one of my contests is a better return on investment for any advertiser.

I can’t do true targeting however, I can’t limit by geographic location, but I can giveaway a prize that matches the niche of the advertiser, so that it attracts people who tend to like those types of products.  If I giveaway a video game or gaming peripheral, it will attract the types of fans who will likely stay with a video game company or PC accessory company who sponsors for example.

It is this crafting of unique giveaways to help match my advertiser which helps me provide a better ROI and increase their following.  I am still trying to develop methods to grow more than Facebook, Twitter following and eagerly looking forward for Punchtab to have the Subscribe to YouTube Channel entry method.

It’s easy to think about having a home security system to help deter potential burglars or to protect your house against fires or floods, but home automation systems can help you keep an eye on your pets.

Here is a look at some of the home automation tools that can make life easier for you and your pets, courtesy of ADT Pulse.

Remote Video Monitoring — If you’re not at home and you aren’t sure what your pets may be getting into, remote video monitoring can help. You can view real-time video feeds of what’s going on in your house via computer or any other web-enabled device, like a smartphone or tablet. This allows you to see if Fido is tearing up the pillows on the couch or into the food bag you thought you tucked away.

This is a great feature to utilize in order to make sure your pets haven’t gotten into something that may be hazardous to their health or got stuck somewhere in a room, as well as making sure they aren’t hurt or in need of help in some other way.

Remote Lock/Unlock Doors — If your pet gets into something or somewhere they shouldn’t have, the remote arm/disarm feature can come in handy. You won’t have to rush home or hope that someone who has a spare key to is available. Just get in touch with a neighbor or friend who stop by and then you can unlock your door from where you are to let them in. When they’re taken care of the situation and are ready to leave, you lock the door and your home is secure once again. The convenience of being able to take care of things without you having to alter your plans is something that is quite valuable.

Remote Arm/Disarm — This feature works well with the remote door lock/unlock feature. Should a friend or neighbor need to get in to your home to check on your pets, you can simply disarm the system and when they leave, it’s easy to arm the system once again.

Small Appliance Control — Hook your radio or television up to the home automation system and you can control turning them on or off while you’re away. Creating familiar situations, sights and sounds for your pets help them remain calm, allowing you to enjoy your time away.

It’s important to note that while home automation tools may not be able to help you stop your pets from getting into trouble, it will give you an idea of what trouble areas you have in your home. This lets you come up with a game plan as to how to deal with these issues should they arise again when you leave the house for any amount of time. These features come in extreme handy if you have newly adopted pets or puppies and kittens who have not acclimated to your home yet.

What other features of home automation do you feel are beneficial for pets and their owners?

The whole family is volunteering today to help feed the homeless and less fortunate at a soup kitchen.  After enough comments from our kids, especially the youngest they just don’t realize how hard life can really be and how some people aren’t as fortunate as we are so we thought it best to get them into a volunteering routine so they can see and help serve those who are less fortunate.

It is necessary for kids who grow up in middle class and upper class families to have the humility and humble nature, being able to appreciate what they have and realize how fortunate they are to be in those circumstances.  Unlike adults and grown ups who have more direct control over their fate, kids are subjected to the environment they are born and raised in.  They need to be able to help those less fortunate, donate, not just buy a toy or donate allowance for the needy but interact and interface to gain a better perspective.

It is my hope that one day my kids will be more generous and realize that philanthropy is the ultimate reward and means more to ones soul and life overall.  If you happen to earn or command a status in life that is admirable and better than most then take some time to help those who are less fortunate and need.

I am not talking about free handouts to those who do not have ambition to strive to achieve something, but truly help those who have no opportunity or capability of gaining something more without assistance.

It was a surprise and honestly at first I thought it a scam, when I received an email inviting myself and a guest to attend the Cavalia Odysseo premiere on December 19th in Scottsdale.

A quick confirmation and it turns out that due to my growing Twitter following, over 16,000+ followers now that I was invited to attend as a Very Important Tweep and they want me to have backstage access, tweet and post pictures about the event in real time to help spur media buzz around the Cavalia Odysseo show.

We had seen a previous Cavalia show years back, it was Cirque Du Soleil style acrobatics that includes horses in their acts and as part of the story of the show.  This will be the first tim I get to actually have a backstage tour and see the Cavalia horses in the stables which should be fun.

I was thrilled to offer and see if my wife would like to attend with me as a date night (we had to find a babysitter) and away we will go to attend Cavalia Odysseo next week on Wednesday December 19th 2012 in Scottsdale, AZ.  I will be live tweeting and posting pictures from the show as well.

My trusty mobile Hootsuite application will get lots of use that night.  You can learn more about the Cavalia Odysseo performance by visiting their website.

I never really thought much about a mousepad previously, I had always used crappy cloth based mousepads that were plain and I picked up for like $5 or less from bargain bins.

But when my new Steel Series Guild Wars 2 Mousepad arrived in the mail the other day I was surprised at how much faster and more responsive my mouse was.  I didn’t change anything but swap out my old mousepad and my mouse which is an older Logitech MX620 just jumped across the screen.  It flew much faster and I had to get used to the new sensitivity just by switching out the mousepad.

I was not disappointed, and for less than $20 on Amazon.com this mousepad was definitely worth the purchase.  They have the Logan Edition, Eir Edition or simply the Guild Wars 2 logo.

Each is larger than a mousepad I was used to, they are 13 inches wide by just over 10 inches long which provides a lot of room for your mouse to move around, but maybe not ideal for very small desks.

If you are a Guild Wars 2 fan and looking for a better mousepad that literally will help improve the tracking and performance of your mouse, the Steel Series Guild Wars 2 mousepad will not disappoint.

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It was by chance that I came across an advertisement for the Samsung HMX-W300 HD Camcorder in a newspaper advertisement and I did a little more research and found that this pocket sized HD PVR could actually fit for a specific purpose that I have when going to Encinitas several times per year.

The Samsung HMX-W300 is a waterproof and shock resistant pocket sized camcorder, think of it like a water and shockproof Sony Bloggie camcorder, it has about the same recording capabilities and limitations but is water resistant up to 15 feet and it’s case can survive drops, falls.

The Samsung HMX-W300 supports 1920×1080 30fps video shooting, is capable of 5 megapixel stills and has 3x optical zoom.

Like the Sony Bloggie and other PVR devices in it’s class it lacks a flash so it works primarily in bright light or full daylight when shooting video.  Also like other PVR in the class the image stills are lacking compared to an iPhone or Samsung Galaxy 3 camera and can be grainy and noisy unless there is ideal direct light on the subject.

This camcorder isn’t designed for night shooting and it’s primary purpose is video shooting during daylight with it’s major benefit being that you can shoot in, around, and near water.  This means you can be in the pool shooting video without worrying about the camcorder being destroyed by water, it is waterproof so you can shoot video under water, in and out of water, splash the camera and more.

My main purpose for this camera would be to take it with me when I go to the Beach in Encinitas and explore the Jetties for Starfish, Anemones and other ocean life that clings to the rocky surfaces.  I could take it into the waves with me and not worry about it being destroyed, I had always wanted to take some video of waves crashing over the camera and such so it gives me the chance to experiment with some water footage.

If you are looking for a small pocket HD Camcorder that can shoot in water, provided you are not Scuba Diving to depths greater than 15′ this camcorder should work for you.  Just know it’s limitations in that it requires a fair amount of light and is not designed for night shooting since it has no flash and the stills can be grainy if there isn’t ideal light conditions.

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My kids had completed their wish lists this year and there were more Skylanders Giants characters on their wish lists than any other type of item showing the popularity of the series and the game which is both a collectable action figure and console game combined.

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I am going to have to get a separate cabinet to house all the Skylanders if they keep growing their collections and as it is now they pretty much clog the underneath of the TV stand in the shelf next to the Xbox 360.

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It is fun to see them pull out the lists and want the Target Exclusive Granite Crusher or Walmart Exclusive Drill Sergeant.  There are even quite a few Giants that haven’t even been released yet which I am sure will make 2013 lists.

The good thing is they are in much higher supply than when the original Skylanders game came out and you couldn’t find Skylanders anywhere at Gamestop, Walmart or Target.  This time rarely did I see any model sold out and they were in stock generally everywhere.

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Been a fun weekend with the kids where I dusted off the Dungeons and Dragons book and we hit the table with some old fashioned role playing for a few hours for the first time since being in the new house.

The boys went on two adventures over 2 days and both gained enough experience to reach level 4.  My youngest son realizing he kept getting injured in the last few combats as a fighter decided to dual class and pick up a cleric level so that he could apply some healing to himself.  My oldest son who was already a dual class fighter / rogue decided he wanted to add a third class sorcerer to help augment his combat abilities.

One of the things I loved so much about Dungeons and Dragons 3.5 was the flexibility in the class system and the kids have a blast finding quests, exploring and more.  Occasionally I have to mediate the occasional argument over who gets what magical item, but it’s is all part of the learning, and compromising process that is roleplaying as a group.

I also got to use my Excel Generators which I created  back in 2001 and 2002 and still work fine on Excel 2010 on Windows 8.  These made extensive use of the VLOOKUP function where I built automatic random generation capabilities into everything from treasure lookup to gem calculators.  Pretty much every table in every D&D book I turned into a randomizable vLookup table in excel to make my job as a Dungeon Master easier.

Good Times…