Justin Germino Ramblings

As it stands now InMotion Hosting contacted me and asked me to see if I wanted to test and compare their hosting plans with my existing hosting plans that I have been using for several years and they hit me up at a good time.  I was having some frustrating experiences with HostMonster support and so much email back and forth that I have been considering switching anyway.

Hence I am now in the process of some of my smaller blogs to InMotion Web Hosting and if all goes well, then I will transition and cut over all my smaller sites to InMotion Hosting.

Here are some of the things that I considered that were key points.

• SSD Drives for all hosting accounts

All hosting plans including their $5.99 per month launch plan now include SSD drives which have lightning fast performance for disk based IO operations. In theory this means if you set your W3 Total Cache or caching plugins to cache to disk you should be seeing much better performance, logs write faster and there should be noticeable improvement in pageload speeds based on IO operations to disk. I am going to see if there is noticeable improvement after I cut my sites over.

• Free Data Backups

No need to mess around with plugins and configure them, the plan will just setup backups on a scheduled basis for free.

• Unlimited Disk Space and Unlimited Data Transfer

What this means is you don’t have to worry about filling up your assigned disk space or reaching a data transfer cap or having to pay more, even the budget plan has unlimited disk and data transfers.

• CPanel

For those who are like me and prefer CPanel to access their services/applications, they have CPanel on all hosting accounts.

• SSH Access

This is another good one, for those who want SSH access instead of being limited to only FTP access.

I figure I should have one of my smaller sites cutover by Friday night, with others to follow on the weekend.  I haven’t had a review and certainly haven’t tested their support yet, but so far I am liking what I see in InMotion hosting and willing to give them a try as once again I have been disappointed lately with HostMonster support.

Plans start at $5.99 per month to host 2 sites.

Yep, so after playing a little more of the starter edition of Dungeons and Dragons 5th edition with the boys I decided to take the plunge and purchase the 3 core rulebooks for 5th Edition Dungeons and dragons.  These are probably the only books I will use for a while and I am liking some of the features of the new edition from the starter pack, most noteably though is how powered mages and clerics can be with level 1 spells doing up to 24+ damage on a single spell in a 1st level spell slot.  There is little chance a 3.5 edition 1st level character could match a 5th edition 1st level character based on some of the improvements to spell damage and effects in 5th edition.  Though warriors seem to be on par, again, don’t have full rule books yet so just basing on the small list of things I see in the starter pack.

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The kids want to get more involved with drawing and making maps, towns and dungeons and we shall make this a whole family affair.  My oldest son is loving the Dwarven Cleric and my youngest is a human fighter both have their own play style, my youngest is more loyal and honest, truly lives up to the Lawful Good alignment while my oldest is quick to turn to profit in game and between the two of them constantly wanting to follow different paths I can see my DM challenges ahead of me with turn based approaches and trying to keep missions and storyline that appeals to both players at the same time or else it will end up being one person’s turn then another without an actually party traveling together.

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So randomly in the mail HyperX sent us one of their [easyazon_link identifier=”B00TY6A2D6″ locale=”US” tag=”httpwwwjustin-20″]Fury Pro[/easyazon_link] Gaming Mouse pads, and this thing was a BEAST in size even though it is one of their smaller size options!

So 360mmx300mm was so huge, it easily bested the size of both my other desktop mousepads combined.

My mouse has so much room to scroll in all directions I never have to worry about my mouse reaching the edge of the pad.  The surface is nicely textured and the mouse tracks perfectly, but of course I have to say that the edges are laser cut and not braided, this means they probably are prone to separation over time but I won’t say for certain as I haven’t used the mousepad long enough.  I tend to prefer mousepads with braided edges because I rest my entire arm on the mousepad most of the time and I have frayed the edges of many a mouse pad before.

This one is a simple no-nonsense beauty and is ideal if you just want a solid mousepad that is large and your mouse will track well on.  Black faced mousepads still do best for red laser mice when tracking and I recommend them over getting one with a fancy graphic art if you just want something for pure gaming performance.

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I did finally try out mining with my Type-6 and unfortunately it looks cooler in the images than it actually is.  The mining profession just isn’t profitable as the random nature of minerals you get from Asteroids isn’t found out until you start mining and each asteroid only has about 10 chunks you can break off to collect, refine and turn into minerals to sell.  What this actually ends up meaning is that you spend a great deal of time slicing into an asteroid, moving back and forth to scoop up pieces in your cargo scoop, then putting them in the refining bay slot, then back to the grind.

In the end, my average profit was around 33,000CR an hour when getting Silver, Bertrandite, and Lepidolite.  I imagine if you can find the Painite which sells for like 33k CR per ton, you may get profit, but I have yet to find any and it is a needle in a haystack out there.    They need to make mining more engaging and profitable without Painite being the only thing people would be willing to mine for.  A tractor beam that helps scoop up minerals into the cargo scoop would be a huge asset as well.

Either way, I was glad I tried it and some pretty pics came out of it.

Recently Hootsuite changed so that they show you a splash page when going to the Hootsuite app even when you logged in, this bypasses you going straight to your dashboard so you didn’t have the ability to have a working Hootsuite Chrome Desktop Application.  This is easily fixed however as Hootsuite Support gave a directly URL to use for Hootsuite desktop applications.

First, in case you didn’t setup Hootsuite as a Desktop App you can do that now.

• In Chrome visit Hootsuite.com and sign in
• When you see your Dashboard, click on the Tools Button or Customize and Control Button

• Click down on More tools
• Click on Create Application Shortcuts…

• Now you will see a Black Owl icon appear on your desktop
• Right Click on Your Hootsuite Desktop App Shortcut

Your target line will probably look something like this:

“C:\Program Files (x86)\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe” –app=https://hootsuite.com

• All you want to do is change the –app=https://hootsuite.com portion and make it look like this

–app=https://hootsuite.com/dashboard?hootPostID=f0ed3d0358c1b568caea6746abec0736

• Then click OK

Now double click on your Hootsuite Desktop Application shortcut and you should show up in the Dashboard right away if you are already signed in.

Enjoy!

Few tablets impress me as much as the Kindle Fire HD and HDX line of tablets, the price/performance ratio is just fantastic and the Kindle Fire HD 6.  This is a $99 tablet (8GB Model) that has amazing performance for the price, so much that they stand by that no other sub $100 tablet can even touch the performance.  I wanted to put this to the test, so I bought one for one of my writers so he can do a review and a series of articles showing off the [easyazon_link identifier=”B00KC6I06S” locale=”US” tag=”httpwwwjustin-20″]Kindle Fire HD 6[/easyazon_link].

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With Amazon now developing it’s own games, they recently released a Fantasy based puzzle game called Saber’s Edge which is free to play and looks pretty good.  Both of my kids have the Kindle Fire HDX and my oldest plays Hearthstone on it, I am not 100% sure if the Kindle Fire HD 6 can play Hearthstone  yet but will make sure our readers over at DragonBlogger.com know if it can after my writer receives his unit and starts his testing and review.

The Kindle Fire HD 6 really is the ultimate family tablet, especially if you have kids because the free time, multiple user profiles are fantastic, combining it with Prime and family sharing and you can get 1 free book per month, free unlimited music, videos and so much more.

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So you know how much I love EasyAzon for inserting Amazon affiliate images, info boxes and links into posts and EasyAzon 4 has even more localization options than previous versions.  Well there is a few sub plugins for EasyAzon and one of those is called EasyAzon Tables which this review is focused on.

So with EasyAzon Tables aka TableZon you add an extra element when you click on your EasyAzon button which is the “add to table” and once you add 1 product to a table, you can search and continue adding other products to  a table.

A quick search for headsets for example and I can quickly and easily build a table selecting the headsets that I like and think are a good fit for this table.

After you add the products to the table and are done, click on finish table button, then you get to customize the attributes that list in your table.  First you get to rename any of the products so that the text matches what you want to say, typically though most product names are fine unless the company tries to shove every keyword possible into the product name where you may want to trim it down.

You then select which attributes you want in your table by checking them, once you select the attributes you want you can re-order them in how you want them to display.

Now, there are some limitations of the EasyAzon Tables plugin, one is that you can’t select a product image as an attribute, I SO WISH that a little thumbnail (smallest size pic) was an option as an attribute, because a picture tells a thousand words and just having a link and text is fine (hover over it and it will show more product details like below if configured).

But it would have been nice to have that little thumbnail image next to the product name that was also a clickable image.  Second it is hard to know exactly which attributes you really want the first time around, in this case Brand, Manufacturer, Publisher were all pretty much same thing so I really only needed Brand.  Sizing was blank for 1/2 the products, and Feature is nice but can be long winded on some products and short winded or not really list features but shipping info on other products.

The other issue is once you insert the table, there is no easy way to back in and edit it, like add or remove existing attributes (well you can modify the shortcode directly but only if you know exactly what attributes to add.

It would have been ideal to list the star rating with stars for each product too, I think seeing 4+ star rating for products in a table would be an incentive to click, but that isn’t an attribute option.  I also find release date would be awesome if it was accurately filled out for each product, but as you can see on the EazyAzon Table below it isn’t always filled out.

So I think EasyAzon Table can help build tables of information, but product name, brand and list price are about the most useful fields, the rest of the fields seemed unreliable and I wish current price, thumbnail image and star rating of the product listed in the table were listed.

Here is sample output of an EasyAzon Table below:

[easyazon_table attributes=”Brand,Model,Feature,ReleaseDate,ListPrice” identifiers=”B00DU2CHE2,B00M882BMM,B00BFOEY4I,B00EDHEU2A,B00SAYCVTQ,B00HLUZX7M” locale=”US” orientation=”at” tag=”httpwwwjustin-20″ text=”SADES SA-708 Stereo Gaming Headphone Headset with Microphone (Blue)|EACH G4000 Professional 3.5mm PC Gaming Stereo Noise Canelling Headset Headphone Earphones with Volume Control Microphone HiFi Driver For Laptop Computer|Logitech G230 Stereo Gaming Headset|SADES SA-708 Stereo Headset Gaming Headset with Microphone (Green)|HyperX Cloud II Gaming Headset for PC/PS4/Mobile – Gun Metal (KHX-HSCP-GM)|Sades Stereo 7.1 Surround Pro USB Gaming Headset with Mic Headband Headphone (White)”]

Overall though, if you want to list multiple products in a table, I think the EasyAzon Tables or TableZon  plugin has potential, maybe it should also give you a “custom field” where you can enter your own data (name the column and add your own details) like if you want to give your short 1 or 2 sentence summary of the product.

It is more efficient to buy EasyAzon 4 with the TableZon extension than buying it separately but if you already have EasyAzon 4 you can buy TableZon separately for $27.

It had been a while since I had dove in with the Anne Rice vampire series which was one of my favorite series over the past few decades since I first read Interview with the Vampire and The Vampire Lestat as a teenager in the late 80’s and early 90’s.

I have been an avid admirer of her works and more importantly her incredibly creative set of structure and rules on vampires, their creation and definition on their abilities and how they were acquired both by age, gaining power by sharing the blood of elder vampires or simply being brought into the blood by an elder Vampire which could give a fledgling powers far beyond those they should have for their years.

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I am an avid audiobook lover and most of my books I listen to lately on long car rides or plane flights when I am flying, so Prince Lestat which is Anne Rice’s most recent novel about the famous Brat Prince was one I listened to and my review will be not just about the material but how it was presented audibly to me.  I did purchase the book on Audible which is a service that I tried for the first time with the purchase of this book and I have to say I am quite happy with the service, particularly in that you can download the books and listen to them offline without having to maintain an Internet connection just to listen to your audiobooks, but also the pause, rewind and continue features are excellent and adapt well to picking up where you left off, or just going back a little bit to catch up and remember where you left off.

In Prince Lestat you find yourself divided between the points of view of multiple different vampires throughout the book as each one has their own take and perception on a new and growing threat that is facing them all.  The threat comes in the form of “The Voice” which is heard by the most powerful vampires first and eventually starts driving those who were brought into the blood to slay each other, particularly reducing the vampires who are younger.  This threat is far greater than Akasha was to the vampires of the modern world and we learn a lot on the origins of vampires, who the voice is and where the vampires are heading as a “tribe” throughout the course of the book.  The book is simply brilliant, from Lestat doing his while dreary moping in the shadows trying to find a reason to exist and continue to him taunting, mocking the voice and other vampires all looking for him to become their leader which is a title he never wanted from the start.

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You are introduced to the more powerful vampires and the originals created in the first years and the conflict between vampires is palpable, you feel their misery over the centuries, feel the struggle and conflict within each one drawn into this tale and the weaving of spirits and the Talamasca into the works is done very well.  I cared about each and every one of them, their world and the struggles and the whole concept of how the undead seek purpose, love, art, beauty, redemption each one with their own struggle as an immortal is so compelling to me that I had trouble stopping the audiobook when I had arrived at my destinations.

Simon Vance is the narrator and does a great job voicing Lestat and the other vampires from their perspectives, I found his voice full of proper inflection with compelling under and overtones with the content and again I was really enthralled from start to finish.  If you are a fan of the Anne Rice Vampire Chronicles this book will not disappoint, whether you want glimpses of Armand, Marius, Pandora, Louie or many of the other vampires introduced over the various volumes you pretty much have moments in which you are with your favorite characters from time to time.  The final scenes and showdown was among the most tense and exciting as any book I have ever read or listened to and Lestat himself who was always one of the most compelling anti-hero characters rises to the top as one of my all time favorites once again in this book.  Though on a personal note, for me when I visualize Lestat I forever picture him looking like Tom Cruise in the movie Interview with the Vampire even though I know his appearance was inspired by Rutger Hauer and Bon Jovi when Anne Rice wrote the character.

For me the Vampire Chronicles and Prince Lestat especially gives true depth to vampires not as undead monsters that just prey and feed on human beings but what challenges, thoughts and implications there would be for a creature to have true immortality and the affliction that they must drink blood to continue their existence and keep up their strength as well as rest when sunlight rises on the world.  For those who don’t know me that well, in my Dungeons and Dragons world I had based an entire character class to the principles and foundation of the Anne Rice vampire ethos and powers chart, and even Lestat in my gaming worlds was the god of mischief much like a Loki god equivalent in my worlds.

I follow Anne Rice on Facebook and see how Prince Lestat ends with it being a setup for another novel coming and so look forward to continuing the adventure and the journey.  Seriously I could go into 5000 words worth of spoilers, I cannot express to you enough how much of a fan I am of the series and the Prince Lestat book.  For those who thought previous Anne Rice vampire novels were a little to graphic I will say this one tones down the intimacy between vampires much more than previous novels and is a much easier and more fluid read if you had any particular issues or dislike about those elements of previous books.  While it still maintains the core passion and affection that vampires have when embraced sharing in the blood, it is just graphically tone down to be a bit less explicit than some of her former works.

For me Prince Lestat is 5 out of 5 stars and is a highly recommended read or “listen” if you enjoy audiobooks as much as I do.

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So recently I saw the Amazon special sale of the Polaroid XS80 Waterproof Action camera and though about how awesome this camera would be now that I live within walking distance of the beach. If I had one I would live record me jumping into waves, waves spashing over the camera as well as when I explore the Jetties for sea life like starfish, slipper lobsters and more.

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This is camera has some great specs and is a 16MP camera that works well in low light vision and records in 1080p and 720p.  You can find full specs below.

Main Specs
1 /2.5” CMOS Image Sensor
F2.8 Fixed Focus Ultra Sharp Glass Lens
Light Sensitivity: >1.4 V/lux-sec
White Balance, ISO, Scene: Auto
Exposure Auto Control: Auto
120 Degree Ultra Wide Angle Lens
File Format: Video- H2.64 MPEG4, PHOTO- JPEG

HD Resolutions
1080p: 1920x1080p / 30FPS / 16:9
720p: 1280×720 / 30FPS/ 16:9
Photo:
Resolutions 16MP, 5MP, 3MP, VGA
Photo Mode: Single / Burst (x3) / Time Lapse (5,10,30,60)

Micro SD – Up To 128GB
1050MAH Built In Battery (Approx. 2.5 hrs of Use)
G-Sensor (Auto Rotation): Yes
Auto Power Off: off/1min / 3min
Vibrates: Yes
Anti-Shake: Yes
USB 2.0, HDMI

Windows 7/XP SP3 /Vista and later, Mac 10.5 or above
Size: 96.3*40*45.8mm
Weight: 3.9oz

Included In Box
Camera
USB Cable
Mount-Lock
Mount-Lock Key
Secure string
Carrying pouch
Helmet Mount
Manual

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So been working on testing the new EasyAzon 4 and comparing it to EasyAzon 3 to show how other WordPress bloggers can take advantage of this amazing plugin to help integrate Amazon product offerings with more ease into your WordPress posts.  Some of the major feature differences between EasyAzon 3 and EasyAzon 4 are more link localization customizations and easier selection of image sizes when doing Amazon affiliate image insertion into a post right off the bat.

What is EasyAzon?

EasyAzon is a WordPress plugin (set of plugins a Core plugin and the Pro plugin) which allows you to insert Amazon product links, images, call to action buttons and info boxes into your WordPress posts so that you can benefit from Amazon affiliate sales for products you review, showcase or merely related products to what your articles is about.  It is a very simple way to grab a readers attention and try to capture some Amazon affiliate commission which grows with the more products you sell on Amazon.

It’s integration is among the best and is one of my top 5 favorite WordPress plugins that I have been using since it first released.  This is truly a plugin that I endorse and use on DragonBlogger and every other site that I have passive Amazon affiliate sales enabled on the site.  There localization options are a fantastic choice if you run an International blog or have a high volume of traffic from readers who are not in the origin country of your blog, this way you can set local cookies for the Amazon store for the nearest reader and they have a greater chance to buy from their closest Amazon store.

What this means is that someone visiting your post from Canada will see that product listed in the Amazon.ca store for them, rather than the Amazon.com store which may be your default.  The caveat is you have to register yourself as an Amazon affiliate for each and every Amazon store and there are A LOT of them now.  Each one tracks earnings separately and has minimum threshhold of $100 payout so you may end up having a lot of trickle income streams from the smaller Amazon sites for your market.

This is only a casual glance at EasyAzon 4 and I will go into more details with more detailed videos, review and walkthroughs later, this post is merely to show you how the various functions look and isn’t walking you through configuration but what it looks like to the reader when you put Amazon affiliate links and images into your blog post.

After you have EasyAzon (Core) and EasyAzon 4 Pro installed, after you configure it with your AWS keys (which you get from Amazon) you simply have a new “EasyAzon” button in your WordPress post editor.

Click on the EasyAzon Button and you get a search box to find the product you are looking for, you can search by product name or by ASIN number directly.

After you find the product you want in the search results, you can choose between doing a simple Text Link, an Image Link (image that links to product), a CTA Link which is a Call to Action button, or an Info Block.  If you want to see an example of what each looks like, just look below.

EasyAzon 4 Text Link Example

[easyazon_link identifier=”B00DHW4HXY” locale=”US” tag=”httpwwwjustin-20″]Bejeweled Royal Dragon Goblet Cup Stainless Steel Lining[/easyazon_link]

EasyAzon 4 Image Link Example

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EasyAzon 4 CTA Link Example

[easyazon_cta align=”none” identifier=”B00DHW4HXY” key=”wide-orange” locale=”US” tag=”httpwwwjustin-20″]

EasyAzon4 Info Link Example (Default)

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EasyAzon4 Info Link Example (Attributes Template)

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EasyAzon4 Info Link Example (Image and Prices Template)

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