I'd like to thank Alt of Alternative Chat for inspiring this post with her post, Alternative Chat :: A Warcraft Blog: Take Me I'm Yours

You can simulate "Appear Offline" by using Windows Firewall to block Battle.Net traffic. Of course people in your guild and on your server will still be able to find you but realid friends on other servers won't see you. Great for some alone time on a different server if you're in high demand from your guildies.  

WARNING: Once enabled you will not be able to change servers so get to the character select screen before enabling this rule.

To do this you:

Open up your Windows Firewall, this will vary depending on your Windows version so I'll recommend you Google that; Once in Winbdows Firewall, select 'Outbound Rules' and then double click on 'New Rules..';

Select Port as the rule type you'd like to create and click next and then on the next screen,choose 'TCP' and 'Specific remote ports' and enter 1119 into the text box and click 'Next';

Select Block the connection and click 'Next';

Ensure 'Domain', 'Priavte' and 'Public' are selected and click 'Next';

In 'Name' put in REALID blocker just to make it easy to know what the rule does and in description type 'Disconnects you from Battle.net and hides you from REALID friends. Once enabled you will not be able to change servers so get to the character select screen before enabling this rule.' and click 'Finish';

After clicking 'Finish' you will see the rule you created at the top of you list and it will be ENABLED;

Click on 'Disable Rule' and it will disable the rule. If done correctly the stop sign will disappear from the left of the name of your rule;

Now whenever you feel the need to go invisible on Battle.NET open up Windows Firewall and enable your rule ONCE you're on your character select screen.



more »

With the Warlords of Draenor beta being addon free, I've been looking around for a way to bind a macro to a keybind.

Hunting around I discovered a script that allows just that (which sadly doesn't fix the issue as scripts are also currently banned on beta). However, as I'm hoping to free myself of as many addons as possible when warlords hits the streets sometime in 2015 (?) it will be some use later on.

The command you need to run is:

    /run SetBindingMacro("SHIFT-A", "MacroName")
    /run SaveBindings(1)

I use a macro on a hotbar for this and recommend you do too as I'm not too sure how it behaves if you simply type it in on two lines. Of course, when you do this, you need to change the exact wording to fit your needs:

• Replace SHIFT-A with whatever key you want to bind the macro to (e.g. A, ALT-A, CTRL-SHIFT-A);
• Replace MacroName with the name of your macro;
• Replace the 1 in the SaveBindings call to a 2 if you use character specific key bindings which I don't as all of my character use the same bindings;

You can also replace MacroName with the name of a spell or other ability, which can be useful especially for pet abilities. more »

How often do you use your CAPS LOCK key? I realised I NEVER used mine. If I type a CAPITAL letter I simply hold down the SHIFT key instead.

So when I realised this I thought "WTF? I can use this as a modifier key for my keybinds" then I realised that it would make my typing lookstupid. So I engaged my Google Fu and discovered there is a way of remapping individual keys on the keyboard.

My keybinds are weird so I won't go in depth here BUT I use SHIFT and CTRL as modifiers often and ALT very rarely. I also find CTRL is a bit awkward to use often. CAPS LOCK is a lot easier to hit with my pinky finger (which I use to activate my modifier keys). So I decided to remap CAPS LOCK to be a 2nd CTRL key.

On Windows this is really simple but you do need to be a bit brave as it involves modifying your registry. If you use a MAC I'm sorry but you're out of luck!

This can be achieved 2 ways. The first is to open up the registry and add/modify the registry key manually. If you're not sure ho to do this there is a second, much easier way which is to create a .reg file. Below is the text that you need to put in the .reg file (if you know how to add/modify the reg keys this will give you the info you need to make the change manually)

CHANGE CAPS LOCK TO CONTROL

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Keyboard Layout]
"Scancode Map"=hex:00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,02,00,00,00,1d,00,3a,00,00,00,00,00

CHANGE CAPS LOCK TO SHIFT

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Keyboard Layout]
"Scancode Map"=hex:00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,02,00,00,00,2b,00,3a,00,00,00,00,00

CHANGE CAPS LOCK TO ALT

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Keyboard Layout]
"Scancode Map"=hex:00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,02,00,00,00,38,00,3a,00,00,00,00,00

RESET CAPS LOCK TO CAPS LOCK

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Keyboard Layout]
"Scancode Map"=-

To create the .reg file all you need to do is press the Windows key and 'r' at the same time, then type 'notepad' and click on 'OK'. With notepad now open copy the text from one of the boxes above and paste it into the notepad window, select 'File', 'Save As...', change the 'Save as type' dropdown to 'All Files (*.*)' and type in a file name (I suggest ChangeCapsToXXX.reg).

Once saved, close Notepad and go to the location you saved the file and open the file. This will give you a warning message:

All you need to do is press Yes and once you have rebooted your PC your caps lock key will now be the key you chose!

If you're brave and trust me, I have the files for download here. Please run the zip and the unzipped files through your anti-virus program first, if it warns you there is a virus, let me know  and do NOT open it further.

If you found this tip useful, please feel free to share it with your friends and guildies! more »

From time to time I have the need to link an item or achievement in a macro, sadly the built in macro builder doesn't allow you to simply type in the macro and "shift/click" the item into the macro like you can when typing a message (why Blizz stop this only they know).

There are longwinded ways I have seen on other blogs but recently I discovered an easy way to do it.

First you get the link from WoWhead. In this example I'll use the link to the Herald of the Titans achievement, http://www.wowhead.com/achievement=3316,
Read more »

No not that one!

Like many folks, I mess with addons and I raid. Sometimes that can create conflict as if I'm not ready to raid because that new alpha version of an addon has broken my lovely UI I'm screwed and as a healer and raid leader so are my guild, That simply isn't cool. So what I do is have a test environment which replicates my normal WoW but if that new addon breaks my UI, I have a safe "live" version ready to go and the idea was originally put to me via a post by Matticus, but as I recently tried to direct a friend there and neither of us could find that post, I thought I'd share the technique with you all.

Read more »