Up and running again with Granado Espada

Our Granado Espada playing adventure was paused since Sunday night as I tried securing the computer where it was loaded. Well its the kids' computers and didn't care much about then. Without agreeing to any re-formating, the machine is now fixed, with 700+ RAM and running so cool.

At Level 19, we were able to do the following:

• Make a mission or quest to get a reward that you could use to avail of upgrades.
• You can get soldier cards, NPC cards, that you can use during fight quest.
• We were able to buy ourselves the round-top hats. Not so cute for the elementalist but the guys really look handsome with them. Those nice costumes are pretty darn expensive.
  
• Harder to level up once you reach level 15.
• Ramiro almost kicked our ass after we said that the photo of a lady musketeer he showed is pretty. It was unbelievable and ridiculuous actually. He was able to summon flame ground and deluge of an elementalist, among other powers. Two of us got killed in that brief encounter. Fortunately, upon revival, we were able to beat him and he already pledged his loyalty to us. To utilize Ramiro, we need to have an extra space in our barracks (we already have 4) which we don't have now. We're still figuring this out.
• In the old armour quest part 1, we were able to find the item behind a stone. The price is an EXP card with 1000 points.
• We experimented with the new poses we bought. (as a Mom, now that's pathetic but the kids were having so much fun with it)
  

Joining GSIRT Philippines

The idea of organizing government security incident response team has always been an advocacy by friends in the law enforcement and IT security field. I've always been supportive but at times doubt the direction of such body will take.

Last February 21, I found myself in the meeting discussing possible activities of those who joined the Microsoft's Government Security Program. PNP CIDG's Colonel Gilbert Sosa took the lead in pushing for the creation of a GSIRT team that is currently a unit under group. We elected several persons at that time who can function as the interim team. I became part of that group and here's the officers' list:

President – Col. Gilbert Sosa

Vice-President – P/Sr Antonio Delgado

Secretary – Ms. Ollie Hulguin

Treasurer – Mr. Richard Paul Quinlog

Auditor – Janette Toral

Last Thursday, our group met again and decided on activities and services that GSIRT can offer from reactive, proactive, to other services within the government. There's also a need to be part of international group to formalize GSIRT's recognition internationally.

To raise the resources, we agreed to hold a Security Incident Response conference whose income will be utilized to faciliate the fees for international membership and buy resources needed to support GSIRT operations.

My spirit is high with this advocacy as its contribution possibility to the community has a lot of potential.

Toral Family enters Granado Espada

Finally, I got the chance to pick up the CD yesterday and join the close beta of Granado Espada. There's at least five of us in the family who agreed playing alternately with the intent of fully exploiting the game.

When preparing for this game, one of the concerns that we had is our Internet connection. Good thing I'm testing Globe 3G at this time using the Huawei E220 USB modem. So far, we've been playing well using this as our primary Internet connection.

As far as Granado Espada is concern, day 1, we've learned the following:

• It is a challenge to play with it due to numerous controls.


• As we're just starting, it will take some time to master what each character is capable of. So far we're playing elementalist, wizard, and fighter.


• The fun thing about it is that it is easy to move or level up.


• There are also items that can be found to heal yourself while playing.


• On some dungeons, it is best to partner with other players as the opponents are very strong.

More updates on this one next time. The kids are playing! We're now level 15!