takarifreak

If anyone remembers, my account was frozen for protection at the end of July since someone broke in and stole my precious UC Aisha. It took a month, but they unfroze me, and even gave my pet back.

One problem, they sent the password to my OLD email, which I don't even have anymore. I provided it in the ticket only for account verification purposes (since I had only changed it a few weeks before when I came back after not playing for ages), so basically, I'm locked out of my account.

So I replied to the ticket explaining that I didn't have that e-mail anymore and this was still locked out of my account, and could they send it to the one that was current on file at the time of freezing. They replied again a few days later...saying the same thing previously about resetting my password and sending it to the old e-mail. In other words, they completely ignored my plea about not being able to access that e-mail. And it's not like the hacker changed it, in which case I could understand. Most people change their contact address on account because they either wont use the old contact anymore or will be unable to use it!

So I'm at a dilemma here, should I reply to the ticket yet again and hope they actually read it and not give a cookie cutter response, or open a new one and risk them telling me not only the same thing and have them possibly chastise me for not following the advice of the first?

Has anyone else had trouble with tickets like this (slow response time and cookie-cutter replies)? I'm getting a bit frustrated. I was about ready to quit entirely just as I got the first response, and now it looks I may have to quit since I'm locked out of the account I've had for 9 years. I'm not going to start over, cause a lot of my reasons for returning to Neopets are the memories that still live on that account, and without it I have no desire to play. : (

Mine hasn't been read either, but after seeing how many people have been affected, there is probably mass hysteria going on at the office and they're likely backlogged..

Well, I sent in a ticket with more details than I think they needed (I took like an hour to write it all and check it), hopefully I'll hear something back soon. Getting the account back shouldn't be a problem, but I'm worried I won't get my pet back : ( I've started to think of backup pets and names to fill her place if need be, but she will always hold a special place in my heart. At the very least, I still have old screenshots of her Fountain Faerie Quest.

This account has been FROZEN for the following reason:

Due to potentially suspicious activity on this username, it has been frozen for the owner's protection. This can include falling for a scam or entering information into a fake login page. If you would like information on getting this account back, please contact us by clicking here.

The person who 'stole' my Aisha has ALSO been frozen.

This certainly seems to be a good sign. I'll wait a day or two before I send in the frozen account form just so I can give them time to work their stuff and whatnot, and so I'm not harassing them. I'm shocked as it is it took less than 8 hours to get something to happen! I pretty much used all the characters in the form to explain what happened, including the timeframe in which it occurred (which was only 11 hours) and what the only IP I accessed my account from, as well as the fact I was the original creator of the pet 9 years ago and that she never has been moved; info I know they can verify. That probably made it a heck of a lot easier to research on their end.

I've been helping a friend of mine on an alternate account we share finish NQ II anyway (she was in an auto accident years ago and is now mentally disabled), so I do have a way to spend my time in the interim.

The only thing I CAN'T tell, however, is which account the Aisha is now on, since both accounts are frozen. Hopefully they can move her back to my account. It's obviously they believed me enough to investigate at least.

I'm still wondering how the heck this happened. My account has never been compromised before, and due to the PC being off, I know it was not remote hacking, so that pretty much leaves cookie grabbing...but I've been using firefox, which I thought was immune to such threats (or so was the case years ago). I am careful where I browse. The only think I can think of is that maybe they had a cookie grabber in their shop (if that's even possible), since I have been buying about 8 codestones a day for training. A few of them have been insanely underpriced (I refresh the shop wiz so often I'm shocked I haven't been shop wiz banned, if they even still do that), so I suppose I could have been sucked in on accident, and the fact that I have (well, had) two grandfathered pets made me even more of a possible target once the info was gotten.

It's possible I was not the only victim of this person...all 4 of their pets were grandfathered pets, yet their account is not old enough to have obtained those pets on their own. Of course, I have no way of knowing WHEN they got the other 3 pets so I'm just guessing.

I'll keep you guys posted on any updates.

My computer gets entirely powered off at night via a power switch (which includes everything attached to it). No one else has access to my computer as I live alone, and since the entire thing was powered down, there is no remote access to my PC while I'm not at it. I was not entirely shocked at first when my account was logged out when I returned from work, as firefox was updating at the time (which has, on occasion, kicked me from a login on a site in the past).

I did notice a small amount of NP taken from my account (my bank interest rate went down by 100 NP), but other than that and the pet change, my account appears to be completely untouched. That's what really gets me...if someone really did hack into my account, they could have done whatever they wanted with it!

I did send a report, hopefully I get a response.

This really stinks too, since she was one of my prized pets! I can't ever get it back either, since she was a grandfathered Plushie Aisha! Unless a miracle happens and they return my pet, I'm totally out of luck : (

So I login today (after being logged out for some reason, though firefox went through an update), to find my active pet has changed...okay. I log into my other account on another browser to find one of my beloved pets is GONE, and replaced with another, and is currently on someone else's account.

Now, I am the only one who lives here, and thus the only one with access to my account. My computer could not have been hacked indirectly, as in the time I was gone, my computer was completely powered down and unplugged!

Nothing else seems to be amiss...so how the heck could this have happened? I've changed my password just in case, but even if I send a report in, will my pet be returned? This happened sometime in the past 10 or so hours, and it was one of my favorite pets too!

Anyone else ever have this happen?

Both my siblings are several years older than I am, and I was never in the same school at the same time as either (they were, being less than 2 years apart). As a result, we weren't the friendly type siblings, but were weren't enemies either, just typical sibling squabbles.

I do recall once my dad saying to me at a young age (after a fight with one of my siblings) that he once felt resentment toward his sister, but that goes away as you get older and more mature and you do become more friendly and appreciative of one another. I pretty much called crap on that.

...But you know what? He was totally right. While my bro and sis are closer to each other than I am to either (mostly due to the age gap), we still support each other. I guess getting older works because you no longer have to fight over sharing things, including your parents' attention and affection. Since you can look after yourself, you no longer need the adults to do it for you.

So while I think siblings are a good thing, too many I feel is a bad thing. Like those families with a dozen kids or more. There's only so much time in a day, and every child needs to have that special attention with at least one parent from time to time. You can't really do that with so many kids, and I fear they suffer from the lack of it.

The ray is fired at TakariFreak...

... and she changes colour to Island!!

Too bad She's a Lenny and not a Quiggle!

- Site Event Trophies -

- Journeyman (275 points)

- Adventurer (753 points)

- Initiate (7 points)

- Warrior (Rank 2)

- Royal Astronomer

- Lucky Guesser

- Altador Cup V Participant

- Site Feature Trophies -

- Defender of Neopia (Mission 8)

- Defender of Neopia Series 2 (Mission 5)

- Game Trophies -

- Third place at Techo Says (The original!)

- Second place at Armada

- Snow Wars CHAMPION

- Second place at Pyramid Bonus

- Sakhmet Solitaire Bonus CHAMPION

- Third place at NeoQuest

- Third place at Mystery Pic (got this one a long time ago)

- Third place at Lenny Conundrum

- Go! Go! Go! CHAMPION

- Cheat! CHAMPION

- Second place at Better Than You (got this years ago, don't remember the game)

- Geos CHAMPION

- Beating Punchbag Bob CHAMPION

- Cellblock CHAMPION

- Third place at Trouble at the National Neopian (got this the VERY first day it came out!)

- NeoQuest II CHAMPION

- Third place at Hannah and the Ice Caves (Again, on release day)

I ALMOST hat a Sutek's Tomb trophy the night that came out, but it was glitchy, and the scores tables kept resetting :(

FINALLY got the Kacheek Seek one today. That took I don't know how many hundred DAYS of trying ever since they released it years ago!

Don't want to double post, but:

Something Has Happened!

You are now eligible to use 'Merouladen' as an avatar on the NeoBoards!

It was weird, the last 2 turns they did absolutely nothing to me. I though I was going to lose again. Berserk Plus double Ramtors spellbook did well over 100 damage to them.

I'd like to offer a helpful hint...most brushes are compatible with both PSP AND Photoshop. Simply change the extension. .abr for Photoshop, and .jbr for PSP (if you have the Jasc versions). I have old brushes I downloaded for PSP 7 and Elements 6.0, and they load fine in Elements 8.0 so long as they have the .abr extension.

I cannot test this in the Corel versions of PSP, as my copy of XI is being a massive pain in the bum. The extension is different though. I find the Jasc versions are superior anyway.

If changing the file name doesn't work, there are tutorials to export and import the brush files into the opposite program.

Now, I don't think it's McD's fault alone, because ALL major fast food franchises do this. Burger King, Wendy's, and others followed this trend. But it is true.

And it's not even just fast food places either that do it. Take cereals for example. There is a reason that the sugary cereals marketed for kids are in bright colors. People in advertising for anything make big bucks because they KNOW how to get your attention and make you want to buy their product, even if you don't see outright just how they manage to do so. Subliminal advertising does work.

Is McDonald's (among other places) marketing to children? Sure they are, because they know it works. That's part of how business and marketing work. Welcome to the western world.

I've noticed a tend with the generation of kids growing up now...the parents do not know how to say NO and actually follow up on it, so they kids have no comprehension of the meaning. Back when I was a kid, going out to Wendy's was a TREAT, not a lifestyle.

McD's and other unhealthy food only 'makes' one fat if you continue to patronize them frequently, and that is a CHOICE. NO ONE is shoving it down their throats. This isn't like some radiation in the local water giving people brain cancer or anything out of one's own hands.

ANYTHING can make you fat if you eat in more than you can handle. Some foods do increase that process, yes, but everything in moderation. It's not rocket science.

I think the theory helps with aiming, but that's about it. If you're in a spot where you can at least hit it nearly consistently (baring the randomness of the aim), eventually you'll win out in the end. A few weeks ago before I came here, I did figure out how to line myself up, but I chose a different coconut each time. While I was okay, I do hit slightly more often using this method, and eventually, the more often you can at least hit it, eventually, it will pay off.

The customization made them change pets into one universal position.

I don't really like it for that reason either. In theory, I think it's a good idea as it lets people's pets truly be unique, but the changes they had to make to make it worth their while to code for it is meh. I am glad about some of the pets being grandfathered (I like my Maraquan Chomby and my Plushie Aisha EXACTLY as they are), but part of the charm of some of the more 'exotic' colors (such as faerie, darigan, grey, plushie, royal, etc) was that they were in different poses and a slightly different design than the basic colors. Customization took that away. If you still had a choice of which you wanted and could choose the old one at the price of not being able to customize, that would be fine. After all, they still have all the images, and many (if not all) of the paintbrush display "shops" still have the pre-customization designs.

They could have handled some of the position changes better too. Like some of the grey pets don't even LOOK sad anymore. Changing their physical pose is one thing, but taking away the emotion factor just ruins it. Same with some of the Darigan pets, they don't look nearly as menacing.

And I REALLY could do without the whole fist on the left hand. Especially on the Koi, it looks AWFUL.

But like I said, good idea, but could have been implemented MUCH better.

I got a Twenty Dubloon Coin today. I think that's the best thing I've ever gotten.

I loved how the text pointed out it was VERY shiny :P

The ray is fired at TakariFreak...

... and she changes colour to Halloween!!

I was hoping more for pink so I could get that avatar. Better than useless stat changes though!

I think I figured out the problem. Apparently, it conflicts with the opacity filter in IE. Kinda weird. At first I though it was the positioning code, but I cut out everything in the #main definition until I got it narrowed down, just in case (thankfully #main was at the top of my code, so once I cut it out entirely to check for conflicts and found it in that line, it was easy enough to narrow down).

There is a workaround though...I can individually set an image opacity filter on each of the module definitions to get pretty much the same effect, and I can just lighten the background to compensate for that difference. I may change my mind on that front, but at least I now know it works. I have it off for the time being, but I did test it.

But now, if I could ask one more favor (last, one, I promise!). Can anyone take a look at it Google Chrome/Safari/Opera (if you have them) and let me know if anything is off? I know there are small issues that I can easily work around once I stop being lazy; I'm more interested in the Aisha and if he's properly positioned stationary in the bottom right and in the absolute foreground (the collections box should have the images appear underneath). I would look at it in browsershots, but It won't let me without an account since someone beat me to it for the day (apparently there is a limit on how many times each domain can be used for the day).

Thank you so much for your help everyone!

Awsome, I got it working now, thanks so much guys!

I've got most everything figured out enough and can really start work on it.

There's just one problem I've run into though...I cannot figure out how to keep the the 'background' image in the foreground over to stay fixed in IE; it just scrolls with the rest of the page. It works fine in firefox.

Here's is what I'm using (before my style tags):

<img src="http://iced-dragon.net/images/aisha.gif" style="bottom:0px;right:0px;position:fixed;z-index:1;">

I know it's possible, because I've seen it, but there's something I'm missing somewhere, and I can't figure it out : (

Yay! Thanks so much!

I seem to be having an weird problem though...I cannot get any positioning tags to work. If they're in someone else's premade, they work just fine. If I try to make my own, it gives me some bejeebus about position not being a valid tag. Do they need to be in a certain order, or have something else defined in a previous tag?

So yeah, the whole site layout and user lookups have completely changed since I last left neopets. I'm trying to work on a new lookup for myself, but trying to self-teach myself from other people's codes isn't working too well (though I am getting something out of it, at least).

Does anyone know the list of codes that work, AND what they do/change? I'm talking like the .neopetModule, #navigation and stuff. You know, the things exclusive to the neopets layout. What are all (or at least some) of the ones to use, and what does each do?

I've tried to google it, but all I keep getting are just premades or basic html/css tutorials. Since I already know both, I'm not getting anywhere without copying people's lookups and tweaking them to figure things out, and I really don't like doing that (even though I'm going to re-write my own code in the end). I'm shocked my search has turned up absolutely nothing.

So yeah, any help is greatly appreciated!

Finally got the Smuggler's Dubloon avatar today after practicing for like a week. Always used to get hit by a mine that appeared too close for me to get away :( Didn't even get a 500 coin at all either, so I'm proud of this one : )

Today, it's been a toss up between:

Victoria's Secret by Sonata Arctica

Reflection by Michiru Oshima (I think?) from Fullmetal Alchemist

I couldn't get under 60 seconds (and In fact, I NEVER have), but I noticed I at least got stuck less!

I think the title is misleading...I mean, SOMEONE has to use and buy it new for it to even BE used. "21 things to look for used instead of new" would have been a better way.

Some things I prefer new, others, I don't mind used. DVDs and CDs, definitely new. I prefer them over digital copies since they come with artwork and pretty credits. Lyric booklets are awsome, and it's fun looking out for the errors (I think almost every cd has one!)

Video games...only used if either A) it's a game I am familiar with (such as playing it over a friends house before) or b) it comes with all the manuals

Musical instruments...only if it's something that doesn't involve mouth contact (like a keyboard, guitar, drums). Otherwise, that's just gross (even with a new mouthpiece). Yes, there are cleaners, but other people's spit has been in there. Have you guys ever smelled the inside an instrument that hasn't been cleaned out for a bit? It's DISGUSTING.

Books? Meh, depends on the condition. If it's good, why not?

Most people buy their houses used, so that doesn't even need to be on there.

And while I do think it's nice to buy a rescue pet, there are other factors to consider. By getting a pet from a professional breeder, it's far more likely to have the traits you may or may not want (or need). I'm currently on the hunt for breeders, since I am moving into an apartment and need a cat with certain specifics, and I'm more likely to get what suits me and my new place by getting a breed that best fits that. Plus every other cat I have ever owned was a rescue cat, so I can forgive myself.

Thanks everyone! Calling me Takari is fine, it's the easiest to remember :P

There's quite a few things I noticed right off the bat that could use a sprucing up. For one, the Poogle Races STILL have the old style poogle images! It's been years since they updated their look! Some of the area maps could use an update too, at least to make them all consistent with one another (at least on the HTML, I haven't seen if the flash images are different). For example, I can't even spot a single change in the maps of Krawk Island, Tyrannia, or Meridell from what was there when I left.

Some of the changes I'm not happy with. I did a Vader "NOOO!" When I saw they put Magax: Destroyer in the game graveyard. Except for one glitch, it was fine as it was and I hate the new one and am terrible at it (thankfully I already have the avatar). I even did a run back to back on both to make sure it wasn't just me being out of practice.

Have they made any big changes to the trading post/shop wiz/restock times? I'm not even going to attempt to market until I can catch up a little bit!

I'm going to start working on training my battle pet, and adding to my Blue Aisha Gallery. I also collect the regular Blue Aisha Plushies, so if anyone has any lying around they want to get rid of, feel free to fling them my way (they're appreciated!) :) I remember once a few of my old friends went on a spree and bought a ton off the shop wiz and sent me like 300 in one day. We would all have a blast sending each other stuff for our galleries or junk collections. Man, those were the days.