User:Notmyhandle

This user is an admin. Hello, I am one of the many sysops at SW. I am excellent at persevering through criticism, which I hope is to the benefit of SW. I (and others) sometimes abbreviate my alias as NMH.

Recently I have tended to be inactive. I spend most of my game-related time on flash games that are not part of SW's scope or MMOs too large and daunting for one person to work on. I have come and gone from SW over the past 6 years, but I always seem to return.

You can find some of my contributions through the links at the bottom of the infobox (on the right side of this page).

Ask on either my talk page or the Staff Lounge.
 * Need help?

Profile
A shout out to Lunar Knight for the idea of a personal infobox (I wrote this in like, 2007).

I've protected my pages from being edited by non-sysops, but if you have an idea for making them better go ahead and discuss it with me on my talk page.

About me
I love and, to some extent, am addicted to video games. I enjoy gathering data for them just as much (maybe even more).

I perform all of my edits by hand. The most automated processes I rely on are copy/paste, some regular expressions and the find functions within Firefox or IE. I am currently trying to experiment with AutoWikiBrowser using my bot, Notmybot.

In November, 2006, I was writing articles on Wikipedia for Gunster: Rain of Bullets and non-video game topics when I noticed that "game guide information" was not allowed on Wikipedia. I panicked and, seeking refuge for my work, found GameInfo at Wikia (where I dumped some of my contributions) and then later StrategyWiki. Since SW had an active community and a much more original skin and organization, it had me hooked.
 * History

I most often work with monitoring MapleStory edits. I also spend a lot of time copy editing the content of guides, creating new article pages, setting up guides for others, solving editing problems, and contributing what I can remember from playing games ("walkthrough dumps"). I also work with screenshots, image touch ups and transparency, content verification, inquiry (clarifications and suggestions), helping discuss community issues, and handling (pun intended) vandalism.
 * Interaction with the wiki

I am currently enrolled in a university where I am pursuing an undergraduate management degree program with a minor in information technology. I hope to grow in my ability to apply these concepts, especially to StrategyWiki and other communities.
 * Current studies

My gaming history
Although I am relatively young, I grew up playing NES and Atari games, and I still have many if not all of my NES carts (my brothers and I went through maybe 4 systems but none survived). PC games were also a big thing, since my brother purchased a Pentium 400 or something that I used to play Commander Keen games, Scorched Earth, and Warcraft: Orcs and Humans on. Eventually I killed that computer (probably by formatting it) and we got a newer one later which I used to play Ascendancy, Civilization, Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness, and The Secret of Monkey Island on (all of which I sucked at). I also remember watching my brothers play some of the first online video games, such as "Tomato Wars", an ascii dodgeball game that looked like a single room from Adventure (for Atari), but with stick figures.

I think I was 8 or so before I got my SNES (it was like $115 used with several games), which I still have (yet it's now broken, and I will soon find a FC Twin to replace it). I was given Shadow Run as part of the bundle, however because I was quite young and impatient, I went and traded it for Secret of Mana; a great trade indeed (although I had to pay an extra $20 or so during the exchange). I feel bad for getting rid of that game though. I have only traded/sold around five games in my life and I have regretted every single exchange. Unrelated: I remember writing an "essay" in the third grade where I wrote about skateboarding safety equipment themed from the sprites and items present in Secret of Mana... wow.


 * Sold games
 * Shadow Run
 * SWAT Kats: The Radical Squadron
 * Vagrant Story
 * this one basketball game for Xbox though I gave it away instead of selling it
 * Lost games ='(
 * Banjo Kazooie
 * The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time

When I turned 11, 5th grade, I rented an N64 and had a party with a couple of friends, playing GoldenEye 007 and Star Fox 64 throughout the night. That December my cousins and my brothers received an N64 to be split between us. After several years of swapping my family ended up with the system (which I still have).

Around the age of 14 I got a GameCube for my birthday with Luigi's Mansion.

At the age of 16 I got a student Visa with a low limit. Thus the ability to purchase things online was now mine. I went on a Genesis rampage and now have 2-3 consoles, about 10 controllers, several crazy adapters, a 32X without a connector cable, a Menacer Rifle, about 8 Sonic the Hedgehog 2 cartridges, and many other games.

I recently acquired a PlayStation, and am borrowing (for a very long time) a PlayStation 2 (one that cannot play PSX games, so I am glad to have both systems).

Now I spend most of my time playing free games, or games on Steam.

PC Specs
🇨🇴 🇨🇴 🇨🇴 🇨🇴 🇨🇴 🇨🇴
 * PC 1
 * 1.75GHZ AMD Sempron 2500+
 * ASUS A7V8X-X Motherboard
 * 1GB Rosewill (2x512MB, PC2700) SDRAM
 * 80GB Seagate Barracuda (PATA)
 * 200GB Seagate Barracuda (SATA with Rosewill bridge)
 * 450W Power Supply
 * ASUS GeForce MX 4000 V9400 64MB AGP GFX Card
 * Additional USB/Firewire port PCI card
 * PC 2
 * AMD Athlon XP 2000+ (1.66GHZ)
 * PCChips M811 V3.1 Motherboard
 * 512MB (2x Modules) SDRAM
 * MSI NVIDIA GeForce 6600 GT 128MB w/ Zalman VF700-Cu heatsink, AGP GFX Card
 * 160GB SATA Seagate with Rosewill bridge.
 * 80GB Seagate Barricuda
 * Rosewill 500W RE501 Extreme Edition Powersupply
 * APEVIA (ASPIRE) X-Pleasure BK Case
 * PC 3
 * AMD Athlon XP 1900+ (1.6GHZ)
 * 1GB DDR SDRAM
 * Radeon 9800 PRO 128MB AGP Gfx Card
 * SB Live! Wave Device Sound Card
 * Notebook 1 (Primary)
 * Acer Aspire 5739G
 * 15.6" HD LED LCD, 16:9 ratio
 * Windows Vista Home Premium 64-bit SP1
 * Intel Core2 Duo T6500 2.1Ghz
 * 4.00GB of RAM
 * NVIDIA GeForce GT 130M Cuda (1GB RAM)
 * 216GB HDD (advertised as 250)
 * CD/DVD RW DL Drive

Thank yous
A little thank you... For cleaning up SSBM. hugs, DrBob (Talk) 04:25, 14 April 2007 (CDT)

Misc
"The Hot Q: Grand Theft Auto 4 ...It's something I get asked about a lot (thanks for the E-mails, guys - you know who you are). It's Grand Theft Auto 4, and prepare yourselves for a whopper of a rumor, folks. Here goes: The just-announced Grand Thef Auto: Vice City is just the beginning of what will become known as the GTA Universe. After Vice City, the next Grand Theft Auto game will be dubbed "Crime Online." And if you haven't guessed by now, it's going to be the first console-networked title in the series. There will be a new stand-alone GTA as well, but that's still a ways off..." --Q-Mann, EGM August 2002.

"Hi Aniki! I've used the same technique on Pac-Man, Ms. Pac-Man, and Galaxian.  I discovered the technique to making them when I discovered this page on a video-game blog: http://iconfactory.com/freeware/preview/arcd I saw it and set about figuring out how to recreate the effect.  I can teach you exactly how I do it (which may or may not necessarily be how Gedeon Maheux developed them, although I've been in contact with him and he said they're very close.)  I use GIMP 2.2 That's the best way that I can explain it to you.  If you're unfamiliar with GIMP, IM me @ procyoncoon through AIM or Yahoo.  Good luck! Procyon 09:03, 31 August 2006 (CDT)"
 * 1) Start with the original sprite, and scale it 7x
 * 2) Duplicate the sprite in a new layer and shift it to the right 7 pixels.  Darken the new layer through the Brightness and Contrast tool (I darken it by -96)
 * 3) Duplicate the sprite yet again in another layer, but only shift it one pixel to the right.  Brighten this layer with the Brightness and Contrast tool (I brighten it by 127.)  This layer goes between the original and the dark version.
 * 4) Now it gets a bit tricky.  Select the transparent space (or background color) around the sprite in the original layer.  I hit Shift+Q to show the selection mask, then I push it over to the left by one pixel.  Hit Shift+Q again to go back to the selection mode and press Ctrl-X to chop off the rightmost pixels.  This exposes a little more of the lighter pixels underneath on the right side.
 * 5) Again, select the transparent space around the sprite in the original layer.  Now invert the selection so you're only selecting the sprite.  Create a new layer, and choose the gradiant tool with a gradiant that goes from black to white.  With the area over the sprite selected, create gradiant straight across the sprite.  When you're done, select that layer in the layer dialog, and choose "Grain Merge" and set the opacity to 50% to soften the effect.
 * 6) Lastly, you want to sample the transparent space around the entire image (check the "Sample Merged" checkbox.)  Pick one of the dominant colors of the sprite, and darken it substantially.  Fill the transparent area with the dark color, and then shrink the selection by 4, and feather it by 2.0, then press Ctrl-X to cut it and create the dark border around the entire picture, and viola.

July 12, 2009

Congratulations! is the winner of the Walkthrough competition! Your guide, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Arcade Game, was the winning walkthrough!