Category
Tech
My interest in technology stems from computer gaming. I am and always will be, a PC Gamer. Trying to play multiplayer games brought me networking experience, new games required better and faster computer components, and so I learned out of necessity what it took to battle the demons of hell. While I was around, I got into AOL, website design, and programming as well. My first crappy job at the KSU airport brought me money to build my own computer from scratch, which is still the computer I use today. Even though every single part has been replaced at some time, its soul lives on.
Friday, August 29, 2003
Best Buy is noob!
Returned my old LCD today to Best Buy. It had a bright green dead pixel in the lower left section of the screen. Most LCD manufactorers don't accept returns unless it has 3 or more dead pixels, but Best Buy will...
Good thing too, because the green was really annoying.
Posted by
eclipse on 08/29/2003 at 11:06 AM
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Sunday, July 06, 2003
>.>
ooh
merkur.sytes.net/ipod
soon/Be Afraid
Posted by
eclipse on 07/06/2003 at 07:38 PM
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Sunday, June 08, 2003
It is a mystery
Why Computer Crash?
So at the codex lan my computer would crash non-stop in any game. Its been like this for a while now, off and on. It crashes in every game, and every once and a while in Windows it just reboots. At tim's lan I took out a stick of 256mb ddr RAM from my computer and it was instantly fixed for about a week. I traded my Radeon 8500 for codex's Geforce4 MX 440. These cards are about the same, though i got better frames in Q3 with the Radeon, and better frames in RtCW:ET with the Geforce. So I went home after the LAN and tore my computer completely apart. Every thing I could take apart was taken apart. I even ripped the CPU Heatsink apart and I cleaned it
all. I also used a lot of tape and creativity to hide some of the extra wires to improve airflow, though i dont think heat was a problem. This took most of the day, and it was a little boring, but I haven't built a computer in so long it was a little fun. Also, I put my Sound Blaster Audigy back in, no use in having it sitting on the desk anymore. So far, its been much better, all the unusual sounds are gone and its been perfectly stable. If it messes up again, you can bet you'll hear from me again.
I'll leave you off with the specs of my computer then:
Posted by
eclipse on 06/08/2003 at 09:50 PM
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Wednesday, June 04, 2003
merkur.sytes.net version 3 BETA
Ok, most of the coding for the new site is finished. You are looking at it. Might not seem like much, but the front page is pure php and mysql now instead of just html. This makes posting easy! Also, you can respond to entires and stuff. Another main point is that this page is wc3 compliant now. (Except the shoutbox, that only works in IE). Many of you have taken notice to my new hated of microsoft and to stop using frontpage for my site is a big leap for me. Viewing both previous versions of my site in netscape/mozilla/gecko would led to errors or tables that were the wrong color. Most of the site's navigation boxes have been refitted with wc3 java code, but some huge tables (like the anime page) are still in crappy frontpage format. (Need any more convincing that microsoft is forcing people to use its software?)
There is not yet much point to becoming a member of my site, because I allow anonymous commenting to my posts, but if you want to register, go ahead. It works. The member controls are at the bottom of the home page. All you can do at this point, if you are not an admin, is log in and out. Maybe later I will allow other people to post on the site, cause its really easy now :D.
Anyways, this is the third major revision of my site, and its still in beta cause there could be stuff i forgot to update. Thanks go out to
PMachine for creating the blogger,
Trancender for hosting, and the people who helped me design/test the site. :D If you find any bugs, feel free to leave a comment on this entry.
Goodnight, world.
Posted by
eclipse on 06/04/2003 at 10:16 PM
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Tuesday, June 03, 2003
Whempy’s Wireless Project
The problem: To fit 4 people and 8 computers
(including 3 laptops 
) into 2 cars and arrive at the Whempy's LAN Party
in Columbus, OH.
The solution: Establish a wireless ethernet connection
between the two cars and Microsoft NetMeeting for voice communication.
Situation: Two cars, My (Eclipse's) Car took the point
because I had driven there before, although it was last year, so we weren't too
sure where we were going.
Equipment List:
Eclipse's Car:
Passengers:
Eclipse, Codex
Computers:
Eclipse's Desktop, Eclipse's Laptop, Codex's Desktop, Codex's Laptop, Codex's
Server
Wireless
Solution: Codex's Laptop with external antenna placed on top of car for extended
range.
Swiftwulf's Car:
Passengers:
Swiftwulf, Krhainos
Computers:
Swiftwulf's Desktop, Krhaino's MiniDesktop, Krhaino's Laptop, AC Power inverter,
Access Point
Wireless
Solution: Krhaino's Laptop next to access point, powered by AC Power inverter.
|
 Figure
1: Access Point.
Obviously the backbone to a wireless network. We chose to power an access
point rather than connect the two wireless cards directly so we could get a
larger wireless range. Even with Swiftwulf's car directly behind, 802.11b
doesnt have a whole lot of range. Because Krhaino's laptop doesn't have a
long lasting battery, the power inverter was used in Swiftwulf's car so he could
use it to power the access point and laptop. The access point was placed
on the passenger sun visor for optimum range and we didnt trust it to be taped
to the outside of the car.
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|
 Figure
2: Performance.
Performance over the mobile wireless network was marginal. This picture
shows Krhaino's laptop which was right next to the access point. The
strange thing was he got pings of around 45-50 to codex's laptop, while codex
got pings of around 2000 to krhainos. Voice over the network worked after
a brief setup period, however. File transfer between the two cars also
worked, as tested by copying the directions back and forth.
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 Figure
3: Netmeeting.
Because there was no DHCP on this relatively simple network, static IPs were
used. The lead car was assigned 10.10.0.1, and the the other was
10.10.0.2. Netmeeting was chosen as the communication software due to its
simplicity, smallest setup time, and the fact that we didn't have much choice.
The problem we ran into was that Codex's laptop runs linux, and doesn't have
netmeeting. To solve this, we downloaded Gnome Meeting for him. This
connected with the windows laptop, but the two could not text chat to each
other. Voice chat worked though, and we ended up using that instead.
|
|
Figure
4: Execution
Both cars did an excellent job of staying close enough for the LAN to work.
Codex had some problems connecting to the access point at the beginning, but it
worked and the two computers could talk. We found out that sony
microphones must suck because we were having some problems hearing krhainos, but
overall it was cool. Even had a radio station going for a few minutes :D.
Next time, some improvements can be made and we hope to have wireless gaming
during the 2 hour trip back and forth from Whempy's
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 Figure
5: Success!
We arrived at the LAN Party just in time for Codex to get a winning ticket.
He won two Cold Cathode Lights. Congrats, Codex.
View the short movie! Click here!
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Posted by
eclipse on 06/03/2003 at 08:58 AM
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