Seems that my DI-524 is "bricked". The term "bricked", deducing from what I see in online forums, should refer to the state of the router when it is not working anymore. The thing is now really as good as a brick, albeit a electricity-consuming one. With an antenna.
What D-Link Tech Support emailed me was to instruct me to do very routine stuff, like pinging my router, pinging www.yahoo.com, checking ip address, subnet mask and etc. What I sent to them was not good. What they told me in the reply was disheartening. Basically, I was to hard-reboot it properly by holding the button for 10s instead of 30s. If this doesn't work, I will have to pay them a visit with the router and the receipt.
Of course I have the receipt. I just don't know if I will have to pay despite the lifetime warranty. It may have broke down due to something I did, which I have no idea about. Someday I will go. Probably next Friday, or maybe after that. Whichever day I feel like going on.
And the internet connection interruptions seems to be caused by a corrupted system file(winsock.dll), probably caused by some hasty actions of mine, like shutting down by force( by force as in holding the power button for 10s).
As of now, it can randomly (well, after at least 4 hours of usage anyway) stop my surfing for up to 30mins. The only solution is to reset my computer.
A more permanent solution is to reinstall my operation system. A drastic measure, and a very difficult one simply because I don't have a Windows Vista CD. It didn't come with the laptop, but I have a genuine Windows Vista label on the underside of the laptop. Cheap fckers.
So in the end, my decision is to ignore the problem. I can live with that, as long as my games are not interrupted.
Day 2 of my Cool Turkey regime. "Cool turkey" is a term I learnt from one of the books in Dark Tower series, and it's supposed to mean a milder version of a cold turkey. In this case, I'm trying to play less and work more, replacing "drugs" with "games". I have totally stopped touching PS2. Will only play it again after exams. Or after the Genting trip.
I have discovered that it's much easier to finish my my tutorials if I don't stare at them all the time. Before, I used to take a whole day to finish the whole assignment, and sometimes, I will still have one question (at most) that I wouldn't be able to do.
Now, my method is to stop whenever I reach a question I'm stumped at, and play a round or two of Natural Selection. Then I return and ..."WHOA! It's so easy! What was I thinking before?"
So far I've become twice as fast as before, without omitting anything. And it feels better while doing it.
I've suddenly taken an interest in Flash creation. I've got my hands on a copy of Flash 8 and I'm watching the tutorials on Newgrounds.com to learn more. I haven't seen much, since I'm having cool turkey. Right now, I can make a circle move while turning into an oval. While spinning.
I suspect it's one of those interests that wanes quickly when the difficult stuff comes. But on the other hand, the wish of making something useful may just help overcome that.
In MSN I'm now almost always offline. It's a distraction that I can do without, and it gives me that tiny bit of extra bandwidth, and computer speed.
I've accepted a room in the NTU hostels, and I'm having mixed feelings about this. On one hand, I can now drastically reduce my food intake by being too lazy to walk outside to buy food. I'm not planning to have a big store of decent food in my room. On the other hand, I won't be able to bring my books with me. I will soon have to plan ahead on what books I can read in the coming week, and not picking the books as I feel like reading that night as I do now. This sucks!!
The gaming part will be a boon too, since I heard the bandwidth sucks big time over there, and I won't be able to play my PS2 with a TV that's shared. I won't be able to play many games there. But I hope my ping in Natural Selection will be fine though. It requires little bandwidth, but who knows if I will even get that little? It's the only game that's not time-consuming, and still interests me after so many years.
Natural Selection Section
And I've finally improved my Fade and Onos skills. Just because I play for many years doesn't mean I play it all the time. I used to play only once in a while before recent months. Now I play it everyday.
What I've noticed while being a Mobile Healing Station aka Gorge is that the best Fades always escape after a slash or two, when facing a group of Marines. I never did notice that, since I'm always looking at the map to see where the Marines are attacking or where we are striking, ie, the big picture.
Onoses are the kind of similar. When facing a group, they just move towards the enemies, stomp a few times, and run back for heals. Let the other guys do the killing while he just stuns the group for them. Of course, the best Onoses can stomp, eat one of them, then run. I can never do that. My aim sucks. But stomp doesn't need good accuracy. And I can just be a not-so-pro support Onos, instead of a pro attack Onos. After all, my ping usually sucks too, 'cos I prefer to play in the U.S. servers.
What I used to do as a Fade is to zoom in, slash them till my hp hits half-full, then escape. Now, I don't care what hp I'm having as long as I've slashed twice. Or once, if it's a big group. Then escape.
As an Onos, I used do what I do with the Fade. Now I just stomp and run. It's not as good since I don't try to eat anyone at all, but at least I don't die within 3 minutes. The stuns can do miracles even if I don't devour. Devour is friggin hard to aim since it's got no crosshair and a long cooldown. And I usually have bad ping.
Now my Fades and Onoses can last much much longer. Decent now.
And on to the whining.
The players in Asian servers are so bad!!! Singaporean and HK players are few, and don't play often, so they don't have much skill nor strategy. At least some HK players do play at the U.S. servers, so they transfer some basic strategies like holding a 2nd hive location from the start until someone drops a hive within 6 minutes.
But what they still can't do is ninja properly. They never do beacon rushes, as in beaconing everyone back to base once a ninja phase gate is up, and rush in with hand grenades ready. They rarely ninja hives as Aliens, as in a gorge sneak into a Marine-secured hive location and drop a hive and spit at it so that other aliens can teleport in.
Even when they do ninja a hive, as Marines or Aliens, they don't always teleport in all together, the commanders don't spam the command to go to the hive, and they give up too easily. In the U.S. servers, we don't stop going in as long as the hive is still up (if Aliens ninja), or if the phase gate isn't being gang-raped by the whole Alien team (if Marines ninja).
Sometimes, the several times I played in the China server is even worse. I was horrified by their lack of strategy, their indifference to key strategic points, and their res-whores (players who don't do anything with the resource they accumulate). At least they can shoot. But still, it's a new server, and all Chinese players are new to this game.
And I wish they'd learn, when commanding, to give some mines to the Marines when rushing to a ninja phase gate so that they can cover it with the mines. And get hand grenades early. Jeez.
Sometimes I have no choice but to play there, since the U.S. players do sleep at certain times. I can still help their strategy when I play as an Alien, since I can build some stuff at the right places and help to affect their general directions ever so slightly. But as a Marine, I can't help. I can't shoot well. I can't comm since I don't know the user interface for commanders well. I can help ninja hives since I always watch the map to see which parts have little Alien traffic. But the comms don't always listen, especially the not-that-pro ones, or those who are suffering from the effects of a shitty Marine team(ie no resource towers, ie not enough resource to drop a phase gate).
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