Rant 383 / The First Of July Is Now The Day Of Solutions

I shall name today as the Day of Solutions. Why? Because I solved 2 problems before it's even 2pm.

First, I re-read the Portrait Display Tech Support's reply, which gave me another phrase to google "demo mode". Apparently, these words and this line is a feature of the demo mode that stores use when using LCD monitors for display. Hoping that most LCD monitors have the same way of turning on/off this function, I googled a few times with variations of this phrase and eventually found out that holding one of the buttons for 5 seconds is the key to getting rid of this mode.

Second, I had really bad ping with my router today. It was so bad I couldn't even play online games without getting pissed enough to want to stab someone in real life. After yet more googling, I decided to build this makeshift receiver dish.

I took a plastic basket from the kitchen, wrap aluminum foil on its interior and pasted 2 long pieces of sticky tape across its diameter. I then coiled a piece of paper around the USB adapter (which is connected to the port via a USB cord) and stuck it on the middle of the tape. The paper merely prevents the tape from direct contact with the adapter so that when I remove it in the future the tape won't leave any sticky residue.

By watching my router's constantly updated signal quality bar for this adapter, I slowly adjusted the basket to the optimum position and taped the cord onto the cupboard behind it. Now the signal quality, even with my door closed, is as good as my bro's laptop with his door open. =D

However I'm still getting frequent pauses when I play Empires during which everything stops. Then after 10-15s everything would be back to normal.








Tales of Monkey Island, the 4th game of the Monkey Island series is going to be released on 7th of July. They're making it 3D but they suck at it. They should just stick with 2D.


Looks interesting.






Continuing on the Day of Solutions at 9pm.

I got really sick of the bad connection despite the improvement in signal quality. Mainly, it's the frequent pauses during online gaming that really annoys me. Seriously, pausing in the middle of my spraying bullets at an enemy 2m away is no fun.

So I decided to move my desk nearer to the door and shift my computer's back to face the door. The signal quality of my adapter card went from 25% to 50% right away. My USB adapter also improved from 25% to 35%. My ping in Empires has stabilised at the normal rate.

However there are still pauses. Something is quite wrong...