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I need some help...bad. I've called up the manufacturers of the wireless router. All I get, every single time, are Arab guys with horrible accents that I can barely understand who assume my problem is solved when I connect online.

Basically, my router is hooked up to my high-speed cable line. Off of the router is a Voice-Over-IP broadband router. I do not believe that is the problem. My Internet connection will work perfectly, at a very high speed, for about 10-30 minutes. Then, the speed will rapidly degrade until, finally, nothing. You know those two flashing computers in the taskbar icon? The left one is on when data is sent and the right is on when data is received. In the end, only the left one is on, and the right is blank forever, until I reset my router, which consists of turning off my router, then my cable modem, waiting a minute, connecting my modem, waiting until it's done initializing, then finally powerng up my router, then VOIP phone wired router.

I know it has something to do with the router. It's almost as if the router just gets tired of sending out data and gives up until I reset it. The other computer upstairs, which also receives it wirelessly, does the same thing, so I know it's not just my laptop. And the phone works fine, so it can't be the VOIP router or the cable modem itself.

Basically, I have it set up like this:
Outside cable -> Cable modem -> Wireless-B router -> VOIP wired router -> Phones
And my laptop and the PC upstairs receives directly from the router.

This happened even before we installed the VOIP phone line, so it can't be because of that addition. I've narrowed it down to just the router. We've tried replacing it with another brand (NetGear) but that wouldn't even be recognized by my computer's card.

If it matters, I have a Linksys Wireless-B router. Please, if anybody can help, you'll be saving my sanity. I'm ready to try anything I haven't already tried. Thanks!

PS: Another note: I rarely restart my laptop. I instead put it into Standby or just leave it running at night. I doubt that would matter, but it's worth noting, I'm sure.

Well, I didn't see any stickies for funny Flash movies we happen across on the web, so I decided to post this here:

http://www.stanford.edu/~scodary/tkam.htm

This is hilarious. It's a Flash book report on "To Kill a Mockingbird" that goes crazy and gets funnier by the minute. The space scene is hilarious.

[Production Report: "Affliction"]

Heh, made you look. Seriously though, for about 30-odd years (since the first Star Trek movie) Trek fans have wondered what the "official" explanation was for why Klingons from the original series had smooth foreheads while Klingons after AND before (Star Trek: Enterprise) had the more familiar bumpy cranial ridges. I mean, it had always been a glaring continuity error...one that should've been hard to ignore and pretend it didn't exist. Now, the Star Trek creators are finally going to show us the official explanation, on two episodes of Star Trek: Enterprise, in the perfect time frame to show it.

Now I know not too many people here are Trek fans, but I just thought I'd share this tidbit of information with you all. It's a big thing in the Trek universe (bigger than finally showing the inventor of the transporter on tonight's episode).

Production Report: "Affliction"

Don't pretend you don't care. (Or pretend you do.)

[LOT]

Woohoo! Well, I purchased WWE SmackDown! Vs. RAW, the newest WWE wrestling video game for the PS2. It's a good game and all, but the original music they give you for your created wrestlers are just...eh. And a few of the wrestlers in the game have been released by the company in the past few months since the game came out in November. So I was excited to learn about a way to replace all of the music (and even the entrance videos) with your own and burn the compilation as a new game. I consider it legal since I legally own the game. Of course, I had to modify my PS2 (and thus void the warranty, whoopedy-doo) in order to play burned DVD+R's. It took me an entire week, hours per day of work, finding the themes, cutting them down to size, changing the quality settings, replacing them one by one in the game's libraries, and finalizing everything.

I bought one of those flip-top PS2 cover replacements, along with Swap Magic v3.3 (1 DVD, 1 CD). My fears arose as I realized that anything I've ever tried along the lines of modifying things and altering things NEVER worked out and I have the worst luck in the world. I struggle with getting a certain part off the PS2 unit (the reset/eject unit thing) and getting the reset/eject thin cable out of the freakin' way. Of course, I heard a strange noise after my game would run for a minute or so. But I actually fixed that. And I got through all the problems. And after all the work I did, all the struggles with this operation that was completely new to me... it worked. It actually worked.

I just finished playing my game, with the music *I* wanted for all of my created wrestlers and even some updated versions of in-game wrestlers' themes. I have songs like "A Favor House Atlantic" by Coheed and Cambria, and "Bombs Over Baghdad (Instrumental)" by Outkast as themes for my own created wrestlers (guys that I've had since the first wrestling games allowed creations, back in 1999 for the N64). And it worked!

Boo-yah! Just wanted to celebrate, because nothing I ever do EVER seems to either (1) get finished, or (2) work properly.

Certain people might already know that my luck has changed for the better lately, because just recently I found the complete plans for Chapters 4 thru 6 of By the Sword, which I thought I had lost forever. Yahoo! had saved them in a sent email I had sent to Gravator, who has since vanished from the face of the planet. This means that, when I am ready to do so, I will continue working on BTS, although I still have a LOT to do from scratch. At least the full plot and storylines and puzzles and gameplay for the latter half of the game is a big step forward.

Has anyone seen or heard of this?

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0424345/

I thought Clerks was hilarious, working in retail myself. I wonder how this one will be.

http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/blu-ray.htm

I randomly decided to visit HowStuffWorks and saw this article about Blu-ray Discs. Apparently they can hold 27-50 GB of data.

I love technology, man. Every couple of years we get new storage media to gawk at.

[...though you have to be a quick reader to keep up.]

...though you have to be a quick reader to keep up.

I downloaded QfG 4 1/2 from the Underdogs, and all it has are resource files, set.bat, and qfg.exe, it appears to have been compiled using AC back in 1999. It doesn't work for me in Win XP, it shows up as a blank screen, then quits automatically. Is there an updated version? Or is there something I have to do to get it to work?

http://terranrich.easyjournal.com/

Read the above journal entry and you'll see what I mean. I mean, seriously, some parents just shock me sometimes. Anybody got any stories of witnessing similar occurrences?

[Word Puzzle Assistant]

I made it in about 10 minutes (with additions over the past few days). I call it Word Puzzle Assistant and it's in version 1.5 right now.

Download Version 1.5 Here!

Try it out! It's a neat little program that helps you solve crosswords, jumbles, and any other special word puzzles with certan requirements. You give it a word or a pattern and it spits out all the matches. For example, if you give it "HERTE" and choose to Descramble, it will return "ETHER", "THERE", and "THREE" as matches.

For words where a few letters are missing, you type it in as a pattern, i.e., the missing letters are represented by, in this case, hyphens ("-"). So, if you need an 8-letter word whose 1st letter is F, 4th letter is H, and 5th letter is E, just type in "F--HE---", click "Fill Pattern", and you'd get a whole list of matches, such as "FATHEADS" and "FATHERLY".

If you need to, you can also specify that certain letters MUST be included in all matches, or must NOT be included in all matches. Like if you need that 8-letter word above to include the letters "L" and "Y", but exclude the letters "Q" and "J", you would type in "LY" into the Include box, and "QJ" into the Exclude box and hit the "Fill Pattern" button.

New in Version 1.5:
• You can now specify (when using "Fill Pattern") that no words should have repeating letters. It also checks if the pattern you gave has repeating letters and, if you specified to prevent repeated letters, it tells you that you're dumb and should change one of the two.
• I've found a use for the blank yellow button! You can now put in a word and find all words (anagrammed or not) within that word. So "ANAGRAM" would return words like "GRAM", "NAG", and "MAN".

Don't worry, though, because it comes with a descriptive ReadMe PDF file.

Here's a screenshot below:


I know it's a bit colorful, but that's my style and it stands out from other generic program looks. If you don't like it, I can see what I can do. Let me know if this would be useful for anybody!

I was just thinking, we already have a feature here where we can toggle some icons in our profiles for what skills we have and are willing to use to assist others. What about some way of searching through the members for, say, any that can do voice acting? This would be VERY useful in contacting people, instead of wasting bandwidth with a thread asking for help, or a post in the ACR where not everybody will read it. Is this possible?

[When???]

Hmm. More and more, we're seeing small time companies being eaten up by the big boys. Snytrillium was devored by Adobe. I discovered this as I was looking for Cool Edit to download and use to clean up a sound file. Try visiting http://www.syntrillium.com .

This reminds me of when Access Software (makers of the Tex Murphy games) was devoured by Micro$oft. When will it end? When??? Oh, the humanity!

In short, I want to make a Quantum Leap game. The thing is, do I use low-res or high-res? I want to make ths game of moderate length (between short and full) and free for all. Therefore, the download can't be that big. So low-res would seem to fit the bill. However, I can't decide if I should use pre-rendered 3D (hard to animate for me) or "hand-drawn" (hehe...paper-drawn then scanned and pixelled over). Pre-rendered 3D would be much easier, simpler, and quicker to work with, but would only look good in high-res. On the other hand, low-res would work out better size-wise, but I'd have to make it look GOOD. It'll take work, but it's doable. Right now I'm leaning more towards low-res.

As for color depth, it too increases file size. However, I don't know the first thing about working wth palettes...how do I determine what colors to use? What if I have to change the palette around? BAH! It's so much easier to work with high-color.

What do you guys think? What would look better? For the Quantum Leap effect (blinding white light, electrical energy, fade to blue, etc., etc.) it would be easier to work with low-res. The more space I have for detail...the more detail I have to show. Hmm...

[Sorry, but in order to enjoy the Movielink service you must use Internet Explorer 5.0 or higher, which supports certain technologies we utilize for downloading movies. Click here to get the latest version of Internet Explorer.We do not anticipate supporting Mozilla or Netscape in the near future.]

Sorry, but in order to enjoy the Movielink service you must use Internet Explorer 5.0 or higher, which supports certain technologies we utilize for downloading movies. Click here to get the latest version of Internet Explorer.

We do not anticipate supporting Mozilla or Netscape in the near future.

This really pisses me off. So I have to give in to Microsoft's evilness in order to rent a goddamned virtual movie? Ridiculous.

Does anybody know of any way to fool sites into thinking I'm using IE? And don't say to actually use IE, because I will virtually smack you silly.

I was wondering if anybody has any stories on near-brushes with fame. I do...

My mom was the manager of a bank branch and one day, about 6-7 years ago, she met a screenwriter, Matt Johnson, that came into the bank. They talked. He saiid he wrote a movie and hoped to have it greenlit, she said I was an excellent writer for my age, and he said I should look the screenplay over and proofread it and look for errors in continuity or realism. I did, and got paid $80 for a written paper on everythingI liked, didn't lke, found weird, etc., etc.

Over the past few years, my mom or I would randomly bring it up every now and then, wondering what ever happened to it. I always thought it was an independent film, doubting that I would be lucky enough to have proofread a Hollywood script.

The movie was called "Into the Blue" and was about a group of divers finding themselves in deep trouble with a drug lord after they come upon the illicit cargo of a sunken airplane. It was a pretty good movie and I could envision it on the big screen.

Lo and behold, yesterday I was bored and I suddenly remembered this movie. And I remembered IMDb.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0378109/

Apparently, there are some semi-big stars in the movie, which will be released this very year. And I proofread it and fixed errors. And I still have the original screenplay! Woohoo!


Anybody else have any stories of near-brushses with fame?

First time I've posted here in a loooong time, but I'm workinig on AGS MiniDemo #1 regardng mirrors. My character (CJ ) and his mirror image work fine. The walking views match perfectly, but when he's talking, the walking view plays instead. Here's my code from the global script:

Code: ags

int mirrorbase=135;	// Y-value of the mirror baseline -- the line between the feet of CJ and the feet of CJMIRROR
int cj_dist;		// CJ's feet's distance from the mirror baseline
int mr_dist;		// CJMIRROR's feet's distance from the mirror baseline
int perspective=1;	// Hard to explain. If 1, the mirror's feet are same distance from mirror baseline as CJ's. The higher, the closer mirror image is to mirror baseline than CJ.

   . . .

#sectionstart repeatedly_execute_always  // DO NOT EDIT OR REMOVE THIS LINE
function repeatedly_execute_always() {
  //Plays every game cycle, of course. Code within here is to match CJMIRROR's X, Y, loop, and frame to CJ's constantly.
  
  character[CJMIRROR].x = character[CJ].x;	// Match the X-coordinates, as always
  cj_dist = character[CJ].y - mirrorbase;	// Find CJ's distance from mirror baseline
  mr_dist = cj_dist / perspective;	// If perspective is 1, of course CJMIRROR will be same distance from mirror as CJ. The higher, the closer mirror image is to mirror bsaeline than CJ
  character[CJMIRROR].y = mirrorbase - mr_dist;		// CJMIRROR's Y-coordinate is set with respect to mirror baseline
  character[CJMIRROR].loop = character[CJ].loop;
  character[CJMIRROR].frame = character[CJ].frame;	// Now, match the two characters' loops and frames
}

What could I be doing wrong? CJ has walking view #1, talking view #2, and CJMIRROR has #3 and #4, respectively. The talking views has less frames than the walking views. Since I swapped up and down loops for the mirror's walking and talking views, the talking up loop for CJ has one less frame than the talking up loop for CJMIRROR (which is the talking down loop for CJ). Could that have something to do with it?

I plan on making AGS mini-demos based on snippets of code found in the Tech Archive and other sources. What do you guys think? I will be starting off wth the "mirror" code in the Tech Archive. I will also include a step-by-step illustrated small tutorial with each MiniDemo.

I guess I will constantly update this thread with new MiniDemos as I make them, about one every week or perhaps more frequently than that. This post will contain links to the web site I will make with the MiniDemos, as well a list of the individual ones as well.

...or anywhere else that has customers, there is a web site to read horror stories, some of which you may have lived...

http://www.customerssuck.com/

This is a hilarious web site, mostly because I myself work in retail, and I identify with these poor souls greatly. I love the "I build time machines" tale. But my personal favorite HAS to be "The 'Vinegar Boy' Saga".

www.realdoll.com

Lifelike dolls. I came across this while searchinig for...er...something... At first I kinda dismissed it as being useless, but then I saw the potential. Art students could use it in the absence of a real life nude model. Really horny and lonely people can use it for...erm...heh, y'know.

I like the nude model idea myself. If I had $6000+ to kill, I'd buy it and practice my drawing with it, instead of using nude model images from the web.

What do you guys think? (And I'm dead serious about the nude modelling thing...I wouldn't use it for sex or anything.)

[HERE]

Yes, I'm back! Read all about my adventure in the Azores HERE. Fun times, fun times!

I've been doing some thinking. Gravator has the last 3 of the 6 chapters of By the Sword. So there's still a chance that I might make a better version of BTS in the very near future. But for now, I had an idea while on vacation... to make mini-demo games of the various example codes in the Tech Archives etc., such as a random-walk-by minidemo, the Star Wars scroller minidemo, of course giving full credit to the original coders. What do you guys think?

It's great to be back!