Back Again...

Sorry about that folks. I'm currently unemployed again, my days are up at the company I've worked at many different times the individuals I was filling in for have returned, I've been now thrown to the trash as always. Now to think of some things that I can post about?

I can say one thing my Comcast connection is still yet to be fixed, it's now been 3 months to the day and counting. They came the other day and replaced all wiring and even the modem so that they could cover their asses locally. They mentioned that on Friday March 25th my line would be moved to a new blade. If they had really done this it DID NOT work. A company as huge as they are and you'd wonder how they could run a network so screwed up? I'm not alone on this problem either, many have posted on their forums once I started it going, about the PING PROBLEM.

For those that stop by frequently a new version of MAME32 was released over the weekend, now up to v95.

You can pick it up here: MAME32

Also a new version of Windows Messenger was released taking it up to 5.1 but what is odd about this is I've been using this version for months and it wasn't a beta but the version number is the same but the date of release was changed?

You can pick it up here: Windows Messenger 5.1

For those with Nvidia Video Cards here is a leaked version of 76.41

You can pick it up here: Nvidia Nforce 76.41 beta Drivers

For you Battlefield Fans BF2 will be out on June 28th and for those that don't have a clue check out this site it has it all.

Check it out here: Total Battlefield 2

For those playing BFV some day, and when, no one knows for sure we may see all the Battlefield 1942 maps converted to BFV with better graphics.

Check it out here: Battlefield 1942 conversion Team Site

XBOX 2 will be called XBOX 360 rumors have it. You can follow many of my links on my blog to some really great news sites and to read all kinds of goodies.

Well I think that is it for now. Just wanted everyone to know I've returned and I hope to post stuff when I can and more frequently. I think I'm going to do game reviews also, at least for games that I purchase, either for the XBOX, PC, you name it. When it comes to gaming this is one thing I'm hip on and I won't steer you wrong. I just need material damn it... LOL.

Comcast Internet Connection

I've now had my high speed internet connection for approximately 4 years maybe even 5. It started out as @home then it went to ATTBI and it is currently Comcast. The reason for this post is about an issue I've had during this 4 year or more period that only arises when they upgrade their system (Network).

First was when they went from @home to ATTBI - I'm a big gamer so lets get that thrown on the table, if you haven't noticed I'm number one in the world in Battlefield Vietnam by my ranking on the bottom of my blog. This will dynamically update to keep you up to my current position if it should change, which I'm sure it will.

Back to the subject. Anyone with any networking knowledge knows that PING is everything to gaming or online play in general. Well a few years back when @home switched my speeds from STANDARD to what was known as PRO - faster speeds - they upgraded their network and I starting getting god aweful gameplay online, LAG. 56k never gave me any lag? After doing a bit of testing etc. I noticed that when I would PING my default gateway - not my internal one but the external one on their end I'd get PING from 8ms to 300ms and sometimes higher with the occassional 20%-100% packet loss. Now mind you, this is NOT good - terrible fluctuations.

On a perfect network you should be able to PING your default gateway and maintain a PING of 0ms - 20ms without fluctuation.

After 6 months - yes folks 6 months the PING problem just resolved itself and I never received an explanation and this was after several visits from techs, calls to help desk, modem swap outs you name it. This then was resolved for about a whole year and gaming was great again. The next part of the story.

@home now becomes ATTBI and I go from PRO to ULTRALINK this including another upgrade to their network. I start receiving the good old PING problem all over again and my gaming goes to shit. I go through another 6 months before the issue gets resolved AGAIN, still without explanation...

You'd think by now with all of the support calls, chat and tech visits, and all of my nasty chats they'd remember the cure or resolution for this? The techs would just say well you have your speeds (which really I didn't, about 3/4 of what I should have) and then they started with WE DO NOT SUPPORT PINGS!!! Another good one is that we don't support home networks. Of course if you can't fix something you can't support it, LOL.

They of course weren't finished yet they went from ATTBI to Comcast and of course this included another major upgrade to the network. I now was good for another year after they fixed it for the second time but it always seems to just resolve itself? So at this time I had my connection for a few years but with it taking 6 months to resolve each time my years of usage have now been cut in half. At least for what I use my connection for (Gaming). Now this was the third upgrade to the system (ATTBI to Comcast) and every single time they've upgraded, I started getting a PING problem. Oh yes folks this took 4 months to fix from this upgrade, hey at least it was cut by 2 months from the previous accounts.

So I go along for like another year without a single issue with PING, gaming becomes great again and I make it to number 1 in my favorite game Battlefield Vietnam. Oh I'm not done yet, they still have another upgrade to go Comcast does away with their Ultralink or Pro accounts, whatever they called it, and creates a new Silver and Gold package which includes twice as fast speeds as before for half as much money.

I'm like great I will now have 6MB downloads and 768k uploads. I'm like this is incredible and I'm now paying half of what I did for 3MB down and 384 up. Would you believe it though, what do you think came along with all this great networking and upgrades? Yes folks the PING problem is back and it's now been 2 months since this current upgrade and I'm still waiting for a resolution. This now has gone probably as high as it possibly could without me calling the president of the company to get it fixed. I've had several tech visits, tests, networkers you name it working on this issue but as of today I'm still waiting to get it fixed before I lose my ranking by not playing my favorite game. I know being number 1 isn't everything in life but I've worked hard to get there and don't want to lose it because of my damn connection problems.

I've tried playing and do so on occassion, it's not always there, mostly screwed up during peak hours, but damn it's so hard to play 3 times as hard as normal. I'm sure a heart attack or anuerism is in my future if they don't get it fixed soon. Nothing worse than knowing you are better than most people but yet your connection keeps you from displaying it. If they get it fixed soon they may beat their record of 4 months but as I said it's now going on 2 months.

Verizon supposedly is going to have FTTP (Fibre to the Premesis) by the end of June to all of those with Verizon phone service in Pennsylvania. This is what they will be offering for those with similar issues I have with Cable.

This is what they will be offering:
$39.95 (5MB Downloads and 2MB Uploads)
$49.95 (15MB Downloads and 2MB Uploads)
$149.95 (30MB Downloads and 5MB Uploads)

Yes folks that is what Verizon is supposed to be offering to anyone that has (Fibre to Curb)implemented within their area. Those are T1 to T3 speeds for a 10th of the price of the true T1 and T3's costs.

You want to host games those are the kinds of UPLOADS you need to create an incredible server. If history repeats itself by the time Comcast resolves my issue this should be available in my area. Where do you think I'm going???

M.I.A.

Yes folks I've been Missing in action. As I mentioned in an earlier post I've since returned to the company I wrote my original post about and one of my others.

I've now filled in for the one individual for his 6 weeks of absence and then I was off for one week and I started to write this post but got side tracked for some reason. I'm now back to that same company again for another week and 3 days for another individual who is currently off. I've been there a total of like 8 weeks and have resolved a few issues that it seems they had been working on for a few months.

Pretty sad I go into this place create a simple batch file to install all Windows Updates which I spoke about in an earlier post and my file corrects an issue they've had for some time and even had a project created to try to fix it - the issue was within one of their companies softwares.

What makes this even funnier is I was in the room with all those who have been working on this and just joking while installing a workstation, I told them "Ahhh, I could fix their problems in like 10 minutes". Never really thinking I could, was just teasing them, they just laughed and said they still haven't figured it out in months and pretty much a, "yeah right".

A few days later while talking to one of them they mentioned that the workstation I had placed over there didn't have the issue but all of the laptops did? I then had them test on a laptop I had just put a loadset on and ran my batch file on and it worked fine, no issue, then the light bulb went off in my head. I then ran my batch file on all of their laptops and the issue was resloved.

Of course the 8 year contractor and several other full time employees the next day put emails out stating that I found a resolution but of course they dug deeper to find out what truly fixed the issue, which I didn't really care because my batch file fixed it regardless, they had to add what they had done by digging into all the hotfixes I installed just so they could have some credit, so more or less the heros ended up being the 8 year contractor and a full time employee who was working on the issue for several months, not me. I pretty much got drilled to what now has been broken that my batch file was used? Either way, now they've since started upgrading all of their loadsets and using my batch file to get everything up to date, more or less doing what I said should have been done all along. You're welcome once again.

Just yesterday that same contractor who should be considered a full time employee since he's been there almost 8 years as a contractor if not longer. He was trying to fix a loadset and was unable to get USB 2.0 working on a Windows 2000 machine, after about an hour or so of toying with it with another person I stepped in and about 10 minutes later USB was working the way it was supposed to.

Sometimes I just get home and ask why am I the one that can't get a job anywhere in IT and why am I the one always on unemployment. Yes I'm a loose cannon but at least I get the job done and try to help anyone and everyone the best I possibly can...