NV20 specs & demos movies. OH! OH YEAH! RIGHT THERE! OH YEAH! OH nVIDIA! YES! YES!

So. Was it good for YOU?!

ARGH! I can't believe that they showed the Doom3 demo on a frickin' Mac! GAH! Carmack you idjiit!

Getting bugged alot to update the news. I don't have time to do it every day right now, what with all the things that are going on in my life. Neither does Dopper or Rune. If ANYONE else would like to help out instead of just complaining about it, please let me know.

Skeezix sent in a cool screenshot from the "They Hunger" mod for Half Life.... Hmmmm. BBQ.

More tomorrow, I promise. :)

Marauder out.

For those of you who might be living under a rock, you might not have heard that John Carmack from id Software demoed a development version of Doom 3 at the MacWorld tradeshow in Tokyo. That's right, I said Doom 3. Predictably the web is going somewhat nuts today with many a gaming news server getting swamped with people trying to find out more about the new Doom game. Ever since the demonstration of the Doom 3 engine running on the new GeForce 3 last night (on a mac!) speculation has been running wild and everyone has been trying to get their hands on Doom 3 footage and screenshots. In response to an e-mail from Stomped.com id CEO Todd Hollenshead stated that no official footage or screenshots were planned to be released at this time.

Fortunately, this has not stopped the gaming media from releasing unoffical screenshots and footage taken from last night's demo. Because I know that you're all dying for some Doom 3 footage lovin' here's a link to the highest quality copy of the footage currently available (just in case you're having trouble downloading from that site here's another mirror of it) . Be warned though, it's a big sucker at 26 Meg. The peeps over at Eurogamer.net have snapped up the clearest screenshots of the Doom 3 footage that I've seen so far. If that's not enough for ya here's some more over at Gamespot.

All of the realtime lighting, reflections and shadowing effects are done on a per-pixel basis which leads to a much greater level of realism than has ever been possible before in a game. Lighting effects like Specular reflections, Projected textures and self-shadowing objects bring the game up to almost pre-rendered looking quality. In the demo John demonstrates how these new lighting and shadowing effects help to create a much more dramatic environment for the game. Some of the shots in the video are downright creepy looking! When it's released I'd bet that this game will give System Shock 2 a run for it's money in the scary department.

On slashdot John Carmack replied to comments that the colors in the video seemed to look a little washed out. Here's the whole post for ya:

Unfortunately, the giant projector screens are not color calibrated the same way at all. The colors did get rather washed out on the big screen.

John Carmack

I bet that Tim Sweeney was crying in his Wheaties this morning!

Of course all of this was meant to introduce the new GeForce 3 that Nvidia has been pimping as an exclusive initial release for the mac! (horror of horrors!) Thoughout his presentation Carmack raves about the power and the features of this new card and just looking at those luscious Doom 3 images I'm inclined to agree.

With 57 million transistors and 76 Gigaflops of power this new card has me wondering whether or not I really need that extra kidney to live. Remember kids, when you donate blood they give you a cookie but when you sell a kidney you get a GeForce 3! W00t! Now if I can only manage to get one before Marauder gets his grubby paws on one. Heck with this little puppy I'm sure that Dopper would send even Thresh crying home to momma (and yes, unfortunately Dopper is that good at Quake). If you're the type where these little press releases give you w00d then be sure to check out the full PR over here on Nvidia's page.

Kyle over at HardOCP slapped up a little behind-the-scenes look at the new technology that is driving the GeForce 3. Unfortuately the Man (aka Nvidia) asked him to take the piece down because the GeForce 3 isn't officially being unveiled until next Tuesday and because it has a little bit of info on their new Direct X 8 stuff. Being the naughty people that we are however we gamers quickly discovered that the story hadn't actually been taken down at all but rather the link to it had been removed from the main Hard OCP page and they'd just slapped an 'a' onto the original link to the pages. So you can still check it out here: (shhh... don't tell anyone that we told you....)

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Update: John Carmack's just updated his .plan file regarding yesterday's big news. Have a look at it here!

Some of you may be wondering about wednesday's post title... So am I. No, I don't actually know anyone or anything named "Fluffy". Stop asking. :) I'm sure that Fluffy is alive and well, whatever or whoever it/he/she is.

On a sadder note, an old friend that I'd not really talked to in a few years was killed in a traffic accident on a local highway last week. I helped Steve Pytlik out with his BBS, the Megabyte in 1990/1991. My first co-sysop job, and likely what made me start my own board. Steve also helped me build my first clone, a 286/16 with 1 meg RAM. When I moved to Toronto for college we lost touch. Still used to see him every few months around town and say hi. Sad, and quite a bad feeling, knowing that someone you used to know is just... gone. Well, that's the first of my old friends to start dying on me, and I'm only 27. Not a good sign.

You'll be missed brother. RIP.

3D renderings rock. Check out my personal site, and take a quick peek at what I've been playing with. Heh.

Not yet reading 3 Finger Salute, the online cartoon that rams funny down your throat with a red hot poker? No? WHAT THE HELL IS THE MATTER WITH YOU?!?!? IT'S FUNNY DAMN IT!

It's tax time here, and apparently Hard OCP likes it as much as I do. (Thanks Iceman)

In other Iceman news, a new Dummy's Guide has been released, and they're revised Monopoly for the new Millinium. :)

Also, if you care to browse 8 web pages at the same time, someone has come up with a cubical web browser..... I've been trying to think of any practical application for it, and I can't.. But it is kind of a cool toy, and worth taking a look at.

Rune, who hates iMacs just a little less than he hates Play Station 2's, sent over this! Mean pranks to play on all those Super Newbie Lhamas out there with Crapintosh "computers".

Rune's also been poking around on the interweb and so sends forth the following sites for your personal gratification:

The fast seduction guide. :) Something I'm sure all male gamers could use.

The rules of driving like a moron. HEY! I know some of these guys! :)

Blown a motherboard screwing with it? These guys did, but at least they sent it on it's way into the great mobo beyond in style.

I like Quantum 3D. A) They've had some amazing 3D cards in the past, and they've just proven they have a sense of humor as well.

Think YOU had fun with lego when you were younger? Check out this guy's 3' tall Bart & Millhouse models. Man, that's really cool.

Hehe. Prae sends over a warm and wonderful Valentine's day site that's sure to warm your heart. Especially if you get the amount of ICQ forwards that I do.

Speaking of which, would everyone who reads this PLEASE NOT FORWARD ME ICQ CRAP?!?!?!? I'm getting a little sick of 10-15 ICQs a day reading "Napster will go down forever, and the world destroyed unless we get 100,000,000,000,000,00 forwards on this message in the next 20 seconds or less. Also you will become impotent and your new 19" monitor will fall on you, crushing your mousing hand. Your dog will also die, and the Pope will desecrate your name on public television. We won't like you either." No one can track a forward through email or ICQ. Some idiots just pass this crap around for some reason. Mostly to bother me I suspect. Stop it.

Thanks to Nitrostarch! All your base are belong to us! Whahahahaha. Very well done. :)

And in a rather amusing note from e3 I just stumbled across, more news on Stevie Case's breasts. :)

Anyhows, got work to do.

Marauder out.

*cough*gotohellrune*cough* (From the LAN last weekend.)

Hey hey, long time no post. :) I'm back, yet again. My Windows 2000 finally went unstable and dumped out on me after... I think it's been more than 6 months of running smoothly. Not bad atall, I think that's a new record in Windows uptime for me. Ahhh well, got everything back from my backup disks, so we're ready to roll again.

Had a conversation with Red Leader the other day about the future of gaming.... I'm convinced that most if not all gaming companies will eventually move to a "pay as you go" Evercrack/Ultima Online style of product. Seems the most logical way to: A) Make tons of money, B) Prevent pirating. I'll be posting a little article on this whole thing shortly

You may remember me mentioning PVK (Pirates, Vikings & Knights) a while back. It's a funky little multiplayer mod for Half Life that pits three teams of the above ner-do-wells against each other. Very different, and alot of fun. Beta 2 should be out soon, and when it's released we'll be doing a write up on it, as well as posting the review I have sitting in my inbox right now. (Thanks Monkeyboy!)

Speaking of Half Life mods, the most excellent DoD has moved to beta 1.1. 'twas released yesterday, and seems quite a bit smoother and more polished than 1.0. (Btw: Do yourself a favor and download from the .de (Germany) mirrors. They seem to be the fastest ones.) Many of the bugs that were pestering people (And by people I mean Goshwin.) seem to be fixed. I also like the new voice commands (They've added a CRAPLOAD more for both teams, including "Flank left, flank right & taking fire from left/right flank.), and the fact that it's MUCH faster to pull your pistol now. Much improved, and makes it quite a bit easier to cap that bitch when you run out of ammo in your primary and don't have the time to reload.

I think perhaps the main reason I like DoD over Counter-Strike these days is that I can actually kill people in DoD, and ever since Beta 1 in CS I'm luck if I can get two mofos for each time I'm killed. Very annoying. In DoD I average quite a bit better than that, usually 3-5 kills for each death. I actually got accused of cheating on our FRAGtopia Just 4 Fun server a few times a few days ago. :)) Heh.

Despite Rune's evil Voodooo magic and hate mongering, the Playstation 2 continues to exist and have commercials on TV. :) Sorry man, keep shaking that Dreamcast wand and perhaps they'll go away. Heh. Penny-Arcade obviously wonders what the f*&k is going on over at Sony as well. :)

Acording to Daily Radar, the guys at Bioware are up to something... Something to do with the internet.. or web... or starting a company.... or something.... Maybe making educational software... or smuggling crack... Gah. Read it here. Despite the lack of details from DG (Daily Gadar) I hope Bio does something cool. I've liked them ever since I first played Shattered Steel, which I thought was a hellagood game.

Also from Daily Radar, Midway fired Mike Ribero yesterday. Was getting my hopes all up, but it was RIBERO, not ROMERO. Well darn. Not that it would matter, since Romero doesn't actually work for Midway........ Ah hell, I officially fire his ass from FRAGtopia, despite the fact he doesn't work for us either. It's a principal thing really.

I'm a little concerned for the Xbox. I mean, it's a GAMING machine... and marketing is apparently going to be handled by a company called.... get ready...... Happinet. HAPPINET?!? WHAT THE HELL KIND OF NAME IS THAT FOR A COMPANY? Gah. I hate the Japanese. Those guys over there are just wierd.

Got a few cool pics that people have sent me. My appologies, I can't remember who all you were. Bug me and I'll give you credit.

First off, thanks for Red Leader for this interesting advert. If you take him up on it, lemme know. I want to watch in case something (or someone) explodes.

Symplicite sent over an amusing little cartoon. Heh. I like people like this. Their little minds are fun to hurt.

Microsoft should seriously consider adding this to the menu, I think.

More GREAT service from Shaw cable. Donchalovem?

Chipmaker VIA has released photos of their newest chipset. Now featured guarenteed "up" time.

There is only the matrix. :) Some people have WAY too much time on their hands.

Been messing with Mandrake Linux 7.2. VERY nice. First time I've ever gotten Linux up, running and working with all my hardware. (No, it's not on my gaming monster, it's on a pathetic little Celery, all standard parts machine I built specifically to run Linux.) Figured out how to get into Xwindows, and I have the thing playing MP3s from my NT box's hard drive. Pretty cool. Some very nice apps included with the OS. LICQ, IRC, GIMP (Sweet graphics manipulation candy.) Complete office package with address book, scheduler, spreadsheet, word proccessor..... etc etc etc. Oh, and games that are much better than Solitare. :) On a nice note, the machine hasn't had any issues or crashed in 3 days. Very nice. Just playing with it, seeing what I can do. But chances are pretty good I'm going to be using it for a work station. If everything works well and I can figure out what I'm doing well enough in it, our game servers for FRAGtopia will be on linux, and the Just 4 Fun internet gaming server will be converted to the dark side as well. It is it's destiny. I have forseen it.

On the topic of Linux, and gaming (A topic close and dear to my cold, camping little heart.) Game Spy was at Linux Expo and covered it! Woohoo! Good for them.

Pappy-R, the Planet Quake Overlord (PQO) sent over this. I'm not sure what the hell it is, but seeing a large object crush someone is always good for a giggle or two. :)

Anyhows, have to get to work.

Marauder out.

Yes you heard me right! Roger wilco users are at risk of being intruded on by SPYWARE! Here's a post about it from one of the rogerwilco.com administrators:

This is not a virus.. It is a "trickler" that in turn installs Gator's Offer Companion (www.gator.com). You may uninstall it after it completes its installation. It was necessary to add this partner application to our installer in order that RW can help its parent company make revenue. You have no obligation to use Gator or even to leave it installed, but for the time being (at least) it must be installed along with new RW installs.
The RW install directory has complete information on the licensing (you also read this and accepted it while installing).

Thanks.

tone

So in other words, this is software that runs in the background, downloads and sends out information from your computer over the internet without you knowing! This type of software is known as spyware and SPYWARE BAD! But apparently if you click "ok" to the big long disclaimer, that makes it OK. Well it's not! I and many other people are sick of people hiding stuff in long disclaimers that nobody bothers to read. Realistically the only way you'd know that the spyware was there is if you actually read the license agreement after installing every update/patch or your firewall/virus scanner detects it or if you read fragtopia.com :)

Just so you direct your comments/flames in the right direction, read this post:

Apparently you do not understand the current situation.
HearMe, who has owned us for a long time now, was desperate for income because of their falling stock prices and overspending. They proceeded to layoff half of the company to cut back on spending, and it resulted all but two of the members of Resounding to loose their job. Since I am a volunteer, and have no contract, I was not affected.

Since their budget was still not looking good, they decided to make RW into a spyware product. This has caused much concern with the original Resounding team, but we have no choice but to do what they tell us, since they owned the rights to RW. We had no input on the decision, and we couldn't do anything about it.

Since then Mplayer was bought out by GameSpy, and now GameSpy owns the rights to RW. HearMe gets every penny of what is done with the software, and we get absolutely nothing at all.

I do not agree with what HearMe has done, or the way they told everyone about this. They did not even inform me of this change until a few days later when I got questions about this.

If you want to complain, point your comments towards HearMe, and not us.

------------------
- Mr Goalie
mrgoalie@southridgechurch.com
ICQ: 27008858

To read more & voice your opinions on this check out this rogerwilco.com forum post...and thanks to [S*F]Digital Mice for letting me know about it. As for whoever decided to turn RW into spyware from HearMe...DIE!

For more on Spyware and how to prevent it check out Steve Gibsons OPTOUT and his website http://www.grc.com/

Also Praetorian, if your firewall didn't detect anything when you used the newest version of RW then it doesn't stop unwanted outbound traffic :)

Rune sent me word on this 8GB QikDrive. Pure memory that performs better than scsi drives! Looks like sweet stuff to me, expensive but sweet!

Also Rune sends word about John Carmack's comments on Slashdot on the Nvidia NV1 chip and quadratic surfaces....cool!

We had a sweet "fragtopia lite" lan party on Sunday, haven't had that much fun in ages! Skeezix, Corey, Scott and I played some good old quake1 co-op on nightmare skill. Then Skeezix recorded a chasecam demo of me playing against a frogbot. Later we did some Q2 1on1, then some Q3 1on1 & Q3 TeamDM. Eventually we ended up getting into some counter-strike & Day of Defeat.

I came across an interesting article recently that may be worth checking out about "XUL" which apparently could make it possible to build applications for the Web without having to be a C++ or C programmer.

Incase you weren't aware, the SmackDown 2 lan tournament is coming up March 9-11 in London at the Best Western / Lamplighter Inn:

591 Wellington Rd South
London, Ont.
N6C 4R3
Ph#: 519-681-7151
Toll free: 1-800-528-1234

The capacity of the convention room is 250 people, they have a list up of possible attendees. Here's a map of how to get there. Pictures from last years event can be found here. Tournaments include Q2 1vs1, Q3 1vs1, Q3 4vs4 (TDM), Q3 4vs4 (RA3), UT 1vs1, CS 5vs5. They have video downloads available for download as well.

For those of you who like wacky flash sites, Scott sent me a link to stickdeath.com. It contains a wack load of...well...stick death!

Unholy from the legendary deathrow quake1 clan made a post on xsreality.com about first person perspective demos VS third person perspective demos. Check it out and voice your opinions.

As you may have heard I'm working on a review for Bell Sympatico DSL in Orangeville, Ontario. Some speed tests sites you might be interested in checking out include telus.net speed test, MSN speed test, Sympatico speed test, Squigly Media speed test.

This is rather old news but I've had it bookmarked to post for a while now. Nintendo is sueing Daily Radar for putting out a pokeman strategy guide and apparently killing the sales of a copyrighted/patented product. Just check out some of the lameness in these faxes daily radar recieved from nintendo.

Here's an interesting article about how online gamers are playing a new marketing role. Company's are willing to put out $$$$ for professional gamers to endorse their products and willing to lend a helping hand at LAN tournaments. After all, if the products are good enough for the top gamers & tournaments, word of mouth will go around about the product and it will generate the companies more sales.

For anyone wishing to learn a little bit more about windows98, theres an old column called "inside windows98" that makes for interesting reading.

Ever wanted a neat idea for a halflife logo, checkout this decoy logo that will confuse enemies for just enough time to take them out.

I can't remember if I posted this before but this was kind of funny how "Microsoft urges people not to use the internet".

Here's the second little rant about cheaters... Oddly the bastards seem to spread more and more..... Hmmmmm.... As they point out in this Gamespy editorial, they're not as 'ghey' as some people claim I guess. (Thanks to Rune for setting me off.)

Sigh. More and more cheaters. And more and more cheats. Just got a good look at the so called "speed cheat" in a Counter-Strike game. Very cute. If you haven't seen it, it basically speed boosts, so that you run, shoot, jump etc etc many MANY times faster than a normal player.

Needless to say when you look like the Flash on a hit of speed, it's almost impossible for a non-cheating player to hit you. You pretty much just run between the bullets. Enemy buying guns to do bad things to you with? No problem, you can be at their spawn before they finish buying guns, striking a blow for freedom with your knife... And they're helpless to do anything about it.

Cheating, as everyone knows sucks. You cheat, you are a frickin' loser. No other way to put it. You ruin the game for other players, cost gaming companies money and time trying to fix the hole you are using. You frustrate server admins, who are spending their time and money hosting servers for other people to enjoy. Most game servers (Unless you are luck enough to have an in with an ISP) tend to cost $100->$400 a month, depending on the bandwidth you use. Not to mention the cost of the machine & maintainance time. I've honestly thought about taking our server down multiple times because of cheaters on it.... But I just enjoy it too much, and so go on banning the little pukes. Regretably, some of them seem to have figured out how to get back onto the server, and so once banned will spend an hour or so logging on and getting kicked untill they get tired of bothering me, and go back to fondleing their pets, or whatever it is that losers and hax0rz do in their spare time.

Check out the 3Daction Planet forums for some interesting conversations on cheating, including a little look into the heads of those who do cheat...... But feel that it's OK for them..... Very interesting.....Frankly I don't know what can be done about these guys. Even games like Quake III, with it's much vaunted "Pure Server" option have server cracks that still let you on with cheats enabled.... Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.........

Gah. I'm out and back to work.

Marauder

This guy claims that these are Quake 3 pics running on 3dfx's Rampage card... Personally I will believe it when I see it (which of course is probably never). Maybe he's an ex-3dfx engineer or something....

Taking case mods to a whole new level this guy over on the HardOCP forums put an entire dreamcast in his PC case! Extremely l337...

In a move that I'm sure has thrilled citizens with the efficient use of their taxpaying dollars, the state of Utah has declared that Jello is now their offical State Snack. Opponents to the new resolution pointed out that Jello Killed the Dinosaurs.

In related news I've declared that Kraft dinner and pizza are the Offical Foods of Fragtopia (and of course there's always room for Jello).... well ok.. at least for today...

Whoa, this person takes his games seriously.... hmm...you didn't happen to write this did you Marauder?

Now I'm hooked on that damned Bejeweled game that Tycho at Penny Arcade is always raving about. Way too addictive... It's like a twisted type of Columns/Tetris clone. If you have a lot of free time on your hands and would like to get away from the crack that is Everquest for a while I recommend giving this one a shot. Just make sure that you clear your schedule for the next couple of days first m'kay?

So you want to play some practical jokes on that buddy who keeps handing your ass to you in Counter Strike? Well then, by all means be sure to check out this page over on Little White Dog where they've kicked up all sorts of ways to indulge in a little malicious computer fun. All subsequent legal action is of course your responsibility. Thankfully most of these don't work on a Windows 2000 system for anyone getting any ideas of doing this to me!

Speaking of getting own3d in Counter-Strike, there's a new beta of the Half Life Anti-Cheat server out. Apparently this release addresses a whole crapload of cheats and exploits in Half Life and CS. Hmm, I wonder if they'd fixed that nasty little cheat that lets everyone fly around the map at warp speed? If it does be sure to let me know!

If you're feeling bold and adventurous try out Winamp 3 alpha 3 (yes, that's right I said alpha). I tried it out and it's not too bad. No equalizer stuff in there yet and it's a little buggy but no crashes so far and it's got a bunch of cool new features like the Thinger and a better playlist manager. Give it a shot here.

This ought to give many a Linux guru w00d.... Heck with this system I could beat even Marauder and Nolman's 3Dmarks...

Not to be outdone by Seagate, IBM is also releasing a 15000 rpm version of their Ultrastar hard drives. According to this article on the Register it's only coming out for the Corporate Server market for now but I'm sure that it won't be too much longer before we can all get our paws on one of these. I just hope that at 15000 rpm it doesn't sound like a jetplane on takeoff (like the first-generation of those variable speed CD roms). Geez, maybe now even your hard drive will be needing a fan.

Woohoo! The interview for my new crack habit is now posted. A few screenshots, a short review as well as the interview. Thanks to DasJuden for taking the time to answer a few questions. He's da man.

Whahahaha. Rune sent me a link to 3 Dead Trolls in a Baggie. Oh my god. These guys are funny as hell. Especially the Every OS sucks, Keep your parents off the internet & The war of 1812 songs. Man. Download them, and laugh your ass off. They're Canadian as well, so Skotos can rip my link off without remorse. :)

Speaking of Skotos, he's been really busy lately (Perhaps even busier than myself.) He needs help, and not just of the professional sort. He's got a cool idea with the Canada site, but he needs assistance. If you have a little time and want to help out, let him know please.

Hey, still have that old, beloved Atari 2600 sitting around collecting dust? This guy made a portable gaming system with his. Pretty cool really. Cooler than those stupid Gameboys anyhows.

Red Leader has some competition in gaming strats with this fella. Heh.

Hey, Gamespy posted more news about me. :)) Yay!

Praetorian sent over a few comics from Mega Tokyo.

Sound familiar? & No, Marauder does NOT get this into his tech work. God I love gaming cartoons! :) Thanks Prae.

Anyhows, have to get work work. More crap later, if I can find the time. :)

Marauder out.

Daniel Vogel at Epic (formerly of Loki software), the guy who wrote those amazing Unreal Tournament OpenGL renderers that support the high resolution textures on the second UT CD, has come out with a new and improved version.The new spit-shined version adds the high-rez texture support to the Direct 3D renderer as well and they've now optimized it for Directx 8. At this point I'd recommend that everyone stick with the OpenGL renderer as the Direct 3D one is still fairly slow with the high-rez textures enabled (I get like 40 fps on my GeForce DDR as compared to 80-100 fps under OpenGL). Before installing these make sure that you backup you old versions in your unreal tournament/system directory just in case!

Grab the original zip file here at the Unreal Tech Page or grab 'em here from the folks over at 3D spotlight who were nice enough to include a little bit of documentation in their zip file. Remember these puppies are beta so tweak at your own peril! <cue ominous music>

Even the boys and girls at NASA seem to like UT... Check it out... a Virtual International Space Station. It may take a while to load though as this site is getting hit harder than Gavin's virus-riddled machine at a warez party. Looks almost like another Facing Worlds map variation.

AMD has come out with some spiffy looking Desktops for all of you who have Athlon/Durons. Don't be afraid to cower in the darkness anymore! Let everyone know that you have an AMD and you're proud! Check 'em out here.

In an annoucement that sent Marauder running screaming and wailing like a small child, FASA (makers of Battletech/Mechwarrior, Crimson Skies, board games and licenses for computer games) has annouced that after 20 years they are shutting down and selling their Battletech and Shadowrun assets to Wizkids LLC.

Now we'll have to spend weeks trying to coax Marauder out from under the furniture with a copy of Mechwarrior 4. Poor guy, he lives and breathes Battletech (he buys all the games, reads all the books etc)...I haven't seen him this shaken up since the Amiga went belly up.

Looks like Ravens made mince-meat out of the Giants... On a non-related topic, what are you doing?

Well, of course I'd be more than happy to assist Angelina Jolie in the grueling and exhustive training for her Tomb Raider movie role. It looks she's found a pretty good way to keep in shape.

Dopper and myself got our Sympatico "High Speed" edition equipment and setup kits last night.

You will notice that "High Speed" is in quotes. I'm not quite sure what they're talking about when they say "High Speed".... And you know it's funny... Here I thought false advertising was illegal in this country. Been watching their ads.... So much faster than cable! blah blah blah....

Welll.. Let's just say we were both a little disapointed. The maximum I could get downloading from anywhere other than the Sympatico network speed tester thingy was 50K. Not too bad, really not great when you are used to averages of 75-140 on cable. (Remember, according to their ads, cable is slower than DSL!) According to the tech (underling) I talked to, if your speed to their server us under 25k/sec they'll look at it. Over that and everything is just smokin'. Uh huh.

Uploads were what really pissed me off. 16k/sec cap as near as I can tell..... Again, I'm used to sending at 75-140 k/sec. 16K isn't acceptable. I tried multiple servers just to see if it was a routing issue.... Nothing... 14-16K MAX. Even sending files directly to Dopper over the Sympatico network.. 16k/sec. Gah. A 300 meg file would take 7 hours to send. I can usually send something like that in under an hour.

Not impressed, and I'm afraid that I'm once again Ted Roger's bitch for internet service... Sigh. Dopper is doing up a complete review on the thing, look for it in a day or so.

On the plus side, the uninstaller worked GREAT. (Other than my machine got an Explorer fault and forced me to reboot after removing the software.) I'll give it 2 days just to test it out thoroughly, but I'm not happy at all. Stupid Bell.

Marauder out.