Blurblog

Just yesterday, I made the ‘mistake’ of purchasing a Belkin Wireless Router (F5D9230-4) and discovered that the lovely features that were packed along with it were all foiled by the elementry method of connecting to the internet completely FAILING and resulting in disconnecting and reconnecting CONSTANTLY.

After 25 minutes and ultimately failing with Belkin’s Tech support (He hung up on me after trying several things that still did not work..) and right before I went to go return the piece of *art* back to Walmart… I tried the simplist thing… Update the FIRMWARE to a version that works.

-BEFORE YOU THROW THIS OUT AS A POSSIBILITY, READ ON-

Turns out Belkin did fix the issue for a number of routers recently and it seems to be something wrong with the firmware that was shipped out… In fact, the pre-installed firmware update tool does not work properly…

So I’ve conveniently created a simple link for you to download the latest firmware here for the model I tested for here. If you have another model I’ll look it up but please let me know if this resolves it. I’ll try to work with everyone who is having a problem with their new router, however please remember that I’m not a Belkin employee and will not be able to fix all of your life’s problems, (hopefully) just the Belkin router issues. Read the rest of this entry »

DSL Reports recently published an article that highlights a large, US-based ISP, Comcast, will soon be implementing overage caps on their customer’s internet usage to 250GB/month with 1 free gimmie. Additional bandwidth would be $15/10GB thereafter.

Full article

I just recently got my server from server beach and I’m pretty happy with it so far. Support called me only an hour or so after the order went in to confirm my order and within 4 hours it was setup and ready for me to play with. I’ll be moving this blog over to it soon from my 1 & 1 shared account.

For those looking for a good coupon, use this coupon code below when you checkout and you’ll get $100 off after you’ve been with Server Beach for 90 days. You’ll also be helping me out a great deal trying to alleviate the costs of the server and you’ll benefit too!

Server Beach $100 off Coupon:
JDFCQ7KG98

Read the rest of this entry »

With the release of ventrilo 3.0 yesterday, many people find themselves stuck in a virtual corner for whatever reason and ultimately unhappy with the new release. When it comes to the ventrilo 2.0 servers, you may just be out of luck unless someone hasn’t updated their ventrilo server yet.

If you’re anything like me, in a dorm situation using the Cisco URT Client, the new release of ventrilo is dead in the water and will not connect to any servers. Don’t have a solution. Sorry. But If you want to do something about it, make it known that you’re having this problem over at the Ventrilo Forums at THIS POST.

Read on for Instructions… Read the rest of this entry »

You may have tried out YouTube’s new beta version of video displays and have noticed that they have removed the usual banner advertisement on various parts of the page. If you haven’t seen the new page, be sure to check it out. You may also be aware of the projected boom that online video advertising is projected to have in the near future and it seems that YouTube is going all in by cutting their banners and focusing primarily on embedded and video advertising.

I happened to stuble across a peek of this while watching Best Saves of the Stanley Cup Finals from NHLVideo displaying what YouTube may have in store for our viewing pleasure in the near future. You’ll notice that two things are different with this new player.

One is the flash banner that scrolls across the video at the bottom when it first starts. You’ll also notice that this advertisement is not deployed site wide and only appears on specific videos which I believe will lead to embedded flash (or even text) advertisements relevant to the video’s content itself based on user comments, titles, and descriptions.

The second advertisement change you’ll notice doesn’t appear until the end of the video where a simple adwords styled, text ad will appear inside of the player itself. The advertisement used in this example is the same advertisement that is mentioned above, however this slot could easily be used with adwords just as easily. Below that are the same buttons we are now familar with only a tad smaller so you still have the same interface, just a little smaller and a little more sqished.

Of course with this new style still in beta one can only wonder what Google has in mind for YouTube’s new interface and ad placements. We’ll just have to wait and see.

Well Just a quick update for the moment. I once again returned late after seeing the Blue Man Group’s performance and needless to say it was outstanding. I will provide more details about what all it was about when I have the time to finish day 2’s post =P (I’m just about done with it)

Some other key notes of interest that I did today was take a tour of the northern part of Chicago, Go to the ‘Tastes of Chicago’ Festival (Which involves many of Chicago’s big restraunts of different varieties sampling out food to tickets), Walk to the Sears tower and climb 103 stories to the top floor (By Elevator of course), walk a good 8-10 miles, and study for my Cyber Security Exam at sparse points during the day.

Test starts at 11:15 AM CST, so wish me luck. =]

Will update in the morning. Really tired =’(

Night <3