Contemplations by Thor /tɔː(r)/

I recently cancelled my ISDN subscription. Since the installation of broadband, I found the monthly NOK 230 a waste of money. Cancelling the phone completely was tempting, but since this involves a NOK 60 fee added by the ISP I settled for a "mini" subscription at NOK 89 a month. Calls cost about 0.45 a minute and I started looking for viable alternatives. IP telephony is very popular and are offered my most ISPs. Although it is indeed very cheap to make a call, the monthly fee is still +100 NOK. For us averaging about NOK 50 in calls a month we don't benefit much from this offer. Since I recently bought a USB headset for my PS2 I started looking into the possibilities of making calls over the internet. Of course, voice calls over MSN, Google, Skype etc. is nothing new but the problem is that most of the neccessary phone calls can't be performed this way. Well, the exception is Skype. Skype makes it possible to call regular subscription phones at a low rate. As an exa...

Picked up a WET54G bridge at Mamoz today. The purpose was to replace the Laptop as a bridge, a tiresome task to set up every time I wanted to play. I'm fairly experienced with wireless networks. Not an expert, but know enough to handle most issues. I've got a 3Com access point after the D-Link gave in after 3 years. The process of installing the WET54G appeared very similar to the 3Com: plug the bridge into the existing network or a PC then run the accompanying software. Well, no bridge found. Instead of connecting to the switch I plugged the RJ45 directly into the Laptop. No dice. This was crucial. NHL '06 was fired up on the PS2 and I had an online opponent waiting. I was very angry with the progress so far. I simply had to read the quick installation guide. On the last page it said the IP was fixed to "192.168.1.226". Hm. The solution was near. I reconfigured the IP protocol of the laptop to match the subnet and voila! A quick change of IP from the set...

I have to go back to 1994 when I played this fantastic vintage on PC. What made it all the more fun was the ability to create leagues. Each player could take a 1.44" diskette home and play those of the 82 games where the opponent was computer controlled. The other games were played face-to-face. Great fun. With the PS2 online, I was hoping that I was able to once more enjoy the fun of a full NHL series played. I guess my presence at the Washington-Detroit game in D.C. last year had motivated me slightly. All set up last night, I tried a random online opponent for an exhibition game: 1-7 loss! A couple of offline games made my fingers memorize the control buttons. Going online again, I tried to find the league option. Well, there was none. Basically, only exhibition games and short tournaments were available. Strange, since the lobbies are set up with advanced EA messenger systems very able to handle advanced player interactions neccessary. Looking for a quick game, the logging of...

I needed something other than the MSN Spaces to express myself. Reading up on most clients I figured I'd use too much time on PHP and MySQL that I resolved to use this service.