Rollercoaster graphs reflect unreliability

If you’re like me, and have moved to Canada for a long stint, and need your own private internet connection, then you might want to consider Wind Mobile’s Infinite Laptop Plan, going for around $29 a month and “promising” speeds of 7.2Mbps on the Huawei-made E1691 data stick, and even more on the 4G-capable stick. Of course, if the price difference is $70 (E1691 at $29, E366 at $99), then it would make more sense for you to try the cheap way out first – since reception can vary in different areas.

As it is right now, Wind has provided highly satisfactory service. If you searched the web, you’ll see various claims such as,

• Throttling after 5Gb
• Frequent drops (defined as moments of no internet access)
• Higher speed than Mobilicity

I cannot confirm the last two points as I have only been on Wind for a few weeks but what I can say is that while throttling might be happening to me, it has not been as obvious as some have claimed it to be – 256kbps up/down. So far, I have downloaded around 10Gbs of data – including a game off Origin and I am still getting 250Kb/s download speed. Others claim that Wind might throttle depending on how hard the cell tower is worked – guess it’s a good thing of living far away from the crowds, while still being near a Wind cell tower.

Some tips that I would share is that you’ll get higher reliability if you attempt to get 5-bars worth of signal quality. This can be achieved by using an extension USB cable and leaving the modem out of your room. Wrap it in a plastic bag if you are afraid of rain. Also, forget the $129 hotspot that Wind sells – you don’t have to spend extra money to buy a router that can share your connection at home - just follow this guide.

One month’s of experience has shown that the connection varies from time to time, however, it seems to have degraded over the course of the month – perhaps that is throttling in action? Either way, towards the end of the month, I have not been able to get 300kb/s download rate, and I have gotten a few (less than 10) 10-minute drops which are times where the modem cannot connect to the internet. This is highly frustrating, especially since it spoils your momentum when doing work. The connection is terrible when it rains. I would say uptime is 90% of the time, though I would expect 99%.

However, I wouldn’t stress too much about it because the Huawei modem can be easily unlocked. At this website, you simply need to enter your device’s serial/data and it will spit out an unlock code. This unlock code will be needed when you are using another SIM card that is not from Wind. The next best alternative is, without doubt, Mobilicity.

Recently, I have gotten a new internet connection – a wireless, 3G-based data stick that cost me $29/month and promises HSPDA speeds of up to 7.2Mbps… in ideal conditions. However, one critical issue is that I couldn’t share the connection unless I bought a wireless router that supported USB devices. Being the poor back-to-university student that I am, I decided to stinge and save. But this is Netbookist.com, and all I can say is challenge accepted!

This tip will come in really handy if you have a new printer that has WiFi as one of its connection options and doesn’t come with a USB cable as standard, or if you are finding a frugal method to share the internet with other devices, or have a LAN party without a router.

In order to create a wireless access point using your computer, you need these programs:

Congratulations. Your $300 netbook is now a wireless access point.

Connectify

Once you have Connectify, install it and follow the instructions. Most likely, you will have to manually select the connection you want to use under Internet as the Lite version does not support automatic selection of the connection. Otherwise, the Lite version works very well – just make sure that your wireless adapter doesn’t try to connect automatically to other networks while Connectify is enabled as it will cause you to lose your connection with other devices.

Once this is done, you need to configure your other devices to access this network, and then, you’re done!

Also, if you’ve noticed, I’m on Wind Mobile, here in Canada. It’s a new telecommunications provider, which also has an awesome data plan for $29/month. In total, I paid $66 (including taxes) for the data stick and one month’s connection. So far, it has been moderately reliable – works most of the time and speeds are acceptable.

And then the other day, I saw my friend bringing his Sony Vaio to get ‘skinned’. He paid $65 for it, and I thought that was pretty expensive. He said that the skin cost $25, while the labour cost $40 or so. He argued that while it’s a lot more economical to do-it-yourself, he doesn’t mind paying the extra cost for someone’s steady hands.

Personally, I find skinning to be one of the most expensive things to do to your computer – even if it’s for ‘protection’. I argued that it made no sense to protect your computer from scratches and dings, because after all, it is a depreciating liability. Once it goes out of date – and gaming notebooks will definitely go out of date since games are merciless on old technology – you basically have a very fast and very large netbook.

Nonetheless, I have recently figured out how one can make your own stickers to cover up things that you don’t like – be it blemishes, scratches or ugly logos. You can stick anything you want, and it is actually very easy to remove if you want to change whatever you’ve stuck.

Tools of the trade

• Photo paper – preferably non-smudge, matte or glossy as preferred.
• Penknife – X-acto penknives preferred for curve-cutting
• Spray glue – 3M Super 77 preferred.
• Black permanent marker
• A high quality photo – low-res photo makes it hard to cut

Reddit alien doing the "seriously?" face, me gusta. Taken via Reddit

Tip 1: if your picture is low-res (such as this), and you need a high-res pic, you can take the original image and drag it into the search box at Google Images. Google will then try to find other images similar to this, and using the filters, you can find the highest-res version.

All cut out, with a cheap penknife. Try an X-Acto for an easier time on the curves.

Nice black edges

Tip 2: If you ever botch up and accidentally draw on the image, you can remove the streak by dipping a fine-point paintbrush in thinner and carefully removing the ink away.

The ultra-useful glue: 3M Super 77.

Ready to be stuck!

Netbook folded. Cool picture, no ASUS logo.

When does the narwhal bacon?

Let me know what you think, of if you face any problems, and I will try to help you!

A tip: a successfully colony always successfully decolonises.

Civilization IV: Colonization is a game with a simple concept: you are the leader of a colony, and you’ll bring your colony through its steps – which means eventually decolonising. Everyone likes to feel powerful and in Civ IV: Colonization, you get that same feeling when you develop your colonial empire successfully and sack the Indians (or cooperate with them), and then sack your parent country from the face of the New World. Yes, although this game is about colonisation, it brings you through the whole process of being a colony: from settling the first city to eventually telling your parent country to copulate off.

Civ IV: Colonization is a bit different from Civ IV in a sense that it is more focused on colony political economy, rather than empire building. And because you are going to start in the New World, you’ll deal with the likes of the native Indians, and it is your choice whether to do it as the Spanish did or to be nice and work alongside them, both with their pros and cons. However, as your colony becomes big and egoistic – you’ll want to tell your European parents that it’s time for them to leave, especially since they’ll be taxing you as if it doesn’t matter. Then a big war ensues.

Traitors of the Fatherland: Unite!

But before all that, good management of the economy will allow you to build good warring calvary and soldiers, which eventually assist you in the fight against the English, Dutch, French or Spanish who’ll be shipping their more advanced troops from Europe. You’ll also be able to rope in the Indians to assist you, if you get on their good side.

Fixing your Civilization

I know of two kinds of people: die-hard Civvers and people who play it casually. If you’re the latter group, then installing Civ IV might not be the most ideal to think about, because there are some compromises in playing it on a netbook. Nonetheless, if you really want to play it on a netbook, there are a few tweaks that you can do to get it right, although you’ll still be chugging along at some slideshow framerate (5-10fps). It is still very playable if you can ignore the low-sharpness, low-res texture, and basically, eye-hurting graphics. But hey, Civ IV is that good to ignore it, eh?

Initially, my game had no problems loading the game up to the point where you closed the Royal Charter at the start of each game, and then I’ll get a crash-to-desktop. This was annoying. My method of solving this was simple. The problem lies in the fact that Civ 4 requires a minimum resolution of 1024×768 and that’s not supported by netbooks, at least, until you hack it.

If you are using an Intel GMA chip, head over here to find the fix.

Do as the Spanish did: bring a gun to a knife fight!

Alternatively, people have also been getting good mileage with this fix.

Head to Documents -> My Games -> Sid Meier’s Civilization…. (game folder). Open CivilizationIV.ini and modify the variables ScreenHeight and ScreenWidth to 600 and 1024. Search for FullScreen and change the variable to 0. If you would like mouse scrolling in this windowed mode, you’ll need to modify MouseScrolling to 1.

Both methods worked for me. Although the second method allegedly would allow you to get a perfect fit, it didn’t work for me as the game was still stuck in 1024×768. By double-clicking the window, you’ll force the game to stretch to the screen’s width.

Screenshots: CivFanatics