Nexeus Fatale

I hate technical failures. They derail any progress always force me to change my plans. Today, my graphics card has melted under the weight of Second Life and other graphic activities. This failure means that the system I’ve relied on for the past two and a half years cannot run, I cannot DJ. I am going to have to pause all of my Second Life gigs for the time being. Obtaining a new graphics card is not only beyond my reach at the moment but makes little sense.

I wish the solution was the purchase of a new graphics card, but the system that I’ve been running on is an aging AMD system, slowly buckling under the weight of Vista and new technologies. While a short term solution would be that of a new card, I may end up in the same position a few months down the line. The real solution is that I need a new system. Either purchase one or construct one, but it needs to happen. This will take me time; I estimate a month or two.

This pause forces me to fall back on other projects. The Second Life Community Convention is almost two weeks away and I still have many preparations along with the rest of the organization team to accomplish; I have the release of my new brand soon; my mixing podcast need to be revived (I still have access to my mixing hardware); and two budding radio stations that need to exit their beta phases. This is only a small sample of the many things I do.

Do note this is a pause, a vacation if you will and I will return to DJing. I am not leaving Second Life, I have a system that will run SL (and hopefully not melt my graphic card). There are also two more than qualified DJ’s that I will refer to for events to until I can return back to the fold. I can personally vouch for BCreative Wilde and DJ Tarsis as great, professional and well rounded DJ’s. Currently, my timetable for a return is late September or mid-October, but time will only tell.

Maybe this pause is a good thing; I’ve been DJing non-stop in Second Life for the past 4 years, who knows. This detailment is rather annoying!

Again, more frustrations with my current Internet connection. My connection began to become unstable, it died on me late last afternoon. My partner in crime, and fellow apex-high studio. DJ, Naydee McGettigan, covered this event for me last night and I hear she did a fantastic job at it! Thank you Nay!

I’m currently unavailable for gigs, events or anything Internet related until Friday - that’s when we hope this issue is resolved!

Today started with breakfast, and then running out into the cold to the Cablevision Walk-In service center to obtain a new cable modem, to connect to my cable internet. I swapped my old modem for the new one, to match my shiny new router, and my shiny new NAS. I plug it in, I get it setup, again with some difficulty as everything has been for the past few days… I watch my router disconnect and reconnect from the Internet.

I attempt to mess with some router settings, try some speed tests and look at my new modem to see how it is handling and then it happens, my router turns off, then on again. This is what we call cycling, you can think of it as my router resetting itself. In a fit of frustration, and many deep breaths, I dial the Cablevision Technical support line. After listening to the amount I owe on the current cable bill, I dial a series of numbers that resemble mores code to reach the Cablevision Technical Support. I have not had a bad experience with these guys, they are eager, friendly, helpful, and able to comprehend the situation. I don’t remember his name but I tell him mine, and lay out, in detail, the things I have done to my network to ensure that he knows that I am: a) not dumb, b) not joking around, c) not a telemarketer conducting a survey about his preference in boneless jerk chicken flavor - Jamaican or Neo-Soul Caribian (I have a personal preference for Hispanic Flavor myself).

After talking to the technician about all things related to my router, what its serial number is, the shape, its aerodynamic design and contour as it relates to my desk, how many wires are plug into it, how my cable is split, if my cable performs an American Style Split or European Style Split, the name of my router, it’s serial number, my registration permit for being armed with a broadband connection, we come to several conclusions: my internet connection does NOT like me uploading. This is bad news - it means that when I stream, my modem will cycle. It means when I enter Second Life, my modem will cycle. This means when I attempt to perform broadband tests my modem will cycle. Thus turning my shiny new modem into a bicycle, one that has a hard seat that is being pushed WAY too far up my butt.

The tech does his best, he even puts me on hold and says “I’m going to ask someone a question, I’ll be right back!” First, how many techs do you know admit to not knowing the answer to your question? Second, he told me what he asked and told his senior tech, and he said that his senior tech did not believe him, so he showed him the logs of what was going on. he comes back and essentially pauses, attempting a few more tests, while I ask him “sounds like you haven’t dealt with this before.” He says something to the effect that not even his senior tech quite understands what’s going on. Lets translate this into English - “DUDE! You’re fucked! You’re like the only person that this has ever happened to, and we’re not sure what to attribute it to. Your in the Murphy’s Law Zone, what will go wrong, does go wrong, you don’t get a shopping back or sticker or t-shirt, just a lot of brown stuff dumped on top of you, where you are buried in high and deep, and twiddle your fingers until we can send someone out to your place of residence to help solve your problem. I hope you had no plans for your Internet tonight!”

Actually I did… I had a plan to do a show that I was going to be paid for… I had to send that e-mail out to the Electric Sheep Company who hired me for a private AOL Pointe event tonight. I had planned for an event LAST night that I had to call on backup - and because gMail did not like my net connection I missed a flurry of e-mail messages from an event coordinator. I have an event tomorrow for RadioRadio, ASpiRE has me doing the iVilliage fashion show on Monday… and my status of me doing these events along with being a reliable, consistent and professional online/virtual DJ, are up in the air right about now.

So here I am, stuck, dealing with a visit from Tech Support mid-day tomorrow. Dealing with my ability to continue to DJ consistently up in the air. Dealing with my ability to be in virtual worlds up in the air, because my net connection is not liking me. Hopefully tomorrow things will resolve themselves… I’m going to play some Wii boxing to relieve myself! ARRRG!!!

At some of my recent events, listeners have heard long pauses between the music being played. No this is not a new form of censorship, rather it seems to be my router unable to continue to keep up with the demands of my networking needs. Let me explain - the way I DJ is over my wireless network, I use two computer systems, a desktop that runs Second Life, and a laptop that plays the music and streams it out to the public. Of late, my music has buffered over my network, and I realized that there was performance issues with my desktop. Using an un-used PCI wireless card, I though I had solved the problem… but that did not solve the problem. For years, i wanted to obtain a NAS (or Networked Attached Storage - it is a hard drive connected to your network). It arrived this week, and I began tests, and that was not the case… Second Life as well as WoW has been messing of up late… therefor my router was to blame!

So now, I have a new router waiting for me at Circuit City, and hopefully it will solve all of the networking problems that I have had over the past few weeks. If not… well… lets not go there.

Today’s show on RadioRadio was cancled due to some major technical difficulties, and other life problems. Essentially my network has had it, those who have listened to the recent shows have heard some of my frustration and networking woes. A solution is in place, a NAS (Networked Attached Storage) is on its way and will house all of my music to my wireless network.

I feel I’m running a less than optimal setup while the NAS does help, I would love to have an aging laptop to replace, the software juggling that is DJing. I really with that there was a software program that manages the usefulness of SAM Broadcaster with the Ease of Winamp and the features of my Denoon DN-X1000’s. Hopefully a solution will rear it’s way soon to the market… hopefully!

Also, here’s something from the past that I found - man I need to see if I can download a copy for my own self - Nexeus Fatale’s last show on GSP . (Damn I used to talk really fast on my shows….. geeez)