First, exit your Borderlands game since you need to be outside of it to do all of this and ALT+Tabbing out of Borderlands is a bad idea since it will crash most of the time.

Second, get a copy of Hamachi which is a free VPN client (virtual private network).  What it does is create a virtual LAN between you and your friend.  Hamachi can be obtained here and is completely free for non-commercial use (such as gaming!).  After you get Hamachi installed create a network of some sort and have your friend join the network you create.  Once they are in you will see them in the Hamachi window with a green orb next to their name showing that they are connected.

Now that you have Hamachi setup, make sure that Hamachi is listed as the first network adapter in the priority list.  To do this, first go to the Network Connections panel in XP (in Vista/7 you can do this by going to the network settings page and then holding down the ALT key to make the menu appear that i’m showing in the screenshot to the right).

After you select that menu you can select the “Hamachi” adapter and click the up arrow to move it to the top of the list as shown to the left.

Once you’ve done that, you and your friend(s) will need to load up Borderlands with Hamachi turned on.  Once you get in, oddly enough you do NOT want to use the LAN option which is what you’d normally use with Hamachi.  For some strange reason, this will still not work with Hamachi and maybe Gearbox decided to block Hamachi usage in LANs (some games do this to try and reduce piracy).  Instead, select the Online Multiplayer option and login to Gamespy.

Once you are online, make sure that you have added your friends as friends and that they have confirmed you as such.  Then, whoever has the best computer/internet should host a private game.  Once you have your private game hosted, choose to Invite Friends by hitting the “I” key on your keyboard.  On this list, invite each friend to your game and they should now be able to join successfully since Hamachi is facilitating the connection!

Note: I tried forwarding a gazillion ports as Gearbox recommends and even lots of other Unreal engine traditional multiplayer ports and it wouldn’t work at all until using this workaround.  This is a shame because Borderlands co-op is like what I always imagined multiplayer Fallout 3 would be like – AWESOME!

Let me know in the comments if this works for anyone else or if you are still having issues!  Another NOTE: if you have anybody not receive the initial invite, you have to exit out completely and retry with everyone online at the same time.  Otherwise, the invites will sometimes fail even with the above trick.  When in doubt, have everyone bounce the client and try again.

Edit: Also if you are having crashes or graphical corruption and you have an Nvidia graphics card, make sure that you don’t have the 191.xx drivers (which is the latest release version).  Instead, keep an older version installed or reinstall the older drivers by going to the nvidia.com site and downloading the 186.xx series drivers.  Do NOT get anything past 190 as you will often get instability!

Overall, I pray that i’m doing the right thing and that God will support me in my endeavors.  Hope to come and visit the people here in Western NC as often as I can and i’ll try to keep in touch.  Besides, they can just read my blog to see what i’m up to

The only issues I have in season 3 were with what they did with Nathan’s character.  I think that some of the decisions he made during season 3 made no sense and didn’t fit with his character.  I am also sick of the various Ali Larter characters and wish that they would kill off her characters permanently instead of killing off other characters that are cool (like one of the new ones introduced in season 3 – I won’t say which one so as to not spoil it).

I’m looking forward to season 4 and will be watching it on Hulu at some point this week since they’ve already got some episodes posted!

In totally random news there was a really long Woot-Off full of crazy items over on www.woot.com.  The Woot-Off lasted almost 3 days this time and there were some bags of crap available but I did not get one (I was riding my bike when they appeared on the site).  If you aren’t familiar with Woot, they sell one item per day at a really good price.  The item is sometimes refurbished and sometimes new but it’s a great site to pick up a good deal.  During a woot-off, a new item appears as soon as the last one sells out so during a 24-72 hour period during a woot-off you may see literally a hundred items appear on the site.

Now, the bag of crap is actually a box of random junk that you can order from woot for $5 + the shipping charge.  You can order up to 3 “bags” of crap at once and there were only 1500 available in this last woot-off (so 500 people got one basically since everyone orders three who has any sense).  Now, why would people pay money to have McDonald’s toys shipped to them?  They aren’t actually McDonald’s toys but they are on that level of junk for most of the items in the box.  Bags are always included of course such as a camera bag, or a backpack or something along those lines.  The reason that people pay for the bag of crap is that Woot likes to be sneaky and fun and throws in really expensive items into some people’s bags.  It’s sort of like buying a grab bag with the possibility of winning the jackpot.  For instance, in the last set of bags of crap that went out over the summer, a 72″ Plasma TV showed up as part of someone’s bag of crap that they paid $5 for.  You can see how a $5,000 TV is a pretty good steal for $5!  Now, not everyone will get awesome stuff but things like iPod Touches, Zunes, PS3’s and Xbox 360s as well as large projection or plasma TVs have been known to appear.  Regardless of what you get, it is generally going to be worth more than $15 (3 bags at $5 each), although it may not be exactly useful.

Hopefully i’ll get a bag of crap during the next woot-off (assuming the random bag of crap appears, it doesn’t always show up during every woot-off).  I have been enjoying my iRobot Roomba 530 that I bought refurbished from Woot a few weeks ago for $130.  Alfred (my robot) has been keeping my floors super clean over the last few weeks!

Well, the keyboard decided that every time I hit the letter “j” that it would instead insert “-jkio F7 F8″ which causes all kinds of funky things to happen in your web browser, in Outlook, in AIM etc.  Also, the letter “q” started doing crazy things as well.  I tried washing out the keyboard and letting it dry over night but that just had the end result of permanently killing it.  At first I thought I had a virus or some sort of nasty joke being played on me but apparently when keyboards fail they can present random symptoms like that.

So, I tested another keyboard borrowed from work on my machine and it works great so i’ve gone ahead and ordered another identical keyboard from Amazon.Com for $50 (ouch!).  A quality keyboard is key though for a programmer and master’s student – I have to write papers and work on contract programming often so I need a good ergonomic keyboard to keep from getting carpal tunnel and to type properly.  Right now i’m typing on the borrowed regular style keyboard and it is driving me nuts since it isn’t split like the one I have at work and that I had at home.

You never realize how much you rely on poor old Mr. Keyboard until he goes on strike…That’s what I get for not showing enough appreciation and always punching him day after day!

This morning while reading the news for some reason that theme popped into my head and it brought back fond memories of watching the TV Game Show of the same name that aired on PBS from 1991-1996.  That show rocked!  It was based on a set of computer games that I also loved playing when I was a kid.  Rockapella was my first introduction to cool acappella vocals and they really got me hooked on that style of singing.  I still get a kick out of acappella versions of songs that sound very similar except all of the instruments are done purely with voices.

After the “Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego” TV Show left the air, it was followed for a couple of years by “Where in Time is Carmen Sandiego” which was still a great show.  I’ve always loved mysteries and the style of the game show involved finding clues to where Carmen Sandiego was at so that the kids could stop her from stealing more stuff.

If you don’t remember the game show i’ve embedded a YouTube video below of Rockapella singing the theme song to the game show:

I had to leave work early yesterday due to being sick and wasn’t able to make it in today either.  I think with the amount of sickness spreading on campus right now not spreading mine is probably a blessing to other people.  Too often people come into work sick and I think that is how I got this crud is several coworkers came to work sick instead of taking the day off!

Biking is really fun as a hobby because it is healthy and even though climbing hills is tough, coasting down the other side at high speeds is pretty thrilling.  Biking is also nice because you get to see a lot more scenery than when you run somewhere or even when you drive.  Running is too slow to see much scenery since you are confined to a smaller distance.  Driving is too fast to see the scenery since you are usually in a hurry to get somewhere and aren’t paying that much attention.  Biking is the happy medium and it is also less hard on your body (a much lower impact exercise).

When I was running in the gym on the indoor track a few weeks ago, my back started killing me and I eventually had to take a couple of weeks off from running to let my back muscles heal up.  Since I started biking and have gone 75 miles in the last week or so, the only thing that I have sore is my rear-end from sitting on the saddle since i’m not used to it and my shoulders are slightly tight from leaning over the bike.  My back feels fantastic though and my legs aren’t even sore either!

Hoping I can get at least 1000 miles in before it gets too cold/dark to ride in the evenings after work!

That party is nothing compared to the action featured on truTV’s Rehab, which follows the real life events that occur at Rehab: Party at the Hard Rock Hotel in Las Vegas. TruTV features real life situations, not pseudo-reality like reality tv shows which is what makes their content so compelling.

Since I don’t tend to party as hard as the people on Rehab, it is more fun to watch them do stupid things and get in trouble than to do them myself! The TruTV show that follows the action at Rehab airs every Tuesday at 10p/9c on TruTV and new episodes started September 1st. Be sure to catch the show to see celebrity appearances, new staff learning the ropes, security incidents and generally crazy things occurring on a weekly basis. If you want to party like a rock star at the Rehab party, you can enter by going over to TruTV’s sweepstakes website.

For a quick look at what to expect from the Rehab tv show, check out the video below!

My parents are coming up tomorrow and i’m having a nice party with my friends for all of our birthdays (a bunch of us have early September birthdays) so it should be pretty fun!  Now, back to the master’s homework since i’m project manager this week!