I haven't seen the SOJ counter in a while...

[Crystalion]

Ok, so, the anti-idle trick works under these conditions:
1. A computer is running Diablo II in a window (using the -w command line parameter)
2. There is desktop real-estate outside of the window; a sliver of the desktop is visible.
3. You are in a town where there is a place you can make the character endlessly run. I will explain more later.

The trick is a combination of quirks.

You might be interested in a related technique, that doesn't require the game to be in a window (though that works also) and that doesn't have problems maintaining when you switch away (when you use WinXP user switching and want the "forgotten" process in the other User space to stay anti-idle)...
Amazon Basin post mentioning anti-idle by client/server move/talk to shop jitter quirk