The Foibles of Technology

I knew my hard drive had some issues since mid March, but then it seemed to get all happy again.  It finally decided to get all cranky last week so I got a new one.  I was without the computer from Wednesday afternoon until Friday afternoon.  That all worked out peachy, but.....

I get home on this really windy and rainy day with my happy computer only to figure out my internet was downloading so slow my email was timing out and my security program was having issues updating it's database files after I installed it.  I call the 800 number, go through the usual hoops they put your through (most I already did several times before I called, not that the tech on the line cared), and come down to them telling me it is the modem since the line is good.  It has never been my modem in all the years I lived here even if I did have one finally die, but I knew it was the modem.

Seeing that my little ma and pa supplier was not in the office after 5pm on a Friday, I had to wait until yesterday morning to call them to tell them what their outsourced service told me.  Indeed the line tests good, but they were going to come out the drop box down the road from my house to test.  Not sure if they managed that yet of that is in the works today.  So until they find the fix I have internet that can't make up its mind how well to run, but 90% of the time my download speed is slower than my upload.  ::chuckles::

Not sure when this will be fixed, but hopefully before my online job starts.  I have one more interview for that this afternoon and if that goes well, I'll probably be starting training any time after Memorial Day weekend.

On the awesome side of things - my boonies area is getting fiber this year.  So sometime before winter I'll be on fiber instead of this iffy copper DSL setup.  That will be a relief.  Might even be cheaper because then we can get cable from them and maybe the whole package will be cheaper than what I put up with now needing DirecTV to even have television out here since the old cable system never made it this far.

Careful with getting cable...

Currently they have to meet regulations that the other providers do not.  Apparently they are getting hit hard with the whole HD thing, by ignorant people who expect HD would somehow help non HD shows if they only promised it to them.  *Yes, I know somebody who works installation and troubleshooting calls.*

That said, there is talk about cable going way up in price to try to offer all the same services that their competitors do.  If that does happen, your bundle will not save you any $.

However, grats on the hopefully better internet.  If it is like cable in the majority of the U.S., it will decide to cut out randomly on occasion due to communication issues that may or may not require you to reset your modem and/or router.  But it is somewhat less of a pain than DSL... usually.

Well, my provider is a ma and pa telephone company that can do all three.  We'll see what they offer.

The good thing is that I will have at least a fiber pipe from the box down the road to handle all us internet geeks out here in my neck of the woods.  The speed drops a LOT in the evening.  It won't do that once the fiber pipe is in.  Now I might get fiber to the house and then we'll see if the pricing for that is better than our combo of services now since we use satellite for TV and we are just plumb lucky that works at all with all the trees around us.

Don't worry, I know all about telecom cable stuff having been an engineer in IT/Telcome for YEARS - like since 1986 even.  Yeah dated myself!  Saw the ramp up from analog to digital and remember the days where we thought it was awesome we could go at 300 to 1200 baud on a phone line.

I had a scary moment last Friday while the fires were raging in San Diego County. I noticed that the office was getting kind of warm and so I checked the AC. The forced air unit was just buzzing and definitely wasn't moving air. Well fine, I guess I will have to get that fixed tomorrow. I go back to the game and after about 10 minutes, I get kicked out for loss of internet connection. The computer is running fine, just no internet. I go to my router and it's just cycling lights. How terrible is this? Now I'm hot and I have nothing to do (or at least that I planned to do). I go to fix some dinner and my kitchen light is only half as bright as normal. Then I lose all power.

Long story short, we had a brown out that eventually resulted in a black out for a short period. The lesson learned is that your electronics can act really funny when they're not getting enough power. The only reason the computer continued to work is I have a UPS.

Glad you are all right, Cariance, even if you got bored!  Those times are what good old fashion books are for.  Hehe!

I am (and have been for that matter) on a Fiber line.  Let me laughingly point out that it is just not that much better than the DSL I had before it was.   Old saying about a chain only being as strong as it's weakest link.  Your connection whether DSL or Fiber is only as fast as the slowest link along it's path.

::chuckles::  I know, but right now the main pipe, which is old copper, is restricting all the little pipes going into it.  They do have the capacity at the office.  I think we finally are up to trying to put 10 gallons through a 1 gallon capacity pipe at prime time.  =)  Just doesn't work well.

And to add to my technology foibles my headset broke yesterday, so I had to run to a store to buy one since I need one for my job I start on Tuesday.  That proved overly interesting and an adventure due to all the various foibles that can happen just trying to get from point A to B.  At least when I got back home last night and tested it, it was definitely a lot better than the cheapo one I did have.

Now the computer can wait until next May or so before something else has issues.  At least, I have a great case and will probably only need to do mother board, cooling and graphics to update it some time.  For now that is humming along okay.

I somehow managed to pour a cup of coffee into my external keyboard last night, and am now reduced to the dreaded "bendy" built in laptop keyboard that somehow allows me to type with my elbows as I'm typing with my fingers (stupid ultra-sensitive recessed key structure, argh).

It's funny to think back on all the tech things that we used to put up with, which are just unacceptable today.

Like the TV in our university dorm with the ribbon antenna (yes, this was 20+years ago). The antenna only worked if someone was standing in a frozen posture in the middle of the lounge, squeezing the ends of the ribbon in a certain way, with one foot in the air. (Actually that last bit wasn't necessary, but we used to tell new roommates that it was, just to see the result). TV watching was a huge cooperative affair as every one took tuns holding the ribbon antenna. 

Then there was the frustration of Australian satellite services, the disaster that was Global Crossing, and the early wireless router that had one whole bar of signal strength (!) if you stood on the sink in the bathroom and held it out the window (which was just below ceiling level) -- and that was in downtown Sydney, population around 3 million at the time. 

Every time I complain about lag, I have to remember that I played WoW with a minimum 900 ms ping for over 5 years (until I left the country). And when I complain about data costs, I have to remind myself that one of my early ISP's in Aus charged me $50 for 2 GB of data - which meant no raiding, battlegrounds, data addons or game patches towards the end of the billing cycle to avoid the even more ridiculous overage costs. Tech-wise, the good old days... kind of sucked. ;)