bethanie's Journal: Deprivation

So Hubby got called out of town for an overnight business trip last night. Great, thinks I, what a perfect opportunity to activate & test the security system, and sleep more soundly tonight!

It blew my fucking Internet access.

I called Hubby, who was no help, aside from suggesting I cycle the power on the modem (well, duuuuh). I called the security folks, begging them to take the system off-line, in hopes that would fix it. No-can-do. I talked to the installer, and he walked me through unplugging the security system phone line myself, which, if it was causing the problem, should have resolved it. It didn't. Hell, I even dug up our one pulse-dial phone (the rest are cordless -- or "walkin' phones" as well call them) and tested to see if the modem was getting dial tone. It was.

*sigh*

So a whole evening to myself, and no Internet. No chance to do anniversary shopping or explore music or *scream of insanity* Slashdot!!

I ended up going to bed "early" (10:30 pm) and reading (my new $.01 copy of Mostly Harmless) until midnight:30. Good story, so far. Douglas Adams always holds my attention so well.

I think the server needs to be rebooted, but since it's not just a simple of process of turn-off-turn-on, I have to wait until Hubby gets back tonight.

So how, you may ask, am I able to be posting this JE at the moment? Well, today was Kiddo's 1st day of preschool (hurrah!), and the library happens to be just 2 blocks away from said preschool. So here I sit, like a common plebe, at a terminal in the public library, Slashdotting. This is kinda like an alcoholic running out of liquor on a Sunday night ('round these parts) and getting desperate enough to break out the NyQuil. Pretty sad.

That said, this setup is pretty fuckin' sweet. Aside from my face being maybe 12" from the HUGE monitor, I'm on a pretty sleek-looking Gateway machine (monitor has the characters "VX730" on it, if that means anything -- I can't figure out how to find any of the other system details and don't really care -- but I checked, just 'cause I knew you'd ask), running Windows XP (my first exposure to it -- looks like a Bugs Bunny cartoon), hooked up via DSL (I assume).

And hoo baby, does it fly! I tell you what -- if I had a high-speed connection at home, I could do some *real* damage. Maybe it'll happen some day -- we're less than 3 miles from the closest available hook-up... but there's more to it than that. You'd have to ask Hubby for more details.

So, anyway. Another 3 hours to kill before Kiddo's ready for pickup. Humdedumdedum. Guess I'll head home and clean house. Hopefully I'll be back on line tonight. Keep your fingers crossed -- or I may be back for more NyQuil.

And oh yeah, WHERE'S THE WEEKLY RECAP(TM)!?!

Broadband internet at home?

[RevMike]

Bethanie,

No broadband! I'm shaking uncontrollably at just the thought of it.

Have you looked into any of the satellite based services like DirecWay [direcway.com] from DirecTV? They are not perfect (can't run a server, VoIP is spotty, latency kills gameplay) but it is probably a very good solution for web access.

Also check out a broadband reports [broadbandreports.com] for information about broadband options in your area. There may be a WISP (Wireless Internet Service Provider) in your area. WISPs have been popping up a lot in fringe s

Re:Broadband internet at home?

[dubiousdave]

"This is coming from someone who didn't pay their mortgage one month because the cable modem bill came and I was strapped for cash."

I'm glad I'm not the only one. I've gotten behind on the utilities and the credit card bills and just about everything else during my adventures in unemployment, but I've kept the cable modem running. I rationalize it as being necessary for getting a new job. Who's going to take seriously a systems admin with no broadband? It's a good enough excuse for me.

Bethanie, you

Re:Broadband internet at home?

[bethanie]

Thanks for the ideas. I bounced them off of Hubby (who may be checking out this thread from work tomorrow to respond) and he says that 1) there are no WISPs around here; 2) we also don't get DirecTV -- the most promising prospect is from Dish Network (which is the satellite provider that I believe we'll be using -- still don't have any TV in the house!) called Blue Cloud or Blue Wave or Blue's Clues or something, and it won't be available until next year.

I might also mention that we don't really *need* b

Re:Broadband internet at home?

[muxmaster]

That's Wild Blue [wildblue.com], Sweetie. We can get DirecPC or StarBand, but they cost a fortune and limit you to one Windows PC (StarBand anyway, though I just saw that they have a new offering that just talks ethernet TCP/IP). Wild Blue looks promising in that the output is ethernet that we can plug into the server. We'll have to see about costs and the particulars.

No wireless ISPs here in the boonies, y'all. With all the hills & trees, it would be really tough to make that work. And we're not gonna cut down

Ha!

[blinder]

I just had my work PC upgraded to Windows XP, and my first expression was: "what's with the Lego Land look?"

But then someone said something about the "classic" look, which fixed things. I couldn't take it, it just looked silly.

Of course, this coming from someone who changes his window system from GNOME to KDE at least two or three times a month simply because I like the different eye candy!

Re:Ha!

[spumoni_fettuccini]

I stick all my users with the cartoony desktop! Buhahahahah! Seriously though, I actually wound up giving one guy W2K on his machine instead of XP when I moved him up from NT a few months ago. There is just no way could he have handled, it even with the classic look, too many things were not in the same place for him.

Monitor

[SiliconJesus]

For those who don't feel like looking up a URL by yourselves, Here [gateway.com] is a link to the monitor. 17" / 16" viewable CRT.

Yes, this hereby solidifies my position as a full bred geek.