Technology Can Be Hard On The Head!!

I am much calmer this morning. Yesterday was a technological nightmare that had me in tears by late last night. We decided to get high-speed internet for my Macs at last since there is a new feature that will let me put our fax number onto the home phone line while still keeping the same fax number I have always had and not tying up the phone line. Technology has changed so much since I first started freelancing a decade ago, but the learning curve can be hard on the head!!!

Our friendly Internet install technician came and spent over 2 hours here! My big desk was too heavy for him to get at the phone jack in the wall to do more than just plug things in, so he had to wire it to the panel to the house. Then it turned out that my new Mac was newer than their install software... but we only figured this out after spending 45 minutes trying to figure out why it wouldn’t respond to what they wanted it to.

I didn’t want to use my new Mac for much on the Internet to keep it safe, but you do have to be able to go on-line now and then to send in registrations etc., so I’d bought a router to let me have both machines get on the Internet at the same time. The only problem is that the Aliant technician couldn’t help (wasn’t his place to do so in the first place) and then the Router instructions didn’t work for the first 2 hours of trying to get my LAN (Local Area Network) set up right. By the time we got the girls to bed, I was ready to eat any chocolate left in the house, pour a big glass of Baileys, cry or beat my head against the older computer’s screen. All of my office furniture was pulled to the middle of the room and what had once been set up just the way I wanted was now in shambles... and still didn’t work.

Those of you who deal with computers and their quirks each day for wiring and networking purposes now have my UTMOST respect!!!

Finally this morning, after calling a Mac wizard and having him fix everything in less than 5 minutes, I am all hooked up.... but I have discovered that I need 16.75 feet of cable to put all my furniture back... and only a 15 ft. cable!

I guess the furniture can stay in the middle of the room until Nick gets home with the car tonight and I can get a 20 ft. cable from the store....

Sword play had to be easier on the head... if not a little more deadly to the body!!!