It has been about 30 hours or so since my internet went poof, and I must say I could have been more productive. I have edited a bit more of the podcast episode #4, even though I still do not have the other side of the conversation. I have gone through almost all of the podcasts I had already downloaded. I have gone through a few more boxes. There is not a dirty dish in my place. I have typed up a few things I needed to do. As I mentioned the other day, I will be working the provincial election this coming Tuesday, and really should read my manual, but I haven't had the energy to. I don't recall that it was very easy on the eyes. I did get through the WoW Burning Crusade Behind the Scenes DVD, and now that I am into this audio stuff, I must say the stuff about voice overs was very interesting. Bah, back to try and do something of use.
Recently in Connectivity Category
I am completely overjoyed to be back online. I have 5 solid bars on my wifi signal, and in even better news, I am told they hope to give me access to the other suite over the weekend. I have downloaded a good sized chunk of podcasts, and over 3000 emails on my extra accounts alone, not even touching my main email address yet. I have much to do, many places to go, and many things to get caught up on. I will try to better post in the next day or two.
Well, my Internet connection is working and fully functional... upstairs. Over a Cat5 cable. Sadly, as I am downstairs in a different apartment still, this does little to help me. Apparently in the repeated attempts to actually get someone out to actually install my TV service at my planned apartment, which included repeated mentions of the desire for a home networking kit, no one thought I might actually want a home networking kit, which comes with a wireless router, which would allow me to get online from where I am presently. Go figure.
So now my internet is live in the other suite, I am still netless at the place I am in now, and someone is coming out tomorrow to rectify this situation. I am, though, getting a few concessions on the billing side to make the pain that is this last 3 weeks a little more bearable. I will end up paying nothing for the router install, which for some moronic reason costs $100, for the install alone, not including the router, which is property of MTS. Yeah, it baffles me too. Alas, I have one more day I need to wait to get online. 25 days in the end, if everything works out. Now I am off to work.
Just wanted to pop you all a note and let you know that while at home, I cannot get online, and this may not be solved for up to 3 weeks or longer. I just moved, an entire multi paragraph post itself which I promise to write in the ample amounts of time I have available to me now, and post as soon as I can while at work. No idea yet on how I will get it to you all, maybe a net cafe or something. *shrugs* Overall I am not too displeased about this, as I need to regain perspective on a number of things in my online life, and needed to take a break from much of my online activities to do so anyway.
I only hope my podcast listening doesn't suffer. I do plan to record a few KYR eps where I cover my thoughts on a few of the recent happenings in Azeroth and review the many WoW fiction pieces that I have in my possession. I might even record a CGP or two, especially since I have Wednesday and then Saturday and Sunday off, which gives me ample time and not much to do with it since I am in major limbo in residency. Be well, be wary of viruses and male RPers in female faces, and above all else, keep it real.
As I write this, I have just received my DSL modem, and everything has become completed and setup. There is going to be a change, though. I have just deleted 52 of 54 draft status posts dating back almost a month. I will shortly be deleting all of the news stories I have saved. I will be trying to allocate an hour or two each day to posting stories here, in an effort to cover all of the news stories that need to be mentioned each day, , hoping to avoid the draft post hole I have been getting myself into regularly. As far as stats go, I expect this month to be a write off, as I have not hit the 1000 all month. I hope to change the way I do things around here. Stay tuned.
Hmm, so I have reorganized by my computer, spent all day yesterday out of the house from practically the time I woke up, until I went to sleep, though I did get a few moments online at my parent's place to post a be Back Soon message, and other than cleaning, which I do not have the energy to do right now, I can find nothing to do. I played like 7 straight hours of Warcraft 3, Frozen Throne Expansion(4 of those were the same campaign over and over and still not getting it right), and I have read as much as I could stand of three different books. I figure tomorrow after I go job hunting I will come home and wash every dirty dish in the house, and Tuesday and Wednesday I will do major cleaning and storing. If things go really well, I might get the modem for my DSL sometime Wednesday and Thursday, and then I can actually do stuff online, though that is much dependant on MTS and Canada Post, two companies that you never want to depend on. I will still have no TV, but hopefully soon MTS TV will get put into my area, so I can get that. Bah. Boredom is already setting in.
I woke up a short time ago to find I had no internet or cable TV. A call to my provider a moment ago tell me that my suspicions were correct, that my service has been cut off. They graciously offered to reconnect it if I paid half the current bill, but after the Christmas season(not a lot of hours worked plus added bills) I had not able to pay as much as I would have liked, and half the bill would be a little over $200. This is not possible, obviously, as I am currently unemployed and not in receipt yet of Employment Insurance. Therefore, at this point, the connectivity at my home being in question, I will have to advise this site will likely not be updated too often. I hope this changes soon, and will immediately begin working to find another solution, but in the meantime, I will do my best to stay up to date on the tech news of the day, and keep checking my email as often as possible. Take care.
Guess where I was last night? Right here! I lost my net connection about 2 AM, and until I rebooted my PC about 20 minutes ago for the eighth time since early morning, I had no ability to post. I had hopes, having gotten off work a little early due to low call volume, to get a few blog posts done, but after trying to fly in GTA3, and watching some episodes of Enterprise, I finished it all only to find no connection to do anything with. So, I have 9 posts to get updated, and about 55 minutes til I want to leave for work. Guess what I won't be doing? Yup, posting to the blog is a back seat kind of thing. Sorry folks, but I will have to post when I get home, assuming I have a connection, because late and m really can't be meeting anymore, or me and unemployment will be seeing each other under bad circumstances. See ya later.
Ok, while the rushed BIOS flash may not have helped the specific problem I was having, I did find the solution. The problem, as was suggested, was the fact I had not patched the copy I had of Battlefield 1942, the game that brought about my bringing the computer back to work. Sadly, the settings that the board found all by itself when I booted it up post flash were the same as when I originally got the system, and the problem of rebooting was quick to return. Thankfully, I was able to, upon reboot, clock the RAM down to the safer 133MHz, and go back to normal function. I am back online now, but didn't have time nor patience to blog, but the posts are drafted, and will be posted ASAP. Unfortunately ASAP is looking to be 2-3 days away.
On the upside, I was checking my webalizer stats and as you can see(scroll down a bit) this site has a new record for visitors in a day, and that is 1112, up from 1036 the month before and putting the month so far only a few hundred away from beating last month, on track for 23-25 thousand visitors. Sadly, the server only keeps the stats for 12 months available, and therefore the stats for my first few months are lost, ut I know that 800+ average visitors a day is a lot of visitors for one blog that is not even listed in most people's top 100. That honor is reserved for the likes of scripting.com, boing boing, and evhead. Well, I am off, but I will be sure to toss up something soon.
It is quite possible that I will not be blogging for a day or so, due to the fact I have lent my PC to a coworker for a day or so in order to have it's issues looked into. Right now the consensus lies between a bad stick of RAM and a need for BIOS flash. Either way, I will try very hard to be back online ASAP, with at least a few new bits of info, and hopefully some success in the hardware arena. I see this as a benefit, giving me time to go about my normal business and catch on some offline stuff like cleaning and watching taped TV shows. In the meantime, watch over yourselves, and I will have to severely punish anyone leaving unwanted comments. Take care. [Update: We are tryign as BIOS flash, so hopefully things are good for tonight.]
Ok, so I was gonna blog, but you know what? I can't see my blog. I also can't see :brad:'s, nor Megan's. I pretty much can't see much of anything online, or at least more than half of the stuff I want to see. You know your downtime is bad when you cannot even see Internet Traffic Report to check on the status of the net. I also know it is not only me, nor my ISP, as a friend on MTS is having similar issues, though I am not sure about connection beyond the province. So, I guess I will blog now, and check out the net's liveliness when the net comes back. A quick chat with MaryBeth shows that Seattle can't reach my blog either, but that is all she could check quick.
For now, I am happy to read some sites, snag some music from a decent enough stream, and go through the nearly gigabyte of data I have captured, though I have yet to capture one song I really one, Travelling Soldier by The Dixie Chicks. I have found that to be a good song, one not drowned by a lot of background noise and so forth. It is a good song in the sea of Shania, Shania and more Shania. Can ya tell I am not anything close to a fan? they went from over-hyping the first video back, I'm gonna getcha, to over-hyping that and Up, the new video. What's worse, the usually play both of those at least once an hour. What a waste!
Now for something that fee blogging tools can fix. I was just trying to watch a little TV while catching up on the significant stories of the day, and I noticed I was away in IM. Well, I moved the mouse, which brought me back online, but it should have popped up an alert that I was back, as I added myself to MSN and set an alert so I would know when I went offline in tough times. Well, no such alert came. So I opened up Trillian, and noticed all of my clients except Yahoo were offline. Very odd. I glanced over at my modem, and the lights weren't showing an error, still aren't, but they weren't overflowing with packets either. No error, not bing bombed offline like Denny and John from work, or at least my modem doesn't show it. Very, truly, odd.
So I turned off my video tape I was watching, and the VCR is still getting a signal, which shows that the service was not disconnected. A quick switch to Digital shows it is still working quite well. Grr. So, I have no idea what the hell is wrong here, but it is truly frustrating. Nothing is going out, and I can find no tools on my computer to capture anything on the way in. Well, it appears that releasing and renewing the IP solved it at least for now. Now, pardon me while I go out and look at a few packet capture tools to ensure I am not stuck with this situation again. Ethereal should be able to sniff well enough, a good Unix tool brought to Windows, now, to packet capture so I can perhaps be alerted when a flood begins and I can find the source and try to disable it. Off for now.
Ok, so I had decided to look into DSL through the local phone company, the legalized monopoly MTS, who has a really neat deal for a digital camera, as long as you keep the service for at least 3 months. Seeing the problems I have had with Shaw as of late, I also wanted to see how reliable and fast their service is, maybe by shotgunning the two forms of connection. Well, I just tried to check out their service, and then sign up, but found a slight issue. It seems that while the internet arm and phone service arm are supposed to be separate, they clearly aren't as their is no option for sign up for service with no phone already working. I will try to contact MTS Advanced(the internet side) and see what's up, but I have no hopes that it will go well. Damn. I needed that camera!
Well, after disconnection from move, followed by disconnection de to travel, followed by disconnection due to connectivity problems, I am getting closer to 0 new messages in my inbox. Oh, I have read all the site comments and other emails, but there are two folders that regularly pile up the unread messages, those are the Geeks list, and the Lockergnome newsletters. When I got back from the show, the folders had 800+ in the Geeks folder that were unread, and I worked through some of those while offline for 5 days, but was hit with nearly as many when I got back online. I had about 70 in the gnome folder, but have whittled it down to 50 now, thankfully.
Sweet internet. If I weren't so tired I likely would have thanked the Shaw guy more profusely, but I am just happy to be back, and with so little fanfare and fuss like the last few times. It is a sweet site to see the modem blinking form activity and not from error. I have just tossed up a couple blog entries made shortly after returning home yesterday, though I am sad to report that between work and GeekMeltdown writing I have a few days, the first in a very long time, with not one post. 3 days in one month this has occurred. I have not before been so bad a blogger, but recovering from Gnomedex has taken more then I thought it would. More after my morning cup of Dew.
Well, there goes my hopes of getting online right around noon. It is nearly 2 PM and I have not heard a word from Shaw rep's, neither have my parent's. Their home phone is forwarded to one of their cell's, and my cell is on, with my cordless phone plugged into the phone jack, powered up, and I tested to make sure it works. I hope they didn't forget to put me in for today, as I have not checked, but it wouldn't be the first time, and I want to get online today damnit! Maybe I should call and check on that. whew~ That was tense for a few minutes while she checked. Yup, I am scheduled to have an installer stop by today, between noon and four, which gives them 2 more hours to get here and get the job done. I am going to see about getting a NIC or two for CodeMeister, so he can act as a router for an internal network, and get them to either staple or tape down the length of coax cable that runs across the path to the kitchen. I am paying $20 for this visit, I expect to have all my cable needs met for that price.
Well, in a little over 12 hours I expect to post these 11 or more posts, not from my mother's via sneakernet, but from RivenDell himself, once again net connected. Yup, The Shaw tech should be here sometime tomorrow around noon to connect my cable modem, and make sure it actually works right. I have been offline since July 26th, and when I go to bed tonight it will be exactly 14 days. 2 weeks. That may not sound like a lot to most, but for someone like me who's major parts of life are online, and who went crazy at 10 days offline intermixed by increasing frustration that was only resolved momentarily by the fact I could use the computers at JobWORKS, 14 days is an incredible aggravation. The nearest unrestricted computer is at my parent's, and is limited on use time. I will be really happy to be able to finally use my computer, with my settings, and chat with my friends without all the BS that I have to go through at my parent's of looking up URL's and webmail interface mail browsing.
I think I will be the first on the list, which will make my visit around 11 or 12, and hookup completion around 12:30-1 PM, assuming all goes right, but I have hopefully worked everything just right to make sure there is no chance that they cannot get a hold of me and get my net hooked up. My mother keeps telling me that since I have TV it should be enough to occupy my time, and if it were a month or two from now, that might just be right, but now it is a major pain, since all the shows I watch religiously except a small number of shows are in weeks of reruns. This makes the nice fact of having the digital cable already hooked up not as cool and useful. Unfortunately the one thing I was really hoping to get done for today, figuring out the cell phone deal through IDC, never got done, as while I left my cell at home, and on, there were no calls to it, as it tells me that I missed a call, and the number of calls missed, and there were none on the display. Hopefully this can be worked out by Monday or Tuesday.
Well, after removal of Spam and CNN emails, the count in my geeksworld.net account is sitting at about 430, but since the server said only one email had come in for today I think I have been suspended from the geeks list. Either way, this is significantly less email then I had last time I got knocked off line, with thousands over a mere week and a half. I have already read some of the posts to the list, and found very few messages in my geekblog.net account, therefore requiring little time. I have noticed the usual round of list subscription reminders put out by Mailman monthly, and other riff raff that can be deleted if not read right away. Overall, the mail situation is much better then I assumed it would be by now, and look forward to getting back online in a week.
As you may know, when I was offline for 10 days back a few months ago for a bad modem, there was thousands of emails waiting when I got back online. Right now, one weekend offline, I have 200 waiting, but I expect that a busy week on the Geek's list will easily make those numbers balloon quickly. From when I shut off my computer on Friday, until I get back online(assuming the 10th as my reconnect date), it will be 15 days. 4000+ after 10 could realistically mean more then 6000 waiting when I get back online. Hmm. I guess I know what I will be doing between the 10th and Gnomedex, reading mail. I am being smart and going through all of my mail boxes(or at least the two major ones) and removing the Spam and other junk I don't find critical, like the InfoWorld and CNN newsletters. Oddly, the only email in my Geekblog.net account that was not Spam was one from Lockergnome, and yes, those are being kept.
I counted about 175 or so Geeks list posts, and one or two nice emails, including the one from the press, as well as 3 or 4 LG newsletters in the Geeksworld.net account. I think one or two days into the week will show how the email count will go, and by the funeral I will know for sure what to expect when the modem starts going solid green. I hope to have a reply in the mail box tomorrow from the reporter, which I will have to remember the name of the reporter when I get home tomorrow, and maybe a good news piece as well. At that, I need to get to bed, as I need to be up at 7:30-8 AM. Have a good net... err night.
I hate it. I cannot use it. I absolutely despise it. I will not use DSL at home! I was at my mother's place, using her MTS DSL connection(Shaw isn't in the building, and won't be for over a year) and I must say that if it was the net connection, not the old install and Celeron processor, DSL truly sucks. It stays connected now, but unfortunately it sucks as far as speed goes. I tried to blog and read a few of my big ones(:mike:, :jim:, and :brad: primarily) and it was slow as runny shit in January(ok, not the most pleasant thought, I am sure, but you get the drift). Because of that I am back tomorrow night attempting to finish off my postings, and catch up on email. I think Monday and Wednesday are the only days where getting online will be a major difficulty, but I am sure my parents don't want me over there every night, especially after the revelation tonight, but more on that in a moment. I will try to post as often as I can.
No, I am not back, but I am not going to be able to make all the posts I was hoping to tonight. Essentially, I am offline until the 10th, or so, and will try to blog as much as I can with the computer at home, and move them by sneaker met to here, my parents, to post them. At this rate I hope to be back up to speed by the end of the week or so. had a chance to blog new posts much today as I was working for the guy who moved me on Saturday all day today. To sum up things, I got an email from a Free Press writer who wants to write on blogging, and she wants my help, though I am not sure on what. I will give you more info on that when I have it. I gotta burn a CD, then head out, so I will talk to you all later. Night, and good net.
Well, I just heard from my mother, and I found out that Shaw was here earlier, not sure what time, but couldn't find the buzz code for me, called my parents but they were away at garage sales, so this means that the magical visitors that were in effect last spring or so when the net at my place was down because of a bad modem, so if you read this, that means I have a little bit of time to try to find the $80 I need to get back online, since I need to find out how to get a replacement ticket for the one I lost during the move(I have unpacked all the boxes and can't find the ticket, it must have been lost in garbage cleanup at some point)[Update: I found it! I found it! It was stuck to a package of loose leaf paper!] and I want to be back to blogging. If anyone out there knows how I can scrounge up $80 quickly, please let me know.
I am sorry if any blog messages have been left, and please don't be offended if it takes a lot longer then usual for me to reply to emails and comments, but you know how it goes. I sadly don't even have dialup to use, like some of those who find their broadband down temporarily. I mean yes, 56K or less is bad, but I would be able to at least blog and download email every hour or two. Of course, even if I had an account and a modem, I have no phone line so that puts it to no use at all. I hope to hit my parents tomorrow afternoon, if my mother doesn't go to work, or Tuesday night if she does. I am still prepping for the funeral, which is still unknown as for the date and time, and I have also got almost all the stuff unpacked, with only my suitcase that had clothes and a few other things, that I haven't found a spot for, but there are a few piles of things I need to go through before I can be happy that it is done.
You know, when you have no net access, especially someone like me who has such a huge part of life online, it is amazing trying to find ways to occupy your downtime when you would normally be surfing, chatting and blogging. I am watching the Blue Bombers game, where the Bombers had a horrid first quarter, with three touchdowns and an extra point for the Alouettes, but the second quarter has shown a great difference in play, with the bomber realizing they can't play the same game they have in the first few games of the season, and improvising. The score at the half time is 22-16 for the Alouettes, and the Bombers fighting back. Congrats to both Quarterbacks, either way, as Khari Jones is a new father, while Anthony Cavillo is a newlywed.
Well, Mike, I have found a time when neither Moveable Type nor Blogger will save a post. That is when your net connection dies, freezing your computer for a significant period of time forcing a reboot thus losing a quad paragraph post on the annoyances and pleasures of Red Hat 7.3 and KDE 3.0 including a comprehensive, well researched reply to a comment by a visitor. Can I unlearn this please? I'm begging ya!
Thus, I will attempt to recreate a well written, perfectly researched post from simply my memory which has since been overwritten like the pixels that post once was. Actually, no, I won't even try. I know I can't do it. Damn, I do hate to lose something so valuable. Basically, nf0, I can't figure out how to change the color depth without going into Xconfigurator, which I don't want to do as it took a reinstall just to get a GUI interface, and I would rather not go through that torturous process again.
I hope that none of you take anything from this horror of an install land operation. I assure you, this is not and will not be typical of every installation. I have used bit and pieces hardware, and built a bad system to try this out on until I have what I need to get my main workstation to take another or a bigger hard drive, allowing me to dual or triple boot from my Dell.
Most installs, I am sure, will be very simple and well done. Mine is simply torturous because of the system I choose. I have no doubt that when I do a fresh install onto my Dell things will go smoothly and I will have hardly a problem to report(other them "how the hell do I get my OE 5 address book and messages into Evolution?" which I already have) and only great things. Unfortunately, for right now, I am stuck with what I have and have no option but to use what I given. Soon. I promise to you and myself, soon this will be done with.
Finally! The Geek has come back to the Internet! Ok, enough of the WWF lines, but I am sure as hell glad to be back. The new modem has a lot more oomph to it, size and power wise. Sadly the new one has the same original problem I had with the Surfboard. Unable to renew the IP lease without reboot. The technician told me the problem is with Windows 2000, but I had no such problem with the second modem, while it was alive. Hmm. Either way, I am just happy to be back online. Now, for the 2500+ list posts to deal with...
