The Tucker Stories

Let me start by saying that my life is not ANYWHERE as bad as this sorry lot, however, yesterday was truly a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.  Beware:  What follows is Computer Geek hell.  Don’t follow unless you understand the OSI model, have nothing better to do or need a nap!!It started off with the Intarwebz being so slow.  I’m paying for 10Mbps but usually get above 20Mbps, as seen here.  However, after a couple of days connecting at 0.44Mbps or slower, I had to call the ISP.  In The Netherlands, you have to pay 10 Euro cents per minute for the privilege of deciphering the verbal menu to then hold for the next available operator.  Fine.  Seven attempts at getting to the correct menu item later, the tech tells me that the connectivity lag is on my side of the network.  Of course.  I had thought about using the Cisco 1751 I’ve got sitting around as the core router, however, Windows 7 doesn’t ship with hyperterminal, thus leaving me no way to connect to the 1751 via the AUX port!!  I then tried to test the connection from my computer, using the alternate NIC, and that wasn’t working either.  After testing another cable for continuity to ensure it was good (gotta love that Physical Layer!!) and figuring out that my second NIC is bad, I ended up using Kelly’s computer instead.  I then sorted through the different bits of networking kit I have and found out that, sure enough, the Linksys BEFSX41 firewall router had finally quit.  After a quick run down to the MediaMart, or Europe’s more successful Circuit City clone, everything’s up and running.  Finally.  Only about four or five hours of IT joy.  Except that now one of my headless boxes has a cooling fan bearing screaming away!!  In my rush to figure out which server, which fan, I jam the USB connector for the headphones on my main computer, snapping it completely off!!  I said a couple of mean words that my mother wouldn’t like to hear and decide that my  work here is complete.  Time for me to sail away with Captain Morgan!!!

I’m thinking of moving to Australia but Kelly says that they have bad days, too.

This entry was posted on Friday, February 12th, 2010 at 3:54 pm and is filed under IT world. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.