I Partially Rock!

Posted on July 31, 2003    Posted by John Scalzi

Y’all don’t have to call out the animal control; I got my home network up and running. Sort of. Which is to say that I’ve managed to connect two of my computers together, although the third computer, which is the one in Athena’s room, stubbornly refuses find the wireless network. I think it’s connecting to itself, which is sort of sad, in a computer-y sort of way. But I’ll figure that out later.

I also somehow managed to get my Internet connection grafted onto my network (I’m writing this on the laptop downstairs), which is an impressive feat inasmuch as Starband, my satellite ISP, intentionally goes out of its way to defeat your ability to network the connection. It’s because they want you to buy their “Small Business” package, which cost twice as much but allows multiple users. To which I say, Dear Starband: Eat me. Next year I’ll be switching over to the new satellite ISP that will be bundled with Dish Network, which will be twice as fast and will let me network myself silly. So enjoy my money while you can, you difficult, difficult people.

So how did I manage to network my Internet connection? Got me. I just kept fiddling with stuff until it did what I wanted (this required about six system restores). Having now achieved some semblance of what I want my home network to do, I will now proceed never to touch anything on it ever again. I’ll fiddle with Athena’s computer some more, but then again, she’s four. It’s not like she needs to be networked.

Speaking of Athena and her computer, her computer today is a new one, which is to say, my old one, which was a pretty good one until the motherboard fried in its own juices. The nice thing there was that the motherboard was under warranty, so replacing it was free, it just took forever for the motherboard to get here. After upgrading Athena’s computer, I figured I might as well upgrade her desk at well, so I spent part of the morning assembling a student desk for her (her old desk was just a table which was too small for both the keyboard and the trackball at the same time; now that problem is solved.

So I basically spent the day doing two things I totally suck at — assembling things and doing technical stuff — and I managed not to screw either of them up. I partially rock.