I’ve spent a good bit of the morning struggling with my office network. I diagnosed the problem, correctly as it turned out, as being that my wireless router had died. It turned out to be well nigh impossible to get a replacement with specs as good as the one it was replacing so I replaced my router with its little brother, configured it properly, and now I’m back (nearly) as good as new. I’ve got the next step up from my original router on order and it should be here in a couple of days.
So far in dealing with all of this I’ve run into the following modern frustrations:
- So much of our communications is tied up with Internet communications. Forget the telephone. My clients don’t call me, they email me. When your Internet connection is down you’ve lost your email, web connection, and so on.
- Computer equipment is really not very reliable any more.
- Unless you’ve got an extremely expensive Internet connection, say a true T-1 or a T-3, Internet connections are not very reliable any more, either.
- Nearly everybody’s tech support is useless these days.
- The mass computer distributors have driven practically everybody else out of business. When one of the mass computer distributors bellies up, it really creates a vacuum. Online is practically your only alternative. And, of course, you can’t get online when your equipment fails.
I honestly don’t know how most people get by. When my replacement arrives, I’ll put what I’m using now on the shelf as a spare.
In the deal business just a few short years ago you could do a mark of a contract, send it by FedEx, and discuss in a day or two. This gave you time to think.
Then came faxing. “I’ll fax the change pages to you. As soon as the fax room delivers them let’s talk, say in a couple hours?”
Now? Hold on, (click) I just emailed it. Got it? Good, open it. Now let’s talk about our thoughts on the reps and warranties………
My computer works fine. On those rare occasions when it doesn’t I drive it over to the nearest mall and generally have it fixed within an hour.
But of course I use a Mac.
I have ten computers, networked, running multiple different operating systems plus a half dozen networked printers. Most currently used systems are running either Windows XP Pro or Linux. My problems generally aren’t software problems or even workstation hardware problems. Although I do have one workstation that I think inhaled too much drywall dust.