OK, this is not a good shot of it. But this piece of equipment cost me the better part of 2 hours (maybe more) in trying to get my internet running with a faster interface unit. If I had known what I was about to get into, I might have said: "To Hell With It!" and waited until I got back from my trip.
But first....
I spent much of the day as Mario, simply because the co-op's board meeting was to be held thins evening, and I was in charge of the Zoom link. It didn't make much sense for me to go out as Marian, especially when I wasn't going to have enough time to enjoy myself before the meeting.
Around 4 pm, I started to work on switching over from the old cable interface box to a new one, and this is where the trouble began. Given that the new unit was not registered to my account, I would have to call the cable company for technical support. Unfortunately their IVR ("Intelligent" Voice Response) got me hung up in the wrong part of a diagnostic loop and wanted to have a service technician come to my house to fix the problem. Given that I knew that the problem could be fixed remotely, I stumbled into the opportunity to reach out to a human for help - and was on the phone for over an hour. But this wasn't the end to my troubles. Although I got my main computer up and running with a wireless connection (I prefer wired connections to some hardware) I couldn't get anything else running with a wired connection, as the old router no longer worked. This meant that I was stuck having to use a new wireless network name, and this triggered more work for me.
The next task I started was to get my Roku devices up and running. This was a minor headache, as all I had to do was find the network and enter the password. Next, I had to configure both my Chromebook and my laptop to use the new network. And this was a little bit more of a pain than I expected. But then, the fun began. I wanted to set up the wireless connection to my all-in-one printer/scanner/copier. Given that the machine is a little bit old, I had to use an awkward setup routine to enter in both the network name and its password. This also meant that I had to get up on a stool to use the controls on the machine to enter this data. Aargh! One slip, and I'd have broken my neck.
For the most part, connecting to the new network is done. Yes, I have to update settings on both my iPad and my cellphones to use the new network. But this is a lower priority than just getting the important stuff up and running.
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I did a little packing today for my upcoming vacation. There's still a lot that has to be done. But I'll do the bulk of this tomorrow, as this will be the last, best chance to get this done before I go down to RQS's place....
