Thirty-Seven Days

One PC Down, One PC To Go


Hallelujah, the initial siege is over with.

I’m embarrassed to say that, after over a month of praying, chanting, meditating, fasting, begging, pleading, and even tap dancing, I once again have a two computer network rather than a one computer network.

You understand what I’m saying here, don’t you?

Not to be a snob, but a home wireless network with only one computer hanging off of it is what we used to call just a…

PERSONAL COMPUTER.

That’s right, for the past month we were operating a single notebook computer in a docking station using the wireless router. I didn’t see us as having a true “network” just because we weren’t running around with a CAT5 cable hanging out of our ear or our rear end (of the computer.)

In my mind you can only have a real computer “network” when you’re running at least two PC’s connected together with string or bailing wire or coax or SOMETHING…thereby sharing common resources like printers and internet connections.

My poor Dell Latitude and I had been relegated during business hours to living alone in the living room, deaf, and mute to the outside world. I think that I know now how Tom Hanks felt about his soccer ball “Wilson” while playing the role of Chuck Noland in the movie Cast Away.


Fortunately, that situation is all over with because, as I said before, yesterday morning we were once again a networked family.


It was embarrassingly easy.



After over a month of fooling around with DHCP, IP addresses, subnet masks, burning incense, and cloning MAC addresses, it came down to a fairly simple step…because all I had to do was completely UNINSTALL the LinkSys wireless network card in said notebook PC and reinstall the supporting software from scratch.

Now you might say “Gosh, Virgil…aren’t you supposed to be some kind of self-proclaimed Rocket Scientist?”

“Why did it take you so long?”

YES, darn it, I AM a SELF-PROCLAIMED ROCKET SCIENTIST, but because I use the “File Pile” form of information storage, and because the installation CD Rom containing the necessary software to accomplish the task was lost in a pile of manila file folders somewhere in our home office, and since my old Dell doesn’t have a CAT5 adapter, I was unable to reinstall the software, UNTIL...

I found the delinquent CD yesterday morning.

Hurrrrraaaayyy!!!!!

I was like a kid on Christmas morning.

I leapt from my office, ran wildly to my besieged machine resting on the end table in the living room, fired it up, tossed in the CD Rom, and within 15 minutes I was in ecstasy.

I HAD INTERNET AGAIN.

Wireless internet.

Then my celebration was abruptly ended because I had to leave the condo to go to the theater to do some construction on the set as I had promised. I spent yesterday longing for some interaction with my beloved Wilson Dell.

As a result of this minor triumph, now I can get back to the original task that I started on December 13th last year, adding a third computer to the wireless network—a desktop belonging to my 85 year old neighbor, Mr. Harland “Bucky” Strader (Dartmouth Class of ‘42.) Bucky is still paying AOL $23 per month for the privilege of going on line once a week to check a few stock prices and to read some E-mail from his family.

For some strange reason, probably coincidental, my trouble started in the middle of authorizing his machine to access our wireless network and I was afraid to continue his installation until I figured out what was causing our problems.

I am SO happy to be back on line with at least two machines. Now it’s on to new adventures…

Have you ever tried to teach a guy that was born before Henry Ford started building the Model A how to use a PC and a mouse?

In Bucky’s own words: “fun and games…”