Network
posted in Computers, Internet, NaBloPoMo, Work |“I’m as mad as hell, and I can’t take it anymore!”
Ahem.
What prompts this, you may ask.
This morning, after doing my exercise routine and showering, I sat down at the keyboard and started my telecommute sign-in process. First, sign onto the VPN (virtual private network). Next, start up the Remote Desktop Connection. Then comes Outlook and, finally, Microsoft Communicator–the corporate kin of Microsoft Messenger, which requires a log-in to the campus network.
At which point, Remote Desktop bings and tells me it couldn’t connect.
So I try it again, and start reading my e-mail.
Then Remote Desktop bings again, telling me it can’t connect.
So I try it again, and keep it up. This time, I get through to my “your password expires in three days” message, click on “no” to changing it, and go back to my e-mail.
Then Microsoft Communicator bings at me.
Then Remote Desktop craps out again.
Then Outlook shows a little message that says it’s “trying to connect…”
I snarl. I send a message to my co-worker, saying there’s a problem with the network. I finish reading an e-mail. Microsoft Communicator politely informs me that it was unable to deliver my message. I snarl again, and disconnect the VPN, to see if the problem is with that…I pull up my browser, try connecting to my blog, and sit and wait. It brings up the main article, but not the sidebars. The little whirly circle keeps whirling.
I reboot.
I pull up the browser again. Same thing.
At which point it became obvious that I had to pull myself together and attack The Unholy Mess of Wiring behind the TV upstairs.
The Unholy Mess of Wiring is hidden behind an end table that has the TV on it, sitting in the corner of the living room. The dotter has long since appropriated this area for her…um…let’s call it a “creativity corner”. Every once in a while the unsightly heap of scrids and scrads of paper, various small toys, pictures, beads, markers, and what not overflowing the table, the wiring, the carpet becomes too much for me, and I corral the dotter into cleaning it up. It invariably turns into a Horrible Chore that takes forever.
This time, I was on my own. This time, I went through the whole area from top to bottom. I threw out a half a garbage bag of scrids and scrads (no toys), some loose beads, string, wrappers, the backing from old stickers–you name it, it was there. Then I pulled the table out from the corner. I swept. I windexed. I re-arranged. I got some clear tape and a Sharpie marker, located twisty-ties in the Anything Drawer, pulled out a variety of power cords from various techno-boxes, and started de-tangling, identifying, organizing, and tidying up the strands of cords and wiring.
The whole affair, from start to end (with a break in the middle for some bagels and cream cheese), took four hours and twenty minutes.
The network works again. I was unable to figure out what the problem was, but it works again.
I now know which cord goes to which box. All the cords are labeled. The extension cord is secured in a nice small bundle. The various cords are no longer a knotty maze, but easy to follow from electrical outlet to box.
But what a bloody pain in the butt it was. Grrr.
