geeky ponderances

Today I got e-mail notifying me that my ISP could finally provide DSL to my apartment. This is, overall, pretty good news but it does create some potential complications.

In order to get the cheap rate, we have to order tomorrow. WHat's more, they are no longer offering the free install and setup they were when we initially decided to do this, so now we'll have to pay $100 for the setup, and do a self-install. Here's what makes me nervous:

The professional install takes 3 hours
the self-install supposedly takes 90 minutes
This appears to be because the professional install includes fiddling with the inside wiring. I already know that my phone lines are a disaster. I'm concerned that if I install this stuff myself, it won't work, and I will be without a net connection until I can get the guys in to fix whatever problem is in place, and then I'll have to pay them $150.

At least I won't have to change my e-mail address, and I think I get some amount of free dialup allocated to me so during the time between when I order DSL and when I actually get it, I can still use my old dialup. Of course once the DSL is installed, then we have to get Wyn to come over to help us network mine and my roomie's computers so that we can share the connection. We've got the hub, and we've got more ethernet cable than we could possibly need and if we didn't we could borrow ninety gajillion feet of cable from Wyn. I'm still concerned though, about being without a connection for a long period of time while this is all getting set up and having to go over to a friend's apartment just to check my damn e-mail whilst messages from my 8 mailing list subscriptions pile up. Plus there's the matter of reconfiguring my computer which is NEVER as easy as it should be. Basically, as nice as the connection will be, getting it set up is going to be a big stressful mess. And nothing can be done until roomie starts running Linux again, but if we wait for him to get that set up, we miss the window for the cheap rate. So the net result of all of this might be spending $100 on setup, $40 on a month of DSL, only to find out that we can't actually do it and I need to switch back to dialup. Since they don't support in house networks, they won't refund the money over that.

Blarg. Plus I think the connection goes on roomies computer first so it could be quite some time before I get to reap the benefits of what I am paying for.

geeky ponderances

Today I got e-mail notifying me that my ISP could finally provide DSL to my apartment. This is, overall, pretty good news but it does create some potential complications.

In order to get the cheap rate, we have to order tomorrow. WHat's more, they are no longer offering the free install and setup they were when we initially decided to do this, so now we'll have to pay $100 for the setup, and do a self-install. Here's what makes me nervous:

The professional install takes 3 hours
the self-install supposedly takes 90 minutes
This appears to be because the professional install includes fiddling with the inside wiring. I already know that my phone lines are a disaster. I'm concerned that if I install this stuff myself, it won't work, and I will be without a net connection until I can get the guys in to fix whatever problem is in place, and then I'll have to pay them $150.

At least I won't have to change my e-mail address, and I think I get some amount of free dialup allocated to me so during the time between when I order DSL and when I actually get it, I can still use my old dialup. Of course once the DSL is installed, then we have to get Wyn to come over to help us network mine and my roomie's computers so that we can share the connection. We've got the hub, and we've got more ethernet cable than we could possibly need and if we didn't we could borrow ninety gajillion feet of cable from Wyn. I'm still concerned though, about being without a connection for a long period of time while this is all getting set up and having to go over to a friend's apartment just to check my damn e-mail whilst messages from my 8 mailing list subscriptions pile up. Plus there's the matter of reconfiguring my computer which is NEVER as easy as it should be. Basically, as nice as the connection will be, getting it set up is going to be a big stressful mess. And nothing can be done until roomie starts running Linux again, but if we wait for him to get that set up, we miss the window for the cheap rate. So the net result of all of this might be spending $100 on setup, $40 on a month of DSL, only to find out that we can't actually do it and I need to switch back to dialup. Since they don't support in house networks, they won't refund the money over that.

Blarg. Plus I think the connection goes on roomies computer first so it could be quite some time before I get to reap the benefits of what I am paying for.