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sarcasticwriterAh, Saturday, April 9th, how distant you seem...
Saturday my brother helped me go pick up a "desk," which was actually a super cheap table from Staples with legs that fold down. You've seen them at bake sales and stuff. I figured it might put an end to the ongoing saga known as "Christina's Search for a Desk." Perhaps it waas ugly, but that might be effectively covered with a couple of table clothes (and then, oh, look, storage, too!
My brother very kindly picked me up, and we took his truck over to Staples, where I bought the table, did not by my *sigh* $100 adjustable keyboard mount, and we set up the table in my room. It fits perfectly in the window alcove. However, as it is a cheap piece of crap, it is unlikely that the keyboard tray will stay mounted in the pressboard, and the table shakes slightly when I type. Can you guess what that means? Another trip to some store to find a quality desk. That means no cheap desks.
Remember that fight I had with my parents a few days ago on this very subject? About how I had to buy a fairly good quality desk, for any number of the reasons listed? And my parents freaked out about my planning to spend about $100 for something, anything? (Did I even write about that? I don't remember now). You can almost say it with me by this point, I think. I don't argue out of ego, I argue because I am usually right (as I was in this particular case. You get what you pay for. Always.).
My brother suggested taking the computers down to the local Mom and Pop computer repair place in San Clemente, where he had had his computer fixed a few times. The day before, the guys there had tested my wireless cards on my laptops and concluded that my router was bad, or a setting was bad, or something was bad and I should return it and try something else. They were nice enough to do this for free, rather than charging me $120 to come to the house to set the system up.
Well - enough was enough. I called them and discovered that I could bring in my computers and they would set up the system for me. All I'd need to do was plug everything in and reset the modem at home. This was a half an hour's worth of labor, or $37.50. Since they'd been so good to me before, I figured...hell, I'll give them the business and buy their router, too.
I dropped everything off and wandered away into the strip mall to browse. Half an hour and a chicken pita later, my system was working flawlessly. The signal was encrypted and I had everything explained to me, which the (lame) instruction manuals were not able to do. Like, how hard is it to write, "A WEB encryption password must be exactly 26 letters and/or numbers long, and can be any particular arrangement you want?" All the software I was given insisted on creating keys with a password that you selected and...you don't want to know the hoops the software tried to make one jump through, without explaining in basic English what anything was. Way to set up a secure network.
Also - an extra super special bonus - the guys discovered that I actually had a wireless card in my PC. I felt stupid, but not terribly bad - I bought my comp open box, and somebody had actually gone into the computer and unplugged it, and so the wireless wasn't registering on the hardware utilities. I guess there's no excuse for not remembering that from the purchasing literature, but...frankly...I was sort of thinking about a lot of other things when we were buying the computer. Plus, there was that whole wireless card slot. Why put in a wireless card slot when you already have a wireless card installed? This I do not understand.
Whatever. The point is, for $37.50 I not only got everything working, but I found out that I didn't have to pay $69.98 for a wireless adapter card. The computer guys gave me great instructions on what to do when I got home, and when the Mac balked, I just did what they suggested, and presto! Wireless Internet!
It felt faintly magical, really. Yes, I've used my Airport card to connect to Apple Stores and at Starbucks, and stuff, but somehow being able to get online at home without having to plug anything in, or, better yet, being able to have both computers online at the same time without having to plug anything just felt...special. It made me happy. Too bad I had an insane amount of work looming over me for Sunday.
Saturday my brother helped me go pick up a "desk," which was actually a super cheap table from Staples with legs that fold down. You've seen them at bake sales and stuff. I figured it might put an end to the ongoing saga known as "Christina's Search for a Desk." Perhaps it waas ugly, but that might be effectively covered with a couple of table clothes (and then, oh, look, storage, too!
My brother very kindly picked me up, and we took his truck over to Staples, where I bought the table, did not by my *sigh* $100 adjustable keyboard mount, and we set up the table in my room. It fits perfectly in the window alcove. However, as it is a cheap piece of crap, it is unlikely that the keyboard tray will stay mounted in the pressboard, and the table shakes slightly when I type. Can you guess what that means? Another trip to some store to find a quality desk. That means no cheap desks.
Remember that fight I had with my parents a few days ago on this very subject? About how I had to buy a fairly good quality desk, for any number of the reasons listed? And my parents freaked out about my planning to spend about $100 for something, anything? (Did I even write about that? I don't remember now). You can almost say it with me by this point, I think. I don't argue out of ego, I argue because I am usually right (as I was in this particular case. You get what you pay for. Always.).
My brother suggested taking the computers down to the local Mom and Pop computer repair place in San Clemente, where he had had his computer fixed a few times. The day before, the guys there had tested my wireless cards on my laptops and concluded that my router was bad, or a setting was bad, or something was bad and I should return it and try something else. They were nice enough to do this for free, rather than charging me $120 to come to the house to set the system up.
Well - enough was enough. I called them and discovered that I could bring in my computers and they would set up the system for me. All I'd need to do was plug everything in and reset the modem at home. This was a half an hour's worth of labor, or $37.50. Since they'd been so good to me before, I figured...hell, I'll give them the business and buy their router, too.
I dropped everything off and wandered away into the strip mall to browse. Half an hour and a chicken pita later, my system was working flawlessly. The signal was encrypted and I had everything explained to me, which the (lame) instruction manuals were not able to do. Like, how hard is it to write, "A WEB encryption password must be exactly 26 letters and/or numbers long, and can be any particular arrangement you want?" All the software I was given insisted on creating keys with a password that you selected and...you don't want to know the hoops the software tried to make one jump through, without explaining in basic English what anything was. Way to set up a secure network.
Also - an extra super special bonus - the guys discovered that I actually had a wireless card in my PC. I felt stupid, but not terribly bad - I bought my comp open box, and somebody had actually gone into the computer and unplugged it, and so the wireless wasn't registering on the hardware utilities. I guess there's no excuse for not remembering that from the purchasing literature, but...frankly...I was sort of thinking about a lot of other things when we were buying the computer. Plus, there was that whole wireless card slot. Why put in a wireless card slot when you already have a wireless card installed? This I do not understand.
Whatever. The point is, for $37.50 I not only got everything working, but I found out that I didn't have to pay $69.98 for a wireless adapter card. The computer guys gave me great instructions on what to do when I got home, and when the Mac balked, I just did what they suggested, and presto! Wireless Internet!
It felt faintly magical, really. Yes, I've used my Airport card to connect to Apple Stores and at Starbucks, and stuff, but somehow being able to get online at home without having to plug anything in, or, better yet, being able to have both computers online at the same time without having to plug anything just felt...special. It made me happy. Too bad I had an insane amount of work looming over me for Sunday.
