When I got home from work today, Doris and clan were still around having tea with our lot, which was a pleasant surprise – apparently a good time had already been had by all visiting the Zoology museum, chatting and taking part in a study on child development (just our lot) – the Zoology museum was handy for the bit of the university doing the child development work which was handy as we’d managed to double book things. Thanks Doris et al for being flexible about this!
I half unpacked the mail order box I’d brought home from work while the hordes ate, but due to some urgent interruption or other didn’t finish it. (It would be nice to have an increased percentage of jobs that get finished in one go, but I think that’s known as having retired.) The next time I went back to the box J had completely unpacked it in a random, fling it around the room, kind of way as he obviously wanted to turn it into a time machine. It now has a detachable control that looks a bit like a speedometer, labelled “Romans”, “Other” and “Home 2006”. Guess who likes reading daddy’s old Calvin and Hobbes books?
This is the first bit of web stuff (and first post) done via the new broadband provider and our computer. I’ve previously cheated and used the new broadband with my laptop temporarily home from work, but this proper set-up involves a looooong extension lead between the micro-filter and the modem – and it works! The furniture shuffling to get the extension lead in place wasn’t too painful, so I know that if my current job comes to naught I could always try pulling cable for a living. Yes, I know we could have gone for wireless, but life’s too short to worry about securing the thing and we haven’t had noticeably diminished lives through not being able to check email on the loo.
Nice conversation with K while getting him ready for bed about echoes, ultrasound, bats and aeroplanes’ radar.
Can’t say as I’ve ever felt the need to check email on the loo, and I found securing the wireless remarkably painless (Tim did it 😉 )
Oooh, you haven’t lived if you haven’t bog blogged 😀 (JOKE)
The whole thing about wireless security is much over done anyway – the worst youa re likley to get is someone piggy backing on your broadband connection.
If you want to hack a computer there are easier ways to do it than wander the streets trying to find an open access point. And yeah, the wirless encyption can be cracked, but again, there are easier ways. We have. Though it’s not hard setting it up, but it’s a pain when it decides to go a bit flakey (the wrong colour shirt thing)
No never checked email on the loo, but handy for being able to plonk the laptop down in the lictehn, sitting room, or where ever and not ahve to run cables all over the place.
Giggle – we encrypted ours when we realised we could see 3 other networks around us. 2 of the 4 are now encrypted, the other two are still open, which is handy for times like when the Clarkes visited and Sarah’s Mac couldn’t get onto our network at all 😉
We’ve got two pc’s in the room with the router, so they’d be ok, then three more upstairs. And C needs somewhere quiet to take his laptop if he’s working from home. Our xbox is on the network as well, and of course, the 2 Nintendo DS’s can see the world via it too. Think that much cabling would drive me mental!
But very glad it works for you, and will probably carry on working even if you look at it the wrong way!
Ho hum – I forgot about the common pride/fall combination. Outgoing email didn’t work for AGES – v. frustrating for Katy and then for me trying to get it to work. Finally got it sorted – hurrah!
Lorks Alison – sounds like you need to employ a full-time sysadmin (warning: rude words), and have a small power station in the back garden. You know the answer to wireless networks and security: kittens. Yes, wired networking is reasonably resistant to wearing the wrong shirt, looking at it the wrong way, coughing in the wrong way etc.