Live from my new Internet account!

Hello, cyberspace, from vyrdolak@verizon.net!

It wasn’t a perfectly seamless and easy installation but the wireless complicated things. I am very attached to my wireless network. UPS found the right house and delivered the “Self-Install Kit” at about 4:00 p.m. This was one of those very rare times when I did not pause to ponder the box before opening it! I had to look hard to find the new modem because gods, it’s so tiny! Connecting everything with an ethernet cable wasn’t difficult, even when Fallon, my health insurer, returned my call from last week just as I was trying to get the modem plugged in. I had just connected the phone line with the special filter so he had very good timing. 🙂

Having gotten online and activated my Verizon account, I then got the wireless router from the next room, found its installation disk and started trying to get my wireless access point reset for the new account. That was a bumpier ride, but at least I expected that it would be. The installation disk wasn’t compatible with Windows 7, so I booted up the newest Dell laptop to configure the router. That meant that I soon had three ethernet cables strung all over the place with the laptop balanced precariously atop a stack of books. I got the router configured, and the computers were picking up the network signal just fine, but it wouldn’t connect to the Internet. After trying various options, including a full reset of the router to factory defaults and redoing its whole setup from scratch, I called Verizon support. The router kept saying it couldn’t get an IP address for the Internet connection, and I was sure there was a fix for this.

There was, but it took a long time to get there! After roaming a while in voice mail menu hell, I finally got a live person at Verizon–who transferred me to Linksys tech support (the router and the wireless printer server are both Linksys). I talked with an extremely helpful, female tech support person who stepped me through updating the router’s firmware, which it undeniably needed, but what the problem really turned out to be was that the router and the modem were using the exact same IP address. Well, duh, and I will remember to check that the next time! As soon as we changed the router to a different IP address everything came online. The tech support person and I said good-bye with mutually warm thanks.

I’d had to manually configure the wireless printer server for the new computer because its installation disk wouldn’t work with Windows 7, either, and now I had to change that for the new IP number. I’d found the directions to do that in the Linksys user forums last month, but did I print them out? Of course not! I had to go searching in the forums again to find that post. But as soon as I updated the port configuration everything was printing (including that post in case I need it again!).

Altogether it took about three hours, but that’s it, I’m online and networked with the new DSL Internet! Pig and Teg, the laptops, and the new computer, Sil, are all connected and good to go, and the wireless printer server, as well. I’m just superstitious enough not to burn my bridges for good until the new setup has been running for a couple of days. I may cancel my Net1plus account on Friday (that’s if I can reach anyone over there, *snort*), provided the Verizon account runs smoothly from now on.

Along with that, I’ve been getting the last kinks out of all the e-mail accounts running through Thunderbird, and still unsubscribing or changing e-mail addresses here and there. I have done one little test of Verizon’s speed, though. I downloaded a couple more episodes of True Blood from iTunes. Those had been taking about 28 minutes to download. Now they take about 17 minutes–so that’s how much faster Verizon DSL is over what I had with Net1plus. Which is kind of too bad, because it’s going to be way too easy to spend too much money downloading stuff from iTunes!

Change is good. We like change! I haven’t mentioned this before, but at the same time that I’ve been making all these Internet changes, I’ve been changing all my daily routines around. I’m now staying up until around 5:00 a.m. or later, getting up at noon, and eating my main meal at around 6:00 p.m. The poor cats are so confused, they don’t know what’s going on, and I’m still getting my dietary and workout disciplines settled into a new groove. I’m hoping that I’ll sleep better and be more productive on this schedule, but we’ll see. I’m still too disoriented to fairly assess how well it’s working.