If there were ever a period of time where technology drove me away, it would be the past few weeks.
Story 1)
Mid June - bad cable reception, digital TV starbusrt/pixeling, slow internet. (.6kbps - 1.2mbps during bad times)
Call my provider. 2 missed appointments, one involving missing a July 5th cookout, 3 appointments later where tech actually arrives, several 'tense' discussions with tier 1 account reps offering little money who can only track when I called, not when I used "live online chat", I post to dslreports.com "ISP direct" area... get escalated.
Escalation is honest with me. I have two voicemails over 3 days of 2 different agents telling me, in simplest terms, my ISP oversold to my area.
Tech manager contacts me today. Says same thing, but with more info. Long term fix coming in September (new fiber/head end) That's only the head end plan. Will take another month to get rewired. So, I figure that actually means November for new head end, January for new rewire. Short term, not so sure, thew hope to have me on a new node split or just new node within a few weeks. Just speed tested. 1215am my time. 4mbps. I pay for 6, used to get 8, 25 on powerboost. /me is sad.
Story 2) Tuesday 7/20
I'm doing a speedtest. Hit speedtest dot com using IE8. (I think that's what did it, not sure, not testing again). It has several banner ads. One never loads. So I think. I go on working other web projects. Close IE. Few minutes later, starting hearing the tell tale signs of links being clicked. The link sound of IE8. Odd. I'm in Firefox. Check my task manager processes. Two iexplorer processes. I end task all on them. No go. They come back. Rather than spend time using process explorer to find what's running them, I restart and attempt safe mode.
Blue screen. No matter what mode. Hex code error is too generic for google (hey, I have other computers to use for such research reasons.)
Even Ultimate Boot CD for Windows (basically, BartPE/Windows PE) utilties find no culprit.
I end up having to reformat/reinstall my C drive. Though I keep 95% of my data backed up, it's still a pain re-registering all the apps I use.
I just this morning got Windows re-installed. Several days delay due to 1) trying to fix without reimage 2)UBCD4Win takes 5-10 minutes to boot. 3) Inlaws visting day of 7/23 - See story 3.
Story 3) Wednesday 7/21
Inlaws stopping by on way to other relatives. Using us as hotel. They're staying longer next week on way back home.
Since I'm taking off half day anyway, I contacted tv/internet provider Monday to ask for 3rd visit to show it's not fixed after previous two tech visits, that resulted in "maintenance" special orders, one of which actually made it worse (Per story 1, I find out I'm put on a worse node after visit 2)
While tech is visiting, inlaws arrive. Tech does some wire juggling (we've not heard it's capacity yet, that call comes to work while I'm AT HOME that day), tries speed out at tap. 15mbps. (It's 330pm afternoon... no one is home to slow things down). Intermittent test plagues me again.
Tech leaves feeling great about his job well done.
Big storm rolls through. Mother in law napping. father in law and I enjoying sound of rain, fresh air out on covered porch. Watching the light show.
*crack* *BOOOM* Purple flash. Blue retina burn. We believe house 2 houses down got struck on it's outer edges. My neighbor 1 house down has external HD antenna on same side. I go running to my neighbor to make sure he's ok. No smoke. I've not spoken to him since, but nothing noticable at the time.
Later that evening, I try speed test from NOC. (I'd left netbook connected straight to modem to rule out (humoring tech) my own personal equipment causing issues. After speed test comes up 1.9mbps @ 7pm, I go to reconnecting everything to my 8 port managed switch.
Go back to my room. Wife goes back to hers.
No network. Yes, I've restarted both modem and router.
Go back to NOC. Dead switch. No power LED, only 4 solid lights on ports 5-8. Hard reset. Same. No connectivity LED on PC ends.
Rewire using 5 port. I connect 4 devices plus upling that I know have gigabit capability back into a 5 port. The rest into the remaing 3 ports of the 100mbps max switch of the router.
That works for now (remember, primary PC still down/UBCD and other Live Cds), but. Wife PC still won't connect.
Find it's NIC dead.
I can't just let it go... she's got a resume she's waited for the last minute to work on to attach to an email and send.
I'm tired. Frustrated. Inlaws are in town. Some surge seems to have fried her PC nic and my reasonably expensive switch.
I give her my ISB drive and point towards her wireless netbook and say "if you can upload fast enough, use that"
Yesterday, found out my 8 port switch is warranted until 2035. (Hey, I can't tell for sure it was lightning. Really, it just stopped working. Everything else tied to surge strip is still working (Router, power adapter for the switch (it's being used in the 5port), modem, server)
For $20, I'm being cross shipped another one (after 30 minutes of going through script monkey motions to have a foreign tech determine what I knew, and most of what I'd already been through to determine, yes, it's dead)
Today, I finally have Windows up and running. I'd backed up most of my personal settings, all of my profile settings.
Just rebuildnig utility/file linking, etc.
Found an old 3com 10/100-tx card in my box of parts. Put it in my wifes machine.
We're all up and running again.
Some weeks just seem to not pay to be in IT.
