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Internet Enabled?
Well… sort of.
It’s been a long process getting the internet enabled in our new flat. Battles with AOL (getting them to relinquish control over the broadband on our phone line), BT (getting them to put their own flag on their own line) and then getting the Broadband Hub and Phone and everything in and working.
Still, it’s all there now.
Chris and I have, this time, decided to go wireless. This is mainly because the size of the flat means we’d need an entire IT department’s output of cabling and besides, the technology’s matured a bit now and I feel confident about setting it up and securing it etc.
First task: wireless adaptors for the PCs. My new all-singing all-dancing Dual Core 64 bit Vista powerhouse hasa warranty forbidding me opening it up so I thought “external will be fine” and Chris and I went and got some adaptors to plug into USB ports.
Only of course, the ones we got didn’t work with Vista so only Chris could use it. More interstingly the ones we got didn’t exist according to the Philips website so updated drivers for Vista seemed a bit unlikely somehow. Twenty quid down the drain but hey.
So after much research and cross-checking I finally realised that actually the only truly 100% natively Vista compatible way to get wireless networking was to buy an internal card and screw the warranty (another twenty-five quid down the drain, but hey). I duly got one which all documentation says works with Vista 64-bit editions and yesterday morning opened up the PC to slot it in a PCI expansion slot.
Only to discover there weren’t any left. The PC people had given me a motherboard with two slots. And promptly filled them with sound-card and additional USB-port card. Admittedly I had asked for these items, but it was galling to find that there was no room to add anything else.
So I spent some time yesterday morning researching the possibilities and found that Amazon could provie me with a compatible motherboard for my chipset with four slots instead (leaving me one more if I need it later) and that is on its way now (hopefully I should get it in the next forty-five minutes).
But of course all this means that I have, effectively, now got to build the PC again with all the components. Now, since I wanted a custom PC that someone else had to go through the trouble of putting together, that means I’m currently a bit irked.
I suppose it proves that if you want something doing, you should always do it yourself.
But in any case… bugger. (And it’s at least another £70 down the drain. But hey.)
Posted on July 20, 2007 | Filed Under Battles with Technology, My So-Called Life
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