Better it than me, of course.  Still, you sometimes have to marvel about the animosity of the inanimate.  Years have passed since I was broke and set to remain so for several months. (OK, so it was pretty much all of 2006, but that is still technically “years”.)  How could it know and time its demise in such a precise way? We shall probably never know until the veil of time is drawn aside, at which point we will presumably be occupied with weightier matters.

Anyway, the computer in question is my main computer at home, TERRA the Quad-core, 1 TB overachiever.  Sometime during the night it had turned itself off.  I turned it on, but after a while it restarted. Then more and more often, until it only took seconds between each restart.  I turned it off, and it would not turn on again. Terra became two years and two weeks old.  Wonder how long the warranty is for these machines? ^_^

In truth, I have no wish to send it off for repairs.   And this is not just because I am worried that the technicians may bypass my passwords and find my (and other people’s) quite private pictures and words, and my bank account information and such, but also because repairs tend to take a really long time, judging from my earlier experiences.  As in months. If I can do without it for months, I will have proven to myself that I don’t actually need that many computers. We can’t have that happen.

So, I intend to repair it myself.  From the symptoms, it is almost certainly the power supply.  I bought it with an extra strong power supply actually, because Oblivion, my most powerful single-core machine, melted down twice (the last time after the company went bust).  I suppose I could repair that too, someday.  But it is more important to fix my best computer ever.  I’ll do it on Someday.  You know the week has eight days, right?  Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Someday.  I’ll order a new power supply next Someday.

In Japan there is a stock expression that is usually translated “A lot of things happened”, but usually it really means “I don’t want to talk about it” or “it is too much to explain” or even sometimes “this is not what it looks like”.

A lot of things happened today, and I did want to tell you all about it. In fact, I did. I made you a long entry, but WordPress ated it.  Right now, I can’t be arsed to write it all over again.  Just take my word for it. A lot of things happened, but they were not THAT significant that I want to write them twice in the same day.

Here is the short list though:  I went to the dentist and got a new high-tech filling instead of the heavy metal filling that fell out last week.  Nobody coughed or sneezed at me either.

Ubuntu Linux 9.10 (the version that came out last month) has amazing support for wireless networks, something that was a bit of a complaint before.  For instance my 3 different brands of USB network connectors did not work on the machine with Xubuntu (a lightweight variant of Ubuntu) but now it works perfectly.  No need to install anything either.  Just plug in, and the computer tells you there are networks.  Pick one, give password, and you’re on.  I don’t see how it can get better unless it also washes your dishes!  And it is still free.

I lost Internet access and dial tone for a while though.  Some guy was working on top a phone pole nearby, but I don’t know if he caused the problem or just came to repair it.

Next month I will discontinue the landline anyway.  I won’t need it anymore.  I have had it for over 20 years, and known it even longer.  It belonged to Supergirl’s family before I got it.  I doubt I could get it with me as far as to Møll though, the first part of the number is actually an area code, although it is more flexible than before.  So it was time to let it go anyway.  I recommend you use e-mail or, failing that, my mobile phone to contact me.   (“Failing that” as in you don’t have a computer anywhere around and you have something urgently important to tell me.)

New router. And hopefully better.

Continued from yesterday.

It was a good thing I had the old D-Link router lying in the cupboard, since otherwise I would have been limited to one computer at a time like other humans.  With the spare router in use, however, I no longer had a spare router.  So I went to the electronics shop today looking for a new one.

I first looked for one of those that send signals through the mains wiring rather than radio waves, but there was none. I guess it is an idea whose time has gone.  But there were several models of both D-Link and Jensen (the one that stopped working was a Jensen. The ones they sell now boast a 20 year warranty.  Perhaps the one I had also had that, but the receipt was no doubt lost in the move is not before.) There was also an even more obscure brand than Jensen, so obscure that I don’t even remember it now.  That’s a pretty strong hint that I did not buy that brand.  In the end, I bought another D-link.  While I liked Jensen better, and they certainly are easier to set up and control, I have a deep distrust in electronics that are on the verge of catching fire even during normal use.  After all, I am descended from thousands of people who did not die in fires, or at least not before passing on their genes.  In this particular regard I would like to follow in their footsteps.

The old D-Link router is remarkably cool.  Mostly in the temperature sense, although the design is also more attractive than the flat square-edged block I’ve grown used to over the years. The new model looks different, unfortunately, even smaller and almost as square, but with pretty green lights in front.  It is also faster in its wireless transfer, although I am not sure if the receiving units on the old computers at least can handle more speed.  The latest laptop probably can, though. One of the attractions of a wireless network is being able to escape the heat in the underground basement with a good laptop and still have access not only to Internet but to all my music and all my documents through the local network.  Although today was not hot enough to warrant hiding in the washer room, such days may soon come again.  It was warmer than yesterday already.

The new router, despite being even smaller and having a stronger signal, is barely lukewarm. I am not too happy about it having a stronger signal either, it being barely a yard away from my brain.  On the other hand, my old PC in the living room now has Very Good signal instead of varying between Low and Very Low, with the occasional No Signal. (And that was with the Jensen.  With the old D-Link there was now no hint that the network even existed.)   Perhaps I should spend more time in the living room now?  It is for the most part cooler too.

I had to change the password of my local network. I suppose I could have just left it open, so any neighbors could benefit from the amazing upgraded capacity as well.  (No reason before to worry about that when I barely had signal in the living room.)  But this is not only a connection of Internet access, but also a local network. While I don’t begrudge my neighbors my music or my anime collection, I would have had to find some way to password protect the folder with sexy pictures of myself and the imaginary girlfriend.  (Just because you’re imaginary does not mean you can’t be sexy. In fact, I suspect the only sexy pictures of me are imaginary too…)

Anyway, the old router goes back to the cupboard, the new router works like a charm, Opera Unite still doesn’t work (but then again it hasn’t after the first few days) and I have to find out again, for the third time, how to make the same hole in all three of the firewalls between my computer and the Internet:  The Windows firewall, the router firewall and the modem firewall. At least there should only be one new unit to learn this time. Whee.

The packaging claims that it also supports Wii, Xbox Live and PS3, so perhaps it also supports the Nintendo DS, which I never got to run before.  Then again the old network supported the PSP, not that I use the PSP except a brief burst a couple times a year.

But right now, I want to be lazy.