Wednesday, September 30, 2009

More New Tricks for the Old Dog

In the space of roughly a week my house has gone from bare-minimum computing power to a small network. My wife and both daughters have each acquired a laptop to accompany the hopelessly outclassed family desktop, requiring me to dust off the LinkSys wireless router and hook it back up to my ancient cable modem, which has just been declared obsolete by the cable company. Another relic from my first marriage gone. I shouldn't have been surprised; none of the other computer equipment I purchased at the same time (early 2000) is still being used. I could buy one from them (their prices don't seem too bad - $65 for a DOCSIS 3.0), but I plan on doing a little shopping first.

I am the designated household computer guru despite my education and experience having mostly occurred in the misty past when "portable" computers weighed 40 lbs. and 1200-baud modems were pretty kick-ass. (Although a few years ago when my second wife took a Visual Basic programming course I was happy to discover that I could still write a little code.) Personally I think that a great deal of what computer savvy I do possess is simply due to a willingness to fiddle with them. Many people who claim they lack the smarts to understand computers and other electronics actually just don't have the nerve to try. Of course it's possible those people may just have the good sense to avoid really messing things up, while people like me are the ones who give IT professionals nightmares.

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