Freebie
February 8th 2008 06:28
When I was in England we babysat my niece’s house for nearly a month. They were with us a short part of the time, but most of the month they were in Corfu, or Rhodes, or somewhere where they were getting roasted alive.
I couldn’t use my laptop at their house, as the signal wasn’t strong enough for my mobile connect to pick up. Their broadband isp was BT, so I was able to use their computer to access the Internet and do all my blogging (when my wife would allow) until one day the computer stopped short, never to go again. Well, virtually.
I lie a little when I say it wouldn’t go at all. I could still use the computer, but not the Internet. By this time our hosts were on some sunny shore, so they weren’t much help and I had to get hold of BT themselves to see what could be done, as it was obviously the broadband connection that had gone phut.
I say, obviously, because we checked wiring and connections around the house, and spoke to BT for a long time on the phone while they checked everything all over again. In fact, twice, because I lost the connection to them on one occasion.
Finally they decided to replace the broadband modem. Unfortunately they couldn’t do it by the next day, which is what I somehow expected (England being so much more efficient than NZ, or so I’d assumed), and I had to wait over a weekend before I could get into the blogging again. Disaster.
All was well by the time the hosts got home. And it didn’t cost them a bean, thank goodness.
Talking of which, I see that BT is now offering a free hub to new broadband customers. That means that you can use your laptop in another part of the house and connect to the Net wirelessly. (Of course, you all know this: I’m speaking to the converted here.)
I bought a similar kind of hub the other day so we could do just that: use the laptop in the lounge while running the PC in the office. (And now my daughter, who’s moved back in with us for a time, can run her laptop upstairs as well.) My son told me it would cost me a couple of hundred dollars; I made a call and discovered I could get one for half the price, and surprise, surprise, when my son inspected it some time later, he approved of it. Wonders will never cease.
I couldn’t use my laptop at their house, as the signal wasn’t strong enough for my mobile connect to pick up. Their broadband isp was BT, so I was able to use their computer to access the Internet and do all my blogging (when my wife would allow) until one day the computer stopped short, never to go again. Well, virtually.
I lie a little when I say it wouldn’t go at all. I could still use the computer, but not the Internet. By this time our hosts were on some sunny shore, so they weren’t much help and I had to get hold of BT themselves to see what could be done, as it was obviously the broadband connection that had gone phut.
I say, obviously, because we checked wiring and connections around the house, and spoke to BT for a long time on the phone while they checked everything all over again. In fact, twice, because I lost the connection to them on one occasion.
Finally they decided to replace the broadband modem. Unfortunately they couldn’t do it by the next day, which is what I somehow expected (England being so much more efficient than NZ, or so I’d assumed), and I had to wait over a weekend before I could get into the blogging again. Disaster.
All was well by the time the hosts got home. And it didn’t cost them a bean, thank goodness.
Talking of which, I see that BT is now offering a free hub to new broadband customers. That means that you can use your laptop in another part of the house and connect to the Net wirelessly. (Of course, you all know this: I’m speaking to the converted here.)
This is a picture of my hub, not the BT one.
I bought a similar kind of hub the other day so we could do just that: use the laptop in the lounge while running the PC in the office. (And now my daughter, who’s moved back in with us for a time, can run her laptop upstairs as well.) My son told me it would cost me a couple of hundred dollars; I made a call and discovered I could get one for half the price, and surprise, surprise, when my son inspected it some time later, he approved of it. Wonders will never cease.
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