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How to Handle an Internet Outage
canadian_right writes "Do you know what to do if your internet connection goes down? This article includes many helpful tips, including a functional use for AOL disks."
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Be proactive, people! Print off a copy of the goatse.cx guy so if and when the net chokes you can tape it to your monitor. You may not even remember that you're offline after a few hours.
Trolling is a art,
Is that /. slang for masturbation or something?
All errors in this comment are mine. Corrections are considered a derivative work, and punishable under copyright law.
Watching TV, couldn't possibly try getting a life at all.
You mean I might have to go back to reading books?
I have games installed on my PC for just such occasions. The only problem: I'm a technical support rep. :\
I actually use one of those tips - for classes where I don't have an internet connection available here at college, I install games on my laptop that I would never play otherwise. I rarely play games while I have a network connection. I'm pathetic. Oh, and when the network in our school was down (freaking kids with their stupid viruses), my roommate and I definitely made use of our "modems" and connected them to our phoneline and used dialup.
The anti-salmon
Go outside, spend time with family, flirt with women [and get turned down. :-/]
Notice that none of these involve resorting to AOL...
only thing i use aol cds for is putting them into the microwave.
30% Troll, 50% Underrated, 10% Interesting
Score:5, Troll
Last time my net connection went down I had such bad withdrawl symptoms that I had to smoke some weed to aleviate the pain.
I want a new quote. One that won't spill. One that don't cost too much. Or come in a pill.
If only the last-mile solution was as dead-nuts reliable as the power grid, then it would never fail... uhmm...
Okay, so maybe we should investigate solutions for last-mile internet serving as backup electricity, and the power grid serving as last-mile for redundancy?
The only thing more dangerous than a file named -rf is renaming it -rf\ /
oh man, a couple of years ago there was a contest on the internet to make creative things out of aol disks. I called up AOL using a number I found deep on their website and asked if I could get a bunch of cds shipped to me. The guy was like: "sure...how many?" I was a little surprised that he actually offered, so I ended up going with a low number of 250. I got a big bag of them in the mail two days later. My friends who were involved in our little project and I realized that we needed at least twice that many cds, so I had one of them call...they called the same number, said the same things I said, and couldn't get more than two cds at a time! Several other friends tried, and they got the same results. I tried again, and the guy would only send me one! I don't know how I did it, but I did get a huge bag of AOL cds (unfortunately, not ones with the dvd cases).
We never did finish (or start) our project, so now I have a big bag of aol cds under my desk at home, and I've been increasing the pile over the last couple years - all my friends send me their cds and neighbors too. The pile is huge, and I've probably got at least 400 now....when I finally make something with them, it's gonna be epic.
The anti-salmon
You have your ISP Service Desk on Speed Dial.
.... call the help desk to see what the problem is.
My old ADSL connection had the habit of going down more than i would like. I had it down to a rythem. I would reboot the router, reboot the modem
I thought this was normal until my girlfriend pointed out that the only two numbers i had on my speed dial were her and my ISP
Heh, I know exactly what to do... wait for my SMC Barricade to realize the drop and dial out on the modem fallover line.
Behold the power of technology.
(Yes, I did RTFA, I know it's not serious... but I wanted to brag. ^_^)
if the answer isn't violence, neither is your silence / freedom of expression doesn't make it alright
Simple :-)
Simon.
Physicists get Hadrons!
Look at the pr0n on my harddrive instead of the pr0n on the TGP sites?
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
4 guys living in a dorm together, 2 computer majors, 1 engineering major, and one ag major who was also a geek....
Me: "Net's down..."
Roomie #1: "Yeap..."
Me: "Simpson's?"
Roomie #1: "Yeap..."
I never really saw what the problem was...
...in bed
Work!
Perhaps you should have read the article.
Are you kidding? If he did that, he wouldn't get modded "Insightful"!
Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
Perhaps you should have read the article.
normally yes, but in this case, trust me - you are much better off not reading the article. That was 10 minutes of my life I'll never get back.
"Because it's there." - George Mallory, when asked why he wanted to climb Mt Everest, March 18, 1923 (New York Times)
Surely you all have dual redundant Internet links? My company has _three_, all through different providers. One is just a simple ADSL.
But sometimes I wish the Net would just vanish and we could return to the good old days of a 9 to 5 job, before these thing called "productivity", "always-on", "emails from other timezones", and of course "unlimited porn", the carrot that makes it all feel worthwile now and then.
Ceci n'est pas une signature
I, for one, welcome our new capable-of-posting-to-slashdot-whilst-not-having-a n-internet-connection-and-also-simultaneously-play ing-console-game masters
I repeatedly click on the "connect" button until it starts working again?
Diego Rey
diegoT
Being born in September, I can tell you that they didn't read books.
This post contains benzene, nitrosamines, formaldehyde and hydrogen cyanide.
Yes, you use the open-access PCs...
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
That was 10 minutes of my life I'll never get back.
Wow, you read slowly.
blah
1. Panic!
Ok, I can do that.... now what?
2. Find a telephone.
What do those do? I think you used to order pizza over them before you could get it from the internet...
3. Use your back-up computer.
Ummm, they're all on the same LAN, and the internet is down... how would this help?
4. Install a Game.
Good idea! Ok, installing.... needs a patch via the web... DAMN! Ok, online registration? DAMN! Ah, finally got it installed with no patches... now to find players on the net... DAMN!
5. Perform Routine Maintenance.
Sure, why not? Checking for new security updates... no connection to internet. DAMN!
6. Turn on a television or radio.
Hmmmm, no radio reception because of all the computers. I can watch cable TV though... I have a cable modem, it's down... so is the television! DAMN!
7. Read
Ok. http://slashdot.org/..... nothing there to read, it's still down. DAMN!
8. Go Outside.
I did. The cable is still physically connected to the house, and to the pole. Didn't help.
9. Spend Time with Your Spouse.
I'm supposed to meet here online for a private chatroot with web cam??? DAMN!
10. Use your Emergency AOL Disk
Ok, I put my coffee on it instead of directly on the desktop. Network is still down. What now?
... then curl up in the fetal position in my room and commence thumb sucking
48-Hour Internet Outage Plunges Nation Into Productivity
(a mirror, since theonion.com didn't archive it)
A friend of mine lost his 2 Mbit ADSL connection a couple of days ago due to a fuck-up at the ISP (they had some fantasy that he hadn't paid the last bill). His connection won't be back before monday. This guy is a complete internet addict, even though he doesn't read Slashdot. I'll be sure to send him the link on ICQ.
Or maybe I'll just print it.
If you own a dremel, and most nerds should, the large sanding drum bit is the exact size of the center hole of a cd. DISCLAMER: i will not be responsible for death and/or maiming, wear saftey goggles!!! Depending on your model, you can rev it up ienough that the cd will explode in a shower of plastic and foil. Its best to hold the cd paralell to yourself as it explodes outward in the direction its spinning. I have a cordless model that only goes up to 10k RPMs, but with a lttle practice you can shake the CD off the bit while its spinning and te cd will peel out and shoot off along the ground. The force these move with is incredible, i had one shoot down the hall and explode when it impacted the radiator, a good sized chunk flew striaght back, cut my pants and my knee. Good times...
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
wardrive around your apartment until you can get on some random neighbor's open 802.11 network...
An early post that mentions goatse.cx and is modded up to +5! You, sir, are a god among ants.
My internet line went down yesterday, will not be back up again until next week (upgrading from ADSL to VDSL, lame ass ISP, disconnecting the old service before sending me a new modem). Posting this at work.
I am experiencing fear, loneliness and boredom. Will probably experience stress tonight, if I try hooking up the old POTS modem...
There are 010 kinds of people. Those who understand octal, those who don't, and 06 other kinds of morons.
1. Power Cycle your cable modem 2. Restart your computer 3. if that doesn't work call your ISP's tech support 4. Listen to the pre recorded message saying there are no known network problems. 5. Wait 6. wait 7. by the time you reach tech support, do the 'Broadband Dance', your internet connection should be back up Broadband Dance - first tier tech support telling you to power cycle your modem, clear your internet cache, restart your machine, asking you how much RAM you have, blah blah blah.
This is great stuff... I bookmarked it for when I need it later!
Couldn't do it all day though
Materials Required:
Instructions:
Hours of fun, as I'm sure you can imagine.
Go to WalMart (or any place that has those big displays with free AOL cds) and just grab as many as you can hold.
I do this every so often just to see the look on the security guys face. He looks like he wants to stop me sooo bad, but can't think of any reason why he should. They are free after all.
There are endless uses for those things. I use them mostly as coasters and for throwing at people.
you're all figments of my deranged imagination
So, let me see if I get this joke.
You were born in September. Meaning, if you weren't a preemie or anything, you were conceived in January or late December. This implies something to do with the event of the new year.
You are also implying that your parents didn't read books, possibly implying that they (A) were generally stupid, or (B) were ignorant of some relevant fact, or (C) preferred copulation to reading.
(A) makes little sense. It doesn't relate at all to the rest of your statements, although it might explain some things about yourself and why you posted what you did.
(B) can make sense, if you consider the possibility that your parents may have been trying to conceive a New Year's baby on New Year's Eve. Ignorance of the the full term of a human fetus's development would be implied by the purported claim that they didn't read books.
(C) is a little too obvious to be relevant. Anybody (with the approporiate freedoms and means) would prefer copulation to reading. It's an enjoyable activity, providing base stimulation compared to the higher level of stimulation that reading can involve. Maslow might like this explanation, but I have no idea how good his sense of humor was, so his opinion is out.
So, I say your joke is based on (B). Hey now, that's very funny!