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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.
I have games installed on my PC for just such occasions. The only problem: I'm a technical support rep. :\
Perhaps you should have read the article.
10. Use Your Emergency AOL Disk
If you find that your connection to the Internet is going to be longer than you can possibly stand, as a last resort, pull out an emergency AOL CD, the one with 910 free hours of connection to the AOL service. Take the CD in one hand...and slash it across your wrist! Suicide will probably be a better alternative than connecting to that service.
This article is satire. You must be one of the people referred to in Step 8.
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
This Article is missing that you can always grab your WLAN enabled Laptop and go War-Driving if your connection is down :)
--
One by one the penguins steal my sanity...
flirt with women
I always cry when I flirt with women. They all carry pepper spray nowadays.
Trolling is a art,
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!
I have DSL service at home, because it runs over the phone line which does not rely on the same source of power that my house uses, I can stay connected to the internet through power outages. I have my computers, switch and dsl modem plugged into UPS backup power supplies. . . If the power goes out, my network is still online and running.
:-)
Thankfully my internet service provider is rock solid and so is the network they operate on. My remote has had about 30 minutes of down time in the past 2 1/2 years, and it was a scheduled upgrade to the remote.
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 came back home the other day to find my house without Internet access. My housemates were sitting despondantly in the living room, watching TV. I asked them if they'd checked the router configs, and they said they had. I did it again anyway. They were fine. I next asked if they had tried rebooting the cable modem. They claimed it had never failed, so there was no point. In my last house, the cable modem had crashed about once a month, so I felt it worth a try. I unplugged it, and plugged it back in. Within a minute, the 'net was back up. Their faces once they realised that they could have done that at any point during the day were priceless.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Remember "Marge vs. Itchy and Scratchy"? When the kids lost the cartoon, they discovered all the wonderful things they could do outside and together...
Being adults, we should be proud of ourselves if we can remember this example and at least keep from sitting in a corner, rocking and drooling.
myke
Mimetics Inc. Twitter
I repeatedly click on the "connect" button until it starts working again?
Diego Rey
diegoT
Perhaps you could put them towards a worthy cause.
qntm.org
How can I watch TV with out tvguide.com to tell me what's on?!?!
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?
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.
Not exactly Ivy League material, are you? Your life, including college, is what you make of it. If you continue on with your pissant attitude, things are never going to get better. Here's some advice: you don't know everything, there are tons of interesting subjects (yes, even other than computing) that you would be well-advised to learn about. Please, don't just idly squander your one college experience. Do something with it. People like you really confuse me, I just end up shaking my head. Where did you go wrong???
As a backup solution we always have a dial-up connection ready ... Coupled with scripts which automate the switch from Cable Dial-Up Internet Access, the perfect solution to still have at least communication going at all times.
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...
I live on a college campus with a high number of geeks. Last year when Slammer first reared its head, it brought our network to it's knees. We couldn't even do anything on the local LAN, much less get out to the Internet. It was so strange, because everyone came out of their dorm rooms and seemed bored that evening.
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.
When I was in school, Internet access was provided by a bank of 2400 baud modems and a terminal server. Every few days the terminal server would lock up, and we'd be cut off. Waiting for IT to correct the problem was painful: a 24 hour delay, minimum.
Soon though, we discovered we could fix the problem ourselves. Throw enough characters at the terminal server, and a buffer would overflow causing it to reboot. I kept a "C" battery by my keyboard just for the purpose of weighting a key in times of Internet outage. By the time my microwave popcorn was ready, the terminal server was back up, and I could return to MUDing.
Shortly before I graduated, the school rolled out 10Base-T to the dorms. Speedy downloads and graphical web browsing were finally ours, but network outages were longer and more frustrating. Sometimes, there are advantages to crude technologies.
"Be Happy or Die." -- AoN
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!
The Linux box that acts as my router is configured to automatically bring up a dialup connection if packets stop flowing over the DSL. Of course, my dialup provider is the same as my DSL provider, so it's certainly possible that both could go out at once, but it hasn't happened yet. They don't seem to be able to keep the DSL up as reliably for some reason.
Anyway, every few months or so I'll notice that my network connection is slow, and when I check the router I notice that ppp0 is up. The most common way that I notice DSL outages (which seem to happen every other month or so) is when my cellphone rings. My office phone is set up to automatically forward to my home office and then to my cell (if I don't pick up the home office line), so I notice the DSL outage by observing that my cell phone rings first, since the phone line is tied up by the dialup connection.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
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