Saturday, November 27, 2004

Technical Travesties

Trying to make the new PC work. Lost much time because of a BIOS failure. Finally got it up and running. Earthlink (the ISP used by the person who owns the new PC) turns up its nose, says the installed browser level is unacceptable, must download a higher version. Of course, the logical inconsistancy of it refusing to start because of the browser level....and therefore not being ABLE to do the download, fails to amuse. So okay. We bring the damn PC back home(so I at least don't have to keep crawling around on the floor at the relatives house), upplug the cable connection from my PC, hook it up to the new PC. New PC says cable connection? What cable connection?

Swapped the connection -- first connected to the router (which is hardwired to my PC; we use it for wireless connectivity to a couple of laptops) then to the new PC, then the router, multiple times. PC refuses to recognize the connection. This cable swapping is getting old really fast. Finally, duh, thought 'Why disconnect the cable from the modem to the router just to connect the new PC? It's a ROUTER, dummy! Get a spare CAT5, connect the new PC to one of the open slots!" So I do that. Turn to the new PC.

And the internet connection....fires right up.

HUH? What the heck is the logical difference between feeding the PC directly from the connection coming from the cable modem...and feeding it that which comes from the router?

Oh, relative to an earlier post about Mike Dell et all lying? The PC came with XP Home and IE5. The Dell web site says XP comes with IE6, can't be changed, badda bing.... But it won't let me do an upgrade to IE6. Keeps saying 'Can't do it, can't do it, can't do it' . And if you go to the screen where it says Add/Remove Windows Components, its not at all clear if it really does deinstall IE when you say to. Looks like it...but I would bet not. So I am still messing with this....thing.

A T-Day to remember.

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