I normally don’t do this: I prefer to look at the positives in life and keep this blog writing and history-oriented. But today I need to complain. Just a little.
I spent the entire weekend trying to get my wireless internet back online. There was nothing wrong with my actual internet connection, just the wireless router, which was just more than a year old. So, I call the company’s tech support line, but since it was past the one year warranty, they wouldn’t help me. After seeking help from friends and more tech-savvy people than I, I had done all the troubleshooting I could possibly do.
So, I went and bought another. At the sales associate’s insistence, I purchased the same brand because it was “the best.” Flash forward another several hours later of installing, re-installing and hours spent on the phone with their tech support…it still wouldn’t work. I return that brand and go with another.
Zoom forward another half a day and I finally get it installed. Then, I pop open the internet and it takes a good minute to download a page…And this was the “faster” router! Another half hour with their tech support and we get it figured out.
I’m not completely technologically incompetent compared to some. I have a fairly good understanding of how things all work, and I do my homework on these products. Still, it was a mess of a weekend thanks to this debacle. It all worked out, and now the internet is running smoothly, and I now know much, much more about wireless routers.
To wrap up my whining, I wanted to boil this all down to my lesson learned. Technology is something we vastly take for granted. Until the microwave dies, the washing machine dies, or the wireless router dies, we don’t really know how much easier that gadget makes our lives.
I think this is one reason I love historical fiction so much: life was simpler back then. No internet, no 200+channels, no cell phones or even smart phones. Life moved at a slower pace, without such devices demanding our attention. The few nights where I didn’t have internet access were actually the most peaceful I’ve had in a long, long time. I was able to just listen to music and write without the distraction of Facebook or e-mails.
I’m eternally grateful for how far we’ve come, technologically speaking. I enjoy connecting with old friends through Facebook and my family via e-mail. I will still always prefer a face-to-face meeting to an e-mail, a phone call to a text message. I guess I’m just old-fashioned in that sense.
My advice: turn off your computers, TVs, cell phones for a night and just enjoy the peace and quiet. 🙂
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