Mr C had a good idea… We would upgrade to Fibre Optic broadband.

The process should have been completed on 9th March but do to miscommunication between the various services this did not happen. It also led to our internet connection being cut on 16th March. Despite all the internal and external works being completed on 24th March we still had no internet access.

We weren’t able to follow the lack of service up with the provider until today due to a day trip to London Yesterday (more on that soon).

Today our service provider diagnosed the problem and a simple tweak to the router fixed the problem. Later in the day after a further phone call to our service provider our phone line was also reinstated.

For now everything seems to be working perfectly…

Now I need to catch up on posting about my recent adventures and finish my posts about St Fagans.

Grrr!

Hopefully normally service will be resumed soon…

The weekend before last, our washing machine decided to leak onto the kitchen floor. We had been experiencing a few other niggles with it and considering its venerable  age we decided it would be more economical in the long run to purchase a new one. We went to a local shop to order a new one and chose a convenient delivery slot. On the day of delivery, towards the end of the chosen slot the washing machine had not arrived… After a grumpy phone call the machine was eventually delivered and fitted. I am still working out how to use it

For a while I had been noticing that my blog page was running slow. On Monday it eventually displayed the dreaded ‘Error establishing a database connection’. I submitted a support ticket which usually leads to problem being fixed the next day. A week later, several emails and two phone calls later it is still not working. This evening I was told that I would have to phone back between 9am and 5pm.  In addition to the original problem I noticed that my FTP is inaccessible also.  I am terribly unimpressed.

The internet problems that I experienced a couple of weeks ago (for that you will have to see my blog when it is back) were never completely fixed. The connection keeps randomly dropping out. Another support call was made (4th October). The ISP again insisted it was the router that was the problem. So that would be the old router and also the new one I bought when the old one broke whilst undertaking all the tests the ISP required of us. The original problem was at the BT exchange, but I can’t be put in contact with BT until after I try a new router provided by the ISP. This will take three to five days to arrive.

Those minor niggles paled into insignificance when I received a phone call from Mr C towards the end of Friday afternoon. He had crashed his car on the way home, was I able to come and pick him up? Of course I was. It looks like the car is a write-off but most importantly Mr C is alright apart from being rather shaken up by the experience. When we arrived home after the incident I noticed an envelope poking out from the (inside) of our letter box. The words at the top said ‘Road Safety Team’. On closer inspection I found that it was a survey about parking related issues that may occur due to increased parking charges at our local hospital. Curious timing… Then Mr C opening another letter that had arrived, it was his car insurance documents that had been posted out to him after his recent renewal.

On Sunday Mr C decided to suss out which car he might like as a replacement. A salesman came out and introduced himself and said he would leave us alone to browse, but if we needed anything just to pop inside and ask. Mr C asked if any had caught my eye (they were all similar models). I pointed out the only one that had stood out to me. We went to find the salesman who got the key and let us look around it. Then Mr C took it for a test drive and it was like he had been driving the car for years. When we got back to the forecourt the salesman pointed out some of the cars features including a sensor on the front of the vehicle. He said that if the car in front slowed down or came to a halt the car would automatically brake. Mr C and I caught each other’s eye and fell about laughing.  Mr C then confessed to the recent demise of his previous car. The price of the car was too good to miss and a deal was done. Now all that is needed is to sort out the niggles of the previous car.

Update: This was posted yesterday on Cherie’s Other Place. My blog problem has now been fixed, but I need to do a bit more investigating regarding the FTP.

On further investigation after attaching a new router (today) it seems that further damage has been done.  The network now works but the internet is still not available…  Tech support were not responding, so it won’t get sorted until at least tomorrow at the earliest.  It will probably take even longer because first the service provider  have to do a check, then if the problem isn’t there it gets passed onto BT to see if the lines and exchange are working properly…

I have managed to get get a temporary connection using mobile broadband but it is slow, so no Flickr uploads, they are too large…  And for some reason it won’t let me comment on most Blogger blogs.  So please bear with me I will get back to commenting eventually, technology willing!

The internet is useful for connecting to the world. It allows you to keep in contact with friends near and far, share information, provides endless sources of information and even opportunities to meet new people and make friends.

Of course it does have it’s faults but on the whole I wouldn’t be without it and I am pleased to say that my desktop PC is now back in touch with the world thanks to a new network adapter. I think the old one must have been on it’s way out for a while because the new device is much quicker even when it has a low signal.

So look out world, here I come