I’ve declared WAR! Send in the troops!
Peace talks and negotiations with my computer have failed. Internet connectivity issues still plague my homeland. My frustration levels are at an all time high. It’s time for drastic measures. It’s time to call in the troops!

Last Thursday I left work early to go home and wait for the Cox Cable Internet service technician to show up and hopefully fix my Internet connectivity issues. The appointment was scheduled for the time period of 4-6pm. Of course the service technician showed up at about 5:30pm. However, if I hadn’t left work early… he would have been at my door at 4pm and leaving me a ‘sorry we missed you’ note on my door. And just as I had predicted and Murphy’s Law dictates, my Internet connectivity was actually working when the service technician came. I give up! How can they figure out the problem when everything seems to be working correctly?

When I answered my door there was not one, but two Cox Cable Internet service technicians standing in my doorway with big smiles on their faces and tool belts strapped to their wastes. Cox sent in the troops! I thought to myself as I let them in.

“The Internet is actually working at the moment.” I explained.

“Isn’t that always how it goes?” One of the troops stated.

I explained to them about my sporadic Internet connectivity over the last few weeks and showed them to my computer desk. They both leaned over and peered into my computer screen as if they saw things I couldn’t. I watched as they typed code into the command prompt window and wondered if my computer was communicating with them, when it wouldn’t with me.

“We’re going to go check the line outside.” They said heading for my back door.

They disappeared into the dark night outside where my neighbors annoying cats lurk on their reconnaissance mission.

20 minutes or so later they were back inside the house and typing more code into my computer.

“We replaced the line outside from the pole to the house.” One of the troops explained.

“Hopefully that will solve your problems.” He continued.

“Hopefully so.” I replied.

The troops were gone as quickly as they had come and my Internet seemed to be working.

I had won the battle… but not the war.

I realized that the war wasn’t over the next evening when I tried to use my laptop and it was slower than molasses in everything I tried to do including opening documents. After about an hour of messing with it I was ready to throw the thing across the room. If I didn’t still owe money on it, I probably would have. By the end of the hour, I couldn’t access the Internet at all from the laptop. I wanted to scream! I could access the Internet from the desktop but not the laptop and the laptop was performing slower than a snail! Frustrated I wrote an email to my friend who helps me with my computer problems.

“You need to run virus and spyware programs on the laptop and the computer to make sure you don’t have any unwanted bugs.” He told me the next day while I was out shopping.

“Ok, I’ll do that when I get home.” I said as I ran over a curb while trying to navigate the car in Christmas traffic and talk on the phone at the same time.

But I was out most of the day shopping, visiting with friends and decorating a Christmas tree, so I waited until Sunday morning to fight the next battle in my connectivity war. I spent all morning running virus and spyware programs and disc cleanup and defragmenting both computers. No viruses were found. A few cookie ad aware things were found and quickly cleaned off.

I had won another battle… but not the war.

My friend had suggested plugging the laptop directly into the router instead of trying to go ‘wireless’ to accomplish the virus and spyware scans. After completely scanning and cleaning up both computers I unplugged the laptop from the router and tried to get online ‘wireless’. Nothing. NOTHING! No Connection to the Internet at all! The desktop, however, works fine. I believe my guardian angel or God himself reached out and kept me from throwing the laptop across the room in that moment.

I wrote my friend another email explaining the latest in my connectivity problems.

My homeland has suffered some setbacks. It’s time for reinforcements. More troops are on the way. My friend said he would come over and try to fix my ‘wireless’ connectivity issues this week.

Stay tuned to see if I'll be victorious. Will I win this new battle? Will the war between me and my computer finally be over? Will I be able to blog on a regular basis again? I can only hope and pray that this new plan of attack will be successful before I kill one or both of my computers. Keep your fingers crossed...  posted by Matildakay at 5:42 PM