There was a fire in the area, I don't know exactly where.
One of the more Serious ramifications, most of Northern California (well, at least everything in the Central Valley north of Chico to beyond Redding) had NO INTERNET ACCESS FOR 24 HOURS!!!

I always thought the Internet was impervious to such outages!! I thought there were so many redundancies that a Large outage like this was virtually (ahem) Extremely Unlikely if not impossible.

HA!!

Husband and I actually had to Talk to each other rather than send emails or texts!

All back online now. >WHEW<
(';')

 

Her indoors and I have had to talk lately, internet has been on and off for weeks. Lost our 15 year old email address too.(the one we use for official stuff)
ISP has told us our pc is too old, software is imcompatible, settings are wrong and so on for weeks(how can Ipad, phones,3 pc's and 3 laptops all suddenly be incompatible?). Turns out to be there problem and they have escalated my complaint to stage two.(been waiting for that call back for 2 weeks now.
Lucky to get internet 4 hours a day, as for pictures take about 15 minutes to upload if it doesn't time out first.

Kids not happy , bit od bad luck for them really.

 

WOW, Clarke!
I'm still using XP as is about a Large proportion of the civilized world (and some not so civilized)! How can they say all that stuff is incompatible?!
Windows 7 and Windows XP show no signs of dying | PCWorld

I've had my same email address through 3 providers! They just "grandfather" me in! I would raise an Unholy Stink if my email address suddenly disappeared!

I hope it's resolved for you soon!
(';')

 

Gosh and I complain about some interruptions to connectivity .....glad your both back on board......can't be without Nix and Fireball!

 

The Internet is impervious to such outages, the rest of it worked fine

Hopefully California will stop burning at some stage and things will settle down. El Nino predictions seems to be coming true here, we are having 30-35C days in October, which is way too early. Fingers crossed for some rain over there.

 

Believe me Elinor, Telstra(ISP) are hoping I fall in a hole and get buried. I have spent so much time on the phone to them I have a bruised ear. When people email the Telstra address they get a reply saying .
I run win 7 on my ex-xp laptop (12 years old) and all other pc's have win 7, kids laptops have win 8 and their whatever stupid phones and her indoors ipad fairly new.
So far the ISP has upgraded mine and the wife's phone plans to unlimited calls and text( from our 1999 $10 plans we have been on since then. At a cost of $20 each a month each) , given us extra benefits from the land line so that is probably to stop my rant.
But now we need to buy 3G compatible phones to use the new plans instead of our 13 year old nokia's. But the kids have an abundance of spare smart phones floating around their bedrooms so that will work. ISP was hoping I would buy two off them.

But still no closer to them sorting my internet connection that drops out after 10 minutes and comes back some time later. Other locals are having similar trouble.

 

Jim:
What kind words! Thank you!
Nix is still awaiting surgery, maybe tomorrow I'll get to it.
I may have mentioned, I'm NOT looking forward to removing that pump! Of course this couldn't have happened when I had the whole front of the car apart.

Steve:
"They" keep talking about this El Nino thing, but I'm not sure I believe it. What other profession can one be Wrong 98% of the time and not only still get paid, but be PROMOTED!!

Clarke:
I take it there is no competition for your Internet business. We have several choices; 2 satellite companies and a couple cable companies, a wireless DSL company, besides the ubiquitous phone company (which also does DSL). They're all hungry so treat their customers fairly well for fear we'll jump ship.

My ISP is unrelated to any of them. My email account has been bought and sold at least 3 times (same email address since Day One I came to this part of the world), but works fine through husband's DSL (what magic makes that happen is Way beyond me).
(';')

 

I still use XP, no problems with compatibility.

if you need to make something compatible with XP, there is a "switch" to do it.

right-click on the icon of the program, select Properties, then you will see a Compatibility Tab, click on that, and put a checkmark where it says: "run this piece of crap in compatibilty mode with..." Select Win2000, or whichever makes the thing work.

 

Me too, I've had the same personal one since 1995 ish.

Clarke, do you have your own internet now? Maybe the next door neighbour is putting a kink in the pipe?

 

"What other profession can one be Wrong 98% of the time and not only still get paid, but be PROMOTED!!"

Two answers:

My old multi-national employer was one providing a whole range of professions. The trick was not to be found out before the next re-organisation or overseas posting.

The second one is probably an major formal religion with a hierarchy. But of course that is only my opinion.

Regarding email addresses' I moved mine out of the ISP's hands into the public email world many years ago. The ISP cant really stuff me up and the NSA and their trusted colleagues can keep up with my nefarious activities much more easily....and I get much better targeted ads on Jaguarforums.

 

Next doors network is down while doing renovations, they have moved out for a short time.
I always had a small internet plan to keep us going if his went down. Upgraded it to unlimited use for 2 months but it has been nothing but trouble since. Two other isp's I have talked to have said we are in a slow or dead zone. less than 10km from Brisbane CBD.
When we use mobile phones in our house they run off different towers from one end of the house to other, if I walk from the kitchen to bedroom while talking I get disconnected.

We are getting NBN soon, they say that will fix the dead zone....I thought NBN was a TV channel until recently. That's what you get for not watching TV unless it involves motorcycle racing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nation...adband_Network

 

If you do upgrade to smartphones you can use your smartphone as a wireless access point ,or wired via a USB cable) for Internet access if your Telstra cable is down and you get sick of using the small screen(only talking Android, I assume its the same in i world). Performance is average but it works and is an easy standby. We use it sometimes when travelling or visiting Luddite relatives.

 

Never touched a smart phone or ipad so it will be very intresting, when ever my wife shows me something on the ipad I touch the edge of the screen accidently and stuff disappears from the screen and I get

 

I did a rambling post on internet weirdness. It disappeared into cyberspace! Angered the cyber gods???


I've had my travails with it over the years. I date back to "dial up" being wondrous!!!


My latest install uses a wireless modem. But, both my desktops are hard wired to it. My little laptop seems to handle the wireless just fine.


The big issue I have with it is that my land line is connected via that modem. Alas,
when the DSL has a hissy fit, the phone goes dead as well. Much angst to my daughter??? Son more understanding.


A bit of commotion with the provider brought out that thngs were going on in the "office central". True???


I do know from lip of past telephone/DSL techs that old wires and junction boxes in this older neighborhood are trouble prone. Old fix was to just hook me up to another pair in the box!!! Probably still is???


But, it does stand to reason that our really bad NOCAL fires have taken oput phone lines and cell towers!!! bound to result in service breaks somewhere.


Errand yesterday done. Got a much needed "shearing" at the barber. Doubled my tip. he did two heads in one.


Agenda today, includes the SMOG shop. Local place I go to up to sixty bucks out the door....


Well Water heater still not right, but, I can force a tank of hot water!!! Four loads of laundry done and dried. Await folding and putting away.


Side, task cathartic ala LnrB's raking. Derusting old tools. Got the rachet moving on my ancient brace. One handle free, the chest part, not yet. And the chuck free but not chucking??? ,


And, one of my "one bangers" fired up as it is supposed to. the leaf blower. Blew a ton of them off the patio. Get after the repowered Troybilt chipper shredder. it got confused and shredded the drive belt, not the branches and leaves????


Carl,

 

Technology, you've gotta love it. If you hate it, it's out to get you - and despite being inanimate, somehow it knows when you hate it. Win XP was good, then it all went downhill - Vista was rubbish, but somehow I'm getting on ok with Win 7 - positive thinking seems to be the key.

Friend of mine says she "must force herself" and learn to use the computer more, but she hates it. It never works for her, and her own mental resistance ensures that she never gets off the starting block. My technical solution was to suggest that she give it a name, speak nicely to it, stroke it, fool it into thinking she's its friend and potential lover, and it will all spring into action. The only thing she was convinced about is my obvious insanity. She's pretty perceptive....

Smart phone - can't live without it, never knew how amazingly versatile it would be until I got my Android (chose not to jump on the apple cart). Now I break a sweat if it's more than a few inches away from me at any given time. Travelled to other countries with it, brilliant. There's a danger of it becoming my new best friend. I fully recognise that the time for therapy is looming.

DSL is a joke. As Carl observed, its dependency on old wires is the Achilles heel. Even newer areas like mine feed off infrastructure set in older areas. NBN may improve things - just newer wires. And my wifi modem is a cool weather animal, can't take very high temps. Sadly, placing it in the fridge didn't fool it either.

Cheers,

 

Tony:


Yup! When the gal at the provider made the DSL pitch, she lead me to believe that
It would no longer be via telephone wires but by fiber optics! And, that DSL would be taking over anyway.... so, I agreed.


Some shakedown visits by the techs finaly got it to work. Included a charge. Nope, I was told the install was free. I eventually got a credit....


And, the tech told me. No fiber optics in this neighborhood. Only in much newer developments.


Will there ever be? Probably not in my lifetime. But, I think a fleet of contract trucks have bee over hauling the wires???


I guess the answer is that land lines will become obsolete and everything will be wireless.


Ma Bell, please come back. Judge Greene, see what you did!!


Carl

 

Got internet long enough this morning to give money away(pay bills). First time in weeks I have had a connection at home longer than a few minutes.
My dongle thingy worked perfect when we were away last weekend, but drops out here as does the wired network and wireless network. Not just us either, most of the neighbours too. Telephone company is going to run a new (adsl) connection by replacing the phone lines down our street today. Apparently it is over 35 years old.
Clutching at straws I think, but they are getting a lot of angry callers.

 

As 'they' say, the squeaking wheel gets the grease.
I hope you and your whole neighborhood get it fixed soon, Clarke.
(';')

 

Being underwater in recent years probably did it no favours. Really if there nearest access point is functioning, and customer equipment is functioning (widespread problem so more likely in the infrastructure than customer stuff)
It really cant be much else. Hopefully a good service will be restored.

 

Pretty much everything got wet in 2011 floods, this is four houses from us.