And Then, I Was Down...

My internet provider seemed to cease providing internet access Saturday early evening. How is it that stuff like this always seems to happen after doing something on-line that would appear to be totally innocuous? This time was no exception.

I found an E-mail in PopPeeper from some on-line magazine thingy. I opened it on the server, paged down and found the ‘unsubscribe’ link. This I did click upon and it took me to a blank browser page which,  eventually, informed me I’d been unsubscribed. I left that browser page for another and found Internet access was no more. Damn! What did that last link just break?

This is the point where I, and possibly you, start looking at the problem from the hard, time consuming end. Yup, do that stop and start stuff several times, trawl through all the router settings, trawl through Windows 10 settings. Nothing looked like it’d been changed. I even dug out an ‘old’ modem router and was ready to start pulling plugs when I had a thought.  I thought, no problem;  I know wot I’ll do, I’ll see if other folk are having problems. I’ll just fire up the ol’ brow... Oh. Right, I’ll phone their help line then. Now, what’s the number again? Hay, I can get it off the Int... Oh. Okay, I’ll send ‘em an E-mai... Damn.

I finally located the number on some old correspondence and gave ‘em a bell. A very nice lady voice informed me they were closed and would re-open at nine Monday morning and I was presently number one in a queue. This left me with a quandary; should I just leave the call open ‘till Monday, me being queue number one an’ all, or hang-up and call back at nine Monday and find I’m number two thousand in the queue? I guessed the all cost would be about the same by the time I got to talk to someone.

This was the moment, whilst debating the hang-on/hang-up question, that Mr Easy came like a bolt out of the blue and scored a perfect hit on this nut.

I have a smartphone, right? The smartphone has that never used 4G thingy. Turn it on, fire up the little browser, search for Internet provider problems, cleverly using the name of my provider, and discovering they have problems, are down and frantically working on a solution. Actually, ‘frantically’ wasn’t a word they used.

See? One tap on 4G, one brows; thirty seconds tops; problem their end; problem for me resolved. Shut it all down and retire for the night. This AM all is back as it should be without the need to pull even one plug.

So there you go. As old and ‘old school’ as I profess to be and despite the fun I poke at the new ‘always on-line’ generation, I’m not shy to admit that through last evening I felt completely cut off and isolated from the world and all on my own and by myself.

The other dramatic downside with not having the Web-a-Net for an evening was that we were unable to record, for viewing again and again, Strictly Come X-Factor’s Got Talented Bake-Offs. We sobbed ourselves to sleep.

NOTE: Sunday evening I pressed ‘Publish’ and was informed there’s no Internet connection. Damn! Lasted just a tad over an hour this time.

Quote;  Dave Barry.

“’User’ is the word used by computer professionals when they mean “idiot.”