Finally did it.

Ghastly · Post by **Ghastly** » Wed Jul 25, 2001 6:21 am

I've been meaning to, since I got the DSL line, set up a LAN here at home to share the internet connection between my computer, deep down in my basement geekroom where many fear to tred, and my wife's computer way up in our bedroom.Finally got around to doing it. Ever strung ethernet cable through the walls of an old house? Not much fun. But it's done now. A number of technical difficulties getting my wife's machine (which being a machine supplied by her employer to work at from home kicks my lowly P-166's ass) to actually hook up to the internet. It seems the highspeed access manager would work but for some reason none of the software would recognize the connection to the internet.It took all day working with a 2nd level tech (roll 1d12) to figure out that the copy of windows installed on my wife's machine was seriously fucked in the head. Lots and lots and lots of files corrupted or just plain missing. How this happened beats me. The solution was to re-install windows.So windows was re-installed. And of course the video drivers and sound drivers disappeared. To make matter worse the driver disks had long since disappeared (even though her machine kicks my machine's ass it's still a very old machine. P-II 223 MMX). No problem, look for the drivers with my computer on the internet.Of course, I couldn't remember what type of videocard she had in her machine which meant opening it up to take a peek. Ah yes, ATI RAGE IIC. An oldie but a goodie. And while I'm at it I'll grab the drivers for her old Ensoniq sound card too.Grab both drivers, and of course they're too freaking huge to fit on a floppy so I have to burn a CD for them. I hate to waste a CD for only two files (even though CDs are only a dollar) so I take the time to backup some files which I haven't backed up yet (like my entire webcomic and all the raw images that make up each panel. I'd be pretty pissed to lose all those in a hard drive crash). Also backed up some of my MP3s. So I've got a full CD-R now which takes about a half hour to burn because I've only got a lowly 2x CD-RW burner. Oh well, it's old, but I didn't pay as much for it as my friend paid for his 1X speed CD-R burner (He bought his when they were a funky new thing. Cost him $800 plus a $200 SCSII card. Mine is only a few years old and cost me $250 and is IDE).Great. all that work is done. Let's go upstairs and install the drivers so I can install the internet software.KABOOM!!!!!I plug in the monitor and it blows up.ARRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!So I'm hoping that only the monitor went and didn't take the videocard or anything else with it. Anyways I tell my wife this and she tells the computer guys at work that her home work computer needs either a new monitor or a new videocard. They send her home with an old monitor and videocard from their pile o' spare parts (man what I would give to rummage through that).I hook up the monitor this evening and it works. Woohoo. Don't need to swap the videocard. Install the internet software and bingo! Her machine is hooked up to the net. Yippie kai yai yay motherfucker!Now I know the ethernet card I installed in my wife's machine and the ethernet cable I built and strung through the walls of my house (isn't the next person who moves in here going to be lucky? A home already wired for a LAN) all work. I was a tad nervous about the cable since A) I had to build it myself (something I haven't done in about 10 years since I last worked as a systems engineer, before giving it up for the glamourous life of a professional accordionist) and B) it's a pretty fricken long cable. Yeah, I know you can get away with a bit more than the 50-feet max they recommend for a ethernet cable, but still...Now to hook up the active hub and away we go.Oh great... the active hub doesn't work. Well isn't that just fuckin' spiffy!Luckily I have a passive hub which is just enough to get the two machines and the DSL modem all connected together. Hook them all up and now both machines are sharing the DSL connection quite nicely so this will do for now. I was hoping to hook up an old 486 I have here just to use as a server for a webpage for my band but what the hell, eh? I can do that later.So now I'm looking at this page from my wife's machine in our bedroom on her new monitor which kicks fricken ASS.I have monitor envy now. My machine and her machine are both set up for 1024x768 but her monitor is a little bigger but much much much clearer and the contrast/brightness setting so much nicer than anything I can get on my monitor. It's bizarre to look at my own artwork on this monitor because it looks so increadably different from how it looks on my monitor. It's almost like I'm looking at something drawn by someone else. Some things look better, but some things look worse.In any case I really want to get a much better monitor than the old piece of crap I'm using now (probably about 10 or 12 years old).Well that's my little story for today.Arn't you glad I'm not one of those webcomic artists who puts crap like this on his front page before the comic?------------------
Ghastly
------------------
<A HREF="http://ghastly.keenspace.com/" TARGET=_blank>Ghastly's Ghastly Comic.</A>

Violator · Post by **Violator** » Thu Jul 26, 2001 2:31 am

Sounds like my experience with computers and motor vehicles. Machines, no matter the scale of their moving parts, are total slut-whores. ------------------
Violator, Mechanised Insult Infantry

Ghastly · Post by **Ghastly** » Thu Jul 26, 2001 3:49 am

And the bitches just won't swallow.------------------
Ghastly
------------------
<A HREF="http://ghastly.keenspace.com/" TARGET=_blank>Ghastly's Ghastly Comic.</A>

Violator · Post by **Violator** » Sun Jul 29, 2001 3:58 am

See, I thouhgt if I left the bike alone for 2 weeks it couldn't possibly get broken. right? RIGHT?Fucking wrong. It is CURSED I tell you, cursed. It has decided to do something like, throw the main camshaft bearing. And, its leaking oil AGAIN. Fucking unbelieveable. Aaaaaaaagh!
I am being calm, like an opening flower...calm...calm. No, I'm not going to throw it in a river, or off a cliff, or anything. Calm. Calm.
Oh, and the women I was after has decided to date other guys. So, yeah, its been a good 24 hours.------------------
Violator, Mechanised Insult Infantry

/b/ · Post by **/b/** » Wed Nov 29, 2006 11:12 am

Nicely done.

Squidflakes · Post by **Squidflakes** » Wed Nov 29, 2006 11:40 am

Max length for Ethernet over Cat5 is 100m. 50 feet is nothing.

Vaevictus · Post by **Vaevictus** » Wed Nov 29, 2006 12:05 pm

Ghastly wrote: I was hoping to hook up an old 486 I have here just to use as a server for a webpage for my band but what the hell, eh? I can do that later.

I've got plenty of surplus bandwidth and etc to host a website for SNB10 or any other, if you'd like to take me up on it.

Dormant · Post by **Dormant** » Wed Nov 29, 2006 1:48 pm

Max length for Ethernet over Cat5 is 100m. 50 feet is nothing.

Yeah, my Lan consists of my computer in the caravan linked to a computer in a house down the hill by about 90m of cat5 ethernet cable laid along a system of wallsides and trenches. Runs OK though.

Aeridus · Post by **Aeridus** » Wed Nov 29, 2006 5:03 pm

This thread is 5 years old...

Swordsman3003 · Post by **Swordsman3003** » Wed Nov 29, 2006 5:05 pm

Why else would /b/ bring it up?

Shishio · Post by **Shishio** » Thu Nov 30, 2006 6:20 am

Looks like there's a powerful thread necromancer in our midst.

Lulujayne · Post by **Lulujayne** » Thu Nov 30, 2006 11:00 pm

Or an idiot...

Kite-san · Post by **Kite-san** » Fri Dec 01, 2006 4:06 pm

are the two terms not generally one and the same?

BriHahn · Post by **BriHahn** » Fri Dec 01, 2006 5:23 pm

I think it depends on the thread.

/b/ · Post by **/b/** » Sat Dec 02, 2006 11:51 pm

bawwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww

JohnnyTwoEyes · Post by **JohnnyTwoEyes** » Sun Dec 03, 2006 1:03 am

Foiled again by our messed up time system.

I'm sure it's still 2001 somewhere! It's just over a few timezones.

Kittyboymuffin · Post by **Kittyboymuffin** » Sun Dec 03, 2006 7:14 am

Yeah ... temporal anomalies happen more often than Leap Years. :3