Route this!

[gwyn]

Totally slammed today, but for those of you who answered my router questions yesterday, here's a laugh for you, and an idea of just how dumb I am when it comes to computer stuff. feochadn offered to loan me her spare router and ethernet cable and so I called her last night to tell her what I had in terms of cable. I mentioned off-hand that I didn't even know where to put it because I have an ethernet hub, so like, does it go in front of or after the hub? (I had to get the hub when I first set up my system at home, because I was in need of a true postcript printer for my desktop publishing work.) And she said, "You have a router, then." My little 8-port ethernet hub is the same thing and I had no idea. So she asked me to explain the setup and I did and which cables went where and she said, yup, you're all set up and you should just be able to plug the new cable into one of the ports and then into the laptop when you get it and go.

I can go! Yay! Who knew? See, I had this idea it would look like... well, like a cable splitter or the little line conditioner boxes they make you put on the phone lines when you get DSL. I had no idea the expensive little hub was the thing we were talking about. Now I can spend all my $$ on a good UPS power strip. Huzzah for feochadn (and merryish, from whom she inherited the router so that we knew what it was in the first place).

So now you can all feel free to laugh at me. Must trundle now and continue the week from copyediting hell.

Comments

[kadymae.livejournal.com]

When I was first setting up my home network, it was my dad who saved my butt and actually drew me a little picture to show me the order things have to be plugged in.

It's one of those things that's really quite simple once you know how, once you know the logic of it, but no, it's not obvious the first time out.

[mystic-savage.livejournal.com]

Hey, if I didn't live with Kevin I'd be screwed. I have no more idea of how to set up a workstation than I would have of how to fix a DVD player with a Phillips Head screwdriver. This, in spite of the fact that my last two jobs involved computer hardware support for department faculty and ordering things like ethernet hubs and such. I guess it's a testament to working for the state that I could do that for four years and still not know an ethernet hub from a CB radio.