Not the weather, the Internet

No, this isn't snow, it's sleet. Somehow I knew those promises of the fluffy white stuff would fly out the window and we'd be cursed with this stuff! Instead of the peaceful silence that comes with falling snow I heard the tinkle of sleet pellets for most of yesterday. It's an icy mess out there!!

But that's not why I'm here. We're having some Internet problems (not related to the weather) and I'm attempting to post this from my phone. I do it so seldom I'm never sure if I'm doing it correctly. So... I hope this posts!

Anyway, if I don't manage to get around and visit all of you like usual that's why. There is an upside. I'm reading more.

I'm back!

...and I mean that literally, not just online.

As I stated in my last post, our Internet went out on Saturday afternoon a week ago. Most times that would only be a minor inconvenience. However, we were preparing to go on vacation last week and I needed to get online Monday. If any of you have ever flown on Southwest, you know how important it is to be online with your finger poised over "confirm" exactly 24 hours before your flight in order to get good boarding passes! Fortunately some friends volunteered their computer and printer and I got to enjoy a nice visit with them in the process.

I posted a couple of times last fall (here & here) about troubles with our Internet provider, so I wasn't optimistic about getting things fixed quickly. Surprisingly, we were able to get it repaired late Monday afternoon! Not enough time to schedule any posts for while I was away, but what a relief to know we would have Internet when we returned home!

Anyway..... we got home shortly after midnight last night (this morning) and I'm still plowing through "stuff". Playing catch-up is always the down-side to returning from vacation. The up-side is that I should have plenty of post material for awhile! I would love to sit here and catch up on all the blogs I follow, but chores are calling me.

Animator vs. Animation

It's been a rough week on a number of levels. It's time for some levity.

Click here.

Posting

Last month I questioned your blog reading habits. Today I'm curious about how you post.

In the past, I composed my entries in Word then pasted them over to Blogger. I liked keeping various "ideas" in my Word documents to work on at my convenience. It was easy to pick up recipes from other Word documents and to paste links from the Internet that I might want to include in an entry.

I have a new laptop. My old one was five years old and in laptop years that's pretty old. The new one is wonderful! I love Windows 7 (so far) and I have all the newest versions of the programs that come on a computer. That includes Word 7. Now when I try to copy and paste from Word to Blogger, it won't let me!! I can copy, but it won't let me paste. Instead, it wants me to use the new Windows blog publishing feature. It's compatible with Blogger, but when I set mine up, it didn't work correctly. *sigh*

I've had to go back to composing in Blogger. If I don't have time to finish a post, I have to leave it as a draft. No, it's not really a problem, but it's not what I was use to. And it will be a bit of a pain until I eventually "rehash" all the recipes from my old blog (which are in a Word document).

So.... how do you post? Do you do everything in Blogger? Do you compose in another program and paste to Blogger? Oh, and how many of you take advantage of that handy feature to "schedule" entries for posting at a future time?

Inquiring minds want to know.

My squeaky wheel

I’m not an assertive person. My husband is. Let me back up…

Tuesday morning I headed off to the church with laptop in tow. First of all, let me say I feel a little silly now. I guess it’s been quite awhile since I dealt with using a wireless network other than our own setup at home. I had no idea that once I logged on to the internet at my church that I would be able to download the mail from my server through their server into my Outlook Express! Duh! Both of my college-age kids said they could have told me that, but I sure don’t remember getting that assurance from them while I was obsessing about it on Monday! Yeah, well. Live and learn.

Late Tuesday afternoon my husband called me at the church with good news. (I was working on church stuff, not still messing with my computer) After some frustrations trying to line up a local installer he decided to contact the company again. He told each person he talked to that if they didn’t give him the satisfaction he was looking for, then to transfer him to their superior. He finally convinced one that, although we had been with them for a number of years, he was going to switch to another satellite provider if they didn’t do something this week. They agreed to install our upgraded system the next morning, and at price much less than what they originally quoted us. Wow!

I guess that old saying about the squeaky wheel getting the grease really is true.

Woe is me

See the box in the picture? That is the remote terminal for our satellite internet system. Notice there are only two blue lights lit up. To work properly, there must be five.

We've been without internet since Saturday evening. ETR (estimated time for repair) doesn't look good. With an upgrade (yes, that means extra money) it might be in a couple of weeks. Repairs on the current equipment could take months!!!

Switching to DSL or cable is not an option. We live too far out in the sticks for that. Even switching to a different satellite provider would take awhile.

I can do limited things on my Blackberry (which is how I'm posting this, if I remembered how to do it correctly), but that's also "iffy" since we don't get good cell reception at our house.

At least I'm getting more done at home since my #1 time-waster has been curtailed. *sigh*