Task: Wifi and Speakers

On to the more mundane!

I had been meaning to set up a wireless network for a long time. Julie sometimes needs to work from home, and our longest cable will get to her bedroom, but that is not an ergonomic setup. If I had wireless, then she could work at the table. Also, with the laptop, which does not even have an Ethernet hookup, required a wireless connection for setup.

I made a total of three attempts, some of which have been referenced in other posts. The first time I did not get anywhere, but I did not break anything, and I was just not motivated to keep at it. I also forgot the password I set up, which led to a lot of fun on the second attempt. The second time I not only did not get wireless working, but I broke the wired network, and in the process of fixing that disconnected the phone, so really, I was not doing well.

For the next round I succeeded in restoring the wired network, but struggled with the wireless. Finally, a friend came over and fixed it. I guess it is somewhat gratifying that even though he was successful, he struggled and had to mess with it for a while too, so it is not just me being thick.

The speakers were another issue. The sound had gone out on the main PC quite a while ago, and I was thinking I needed to buy new speakers. I received some for my birthday, after having needed them for a few months, and a couple of months after that I hooked them up. I turned them on, played something, and there was still no sound. Great. It’s the sound card. But no, at some point we tried the speakers again and they worked. This is fortunate, because who knows when I would have gotten around to buying a new sound card.

To be fair, these speakers are not particularly good, nor are the ones on my work PC, and the speakers on my old boombox are not doing great either. (I got it in 1991, so I can’t complain about that.) I can use headphones, but I don’t really like wearing them, and I worry about hearing damage. So, I guess the next project will be getting some improvement to the sound system. I do still need to start messing with the MP3 player, so it may just be getting a docking station. Also, the CD/DVD drive no longer opens, so I should probably replace that. Not being crazy about spending money or hooking things up, I tend to procrastinate.

I can note some progress however. I think I had mentioned before that with my order of three My Chemical Romance CDs and one Pencey Prep CD came a credit for one free song download, which I was planning to use on Desolation Row, since that was on a soundtrack and not on one of their albums.

I finally got around to ordering and downloading it, but what I did not know was that Julie had been in Amazon last, had not logged out, and had two free download credits. I thought I was using mine, and she looked later and thought I hadn’t realized that I was not charged. She did not have anything to do with the credit, so it wasn’t a problem, but that meant I still had a credit.

I was not sure what to do with it, but then I thought, what other band that I love has a song from a movie soundtrack that is not in my CD collection? So now I also have Pet Sematary by the Ramones. Now I have two digital music downloads. This is probably a good trend, because I cannot find a reasonable price on the other MCR CD I  need (I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love). I like having CDs, but I’m not sure I like having them enough to be worth the extra $30-60. Also, loading my CDs onto the MP3 player while the CD drive won’t open could present some challenges, so clearly something will need to happen.

Sometimes it would be helpful to have the skills of a computer geek, but I have not paid the price, and I know it.