September 28, 2005
Nopundit NorthCom: Caledonia, IL
Well, I have been holed up with Dear Old Dad for the last three weeks. I imagine that all around the country Gulf Coast folks are getting reacquainted with friends and family. This is generally good of course, but I also imagine some northern kin are watching the TV for reports of dry ground so they can be sure to pass on the good news to their house guests.
I have not posted a lot in recent days, but I have been watching the news intently. Internet access (both for posting and for plain reading) has been very limited. I have been taking a lot of pictures. I recently got a Canon Powershot SD200 (well before Katrina) and I have been really enoying the hell out of it here at Nopundit Northcom. Caledonia, IL (and dad's farm) is a great reason to take snaps, as I will show in the next several posts.
Up until September 25th, dad had been operating on dialup access, with connection rates not usually greater than 26kbps. Ugh. No chance for DSL. Cellular broadband was quirky and expensive (and not yet here at broadband speeds anyway). Where else to go but satellite!
We ordered with DirecWay only a few days after I arrived (around the 6th), but the installation did not place until the 24th. In the interim, I went out and got a wireless router and wireless cards, and noodled around with them waiting for the dish.
The setup works great. Dad's computer (desktop with PCI wireless card) found the wireless router on the first boot; we can get rid of the second phone line, local timed toll calls, and an ISP dialup account. Plus the speed (download, anyway) is 30+ times faster. Also, my sibs came by with their laptops and they found the network right away as well.
Dad grooves on the notion that the farm house is a hot spot!
The upright gray box with blue lights is the satellite modem. The squat blue-fronted box is the wireless router. One of NIST's atomic clocks is to the left. And all of it sits on the "Gentleman's Gentleman" line of Steelcase modular office furniture.
The Nopundit Northcom bunker. Decorated in farmhouse basement modern.
The wireless antenna on my computer. Even though this technology should not amaze me, it does. I am still amazed that big airplanes can get off the ground as well.
Posted by nopundit at September 28, 2005 10:06 PM