Soooper Genius

We have three, no, four computers at home. Two peep and buzz on a 24-hour schedule, illuminating the darkened study with flashes of fairy green, lightning blue, sunset orange from their multiplicity of LEDs. The third is a laptop, which goes on a traveling show with me to and from work and is only occasionally used at home, either in the dark on the kitchen table after the children have gone to bed or on the desk right in front of the desktop, where I can revel, briefly, in the idea that I have two screens. The fourth lies dormant in a box under the basement stairs, a repository of spare parts, I imagine, though their utility decreases with each tick of the calendar.

These computers connect to any number of add-ons: three flash drives, a laser printer, a scanner, a device we’ve never been able to operate correctly but that, in theory, allows us to scan photographic slides into the computer. We also recently switched from dial-up to a broadband service.

This weekend, I went nuts.

Because the laptop has wireless capability, I’d been drooling for a router. But buying a router to use with dial-up is like buying new hubcaps for a 1991 Oldsmobile Cutlass, the one we sold to the lady in Rigby for $700. But when the broadband service came into the house, I did indeed buy the router. Without, at first, consulting my wife. It was an impulse buy at the local big-box, where I’d been dispatched with two of the children to buy licorice. To take the curse off the purchase, I decided I’d better buy something else to hook my wife’s computer up to the broadband system as well, so she’d see the utility of it all. Men, obviously, don’t need to see the utility; the fact that technology IS is enough justification. But being budget-minded, I skipped the wireless card for her computer and, instead, bought a bundle of Ethernet cable. A wired connection. That sounds so efficient. Even though I had to string the wire across two walls, interrupting her view of her wall calendar and a photograph of a beloved family pet. But it worked! Glory be! Even after a heart-stopping moment when the installation program working to marry my laptop to this union balked and said my equipment wasn’t compatible. I was not about to go down the slipper slope of buying even more equipment, especially since I was setting up the network as my wife jogged. But another blind stab at making the laptop worked. Then, casually, as I was washing the dishes, I explained to her my new purchases. Well, actually, she brought the subject up by saying, “What are you doing with that cable nailed to the wall?” She was, bless her, OK with the whole thing, asking only that I do something to hide the cable. That’ll entail rearranging the entire study. Not a good prospect. But since the rearrangement will include new carpeting, ridding us of the orange shag she hates, we’ll do it.

So last night I was a furious ball of updating, running from computer to computer, ensuring everything was working well. Michelle’s computer required 119 Windows updates; it had not seen the business end of a modem in more than a year. My computer required the same level of scrutiny, as I had to reset it to its factory settings because an internet security program had its tentacles wrapped and locked and would not let go as I tried to uninstall it. Even the laptop took some time to update, as at work we have a fiber optic connection but also IT Nazis who forbid outside computers from connecting to the network. I took it to the local college a few times to parasite off their wireless, but couldn’t get up there enough. So I’d just sit at the table late at night, poking neighboring wireless connections that were either too weak or too secure to get into. No more.

The miracle is that I got it all to work. Poking in numbers and attaching cords and trying to figure out why one method doesn't work and then finding a different method. I've grown to appreciate the help files Microsoft has incorporated into their products. (I'm neutral on Windows, you see. I use it because it comes with the computers we buy. I work with a Linux acolyte. He likes it. Good for him.) I just know if a noob like I can figure things out, they're not all that hard. And the week before I thought I was pretty clever when I started recycling tin cans to use in the shed to hold sorted nails and screws.

So our family has gone from technological Neanderthals to being part of the wired community. Will we be better off? Likely not. But now Michelle can print to the laser printer without having to save her documents to the flash drive then bring it over to my computer. So I’ve probably saved her at least five minutes a week. I also saved about a half hour last night because the computer could check on some obscure CD database as I imported music to put on the iPod, rather than the old method I used last time, typing all the track information in by hand. I think it’s worth it.