Saturday September 14, 2002 at 08:36 pm
I’ve been way tired all day today, yesterday my roommate Mike, called to tell me the DSL modem finally came in. So I was obviously way anxious to get it connected, once I got home, granted h originally wasn’t going to leave it out for me to hook up since h had no NIC to use, which was pretty irrelevant to begin with, as if he had no NIC it would do him no good to leave in his room. At least by putting it out I could hook it up and make sure it worked then connect my router to it and at least make sure we could connect to it using the router, otherwise there would be 2 options. One would be to change service to a provider that was compatible with a router, or the second, in which he could keep it in his room, and I’d get my own service. Either way he still needed a NIC to use it at all.
So I spent a few hours connecting everything and at 1st seemed straight forward until I couldn’t get it connected at all. So of course being the techie I am I tried to figure it out 1st before breaking down and calling MSN. Turns out they they’re manual that refers to installing filters on the line using the DSL service includes all lines in the house with an analog device on it. So I had to hunt around for where the phones were plugged in and add filters to them. While I was on the phone with them I took the opportunity to get as much info on the Wan as possible so I took down the gateways, DNS’s, subnet mask, and IP address. Apparently MSN/Qwest DSL service uses DHCP, so I static IP is out of the question, so I’ll have to see how often the modem renews it’s IP before I decide whether or not to even bother settings up a web cam, SHOUTcast stream, as well as hosting my other sites.
So I finally get the “ole 450” online, and run a few tests to make sure there’s no issues, with blocked ports since it appears to have a NAT firewall installed in the Arescom 800 modem, in which they sent us. It didn’t but I knew right away there would be a problem with the router, because the modem used the same default gateway as the router, thus there would be a conflict on configuring the router if the modem had the same IP. I few quick forum browse through DSL Reports, and I had the fix. Thankfully the Linksys router has a gateway that can be manually changed, so all I would need to do is change it to something outside of the standard as well as set it up to use DHCP to get the configuration settings from the modem. By this time Mike was up, since it was about 5 A.M.. now and he was getting ready for work.
At 6:30 A.M. I had everything setup and connected, and now it was time to make sure more than one system could get online at a time, the only problem was getting the CAT5 form the center room to my room, with only 25ft segment s to work with. I guessed I could have set my hub in the hall way and ran it that way but that would be way to ghetto. So I spent the next 20 minutes widening the cable jack opening with an box cutter, I felt like I was the Andy Dufresne, in Shawshank Redemption, cutting the wall of his cell. Only instead of a physical freedom, I was reaching fro a mental freedom, a digital freedom. Alas at 7:10 A.M, I broke through enough to slide the CAT5 through. I connected the hub already connected to my system, with its new guest and set about releasing and renewing my systems old IP, which it amazingly kept over the last 2 weeks from Tom’s crib.
At exactly 7:32 A.M. I was back online, and bombarded with over 490 emails within 2 minutes of opening Outlook. I ran one speed test, but by this point I was too tired to really comprehend the barrage of data specs it spewed out, so hopefully when I get home tonight I’ll be a little more attentive and actually see just how fast this DSL service is compared to COX cable. I finally was able to go to sleep at about 8 A.M., and didn’t even think of getting up till 12:45. Especially since the previously night I didn’t get home until 3 A.M. to begin with.
So this weekends missions
1) Get wall plates with CAT5 adapters built into it so I can simply replace the existing once and plug directly into the wall.
2) Get cable hooks to hide the CAT5 as much as possible, if Tom is able to hook us up with some longer CAT5 cables.
3) Run the Coaxial cable to the TV tuner on the main system, so I can watch TV in my room.
4) Hook up the ATI breakout box and setup the web cam, and video camera
5) Hook the tape deck up onto the 450 and rip my old mix tapes
6) If one is on sale, possibly by a new motherboard, and processor combo to upgrade the 450 into a decent audio workstation.
7) Find an affordable NIC for Mike to buy on his own, as all my NICS are technically devoted to other systems that already have the drivers installed for them, and some are being used in the same system to test theories out, which if they work will be implemented.
8) At some point I got to get the oil changed in the Grandma Mobile, she’s running a little ragged lately.
9) Attempt to organize at least one bag of reliable hip hop wax.
10) If the upgrade is successful and the ripping is completed, setting up the tables to the 450 to practice for the upcoming Halloween gig.
No all these things are not guaranteed, and are very likely subject to change based upon funds, time, and most of how late I’ll be up tonight thus possibly preventing me from being motivated to go to work on a Saturday, thus creating and overall mood of laziness for the entire weekend. That is if I try and get all this done on Saturday, which in theory I’d like to do that way I can relax on Sunday, but who knows.
On a lighter note, work is boring as can be today, and the team has vowed to do nothing for the rest of the night, which started a little after 7 p.m. this evening. So with that I mind, I’m off to surf the net for something or another.
But I leave you with a few pics of “B” my lilhomie, that keeps me sane at work, whom habitually belives he’s a great white shark, when attacking it comes to feeding time.
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