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Some progress

Some progress on the cable internet connection I ordered. After I rang up and badgered them a bit, they started moving into action. Ah yes, that’s how you deal with big companies: disturb them enough from their slumber to do something.

On Thursday morning a friendly bloke arrived in a van, fiddled with a box on the side of the building, clambered all over the roof, abseiled off the building using coax cable (that bit might be a complete lie), drilled a hole in the computer room wall and put in the socket. Then with a bright yellow multimeter (something which I think would be overwhelmingly cool to have, but which I know I’d use once then keep in a drawer forever) he measured the signal strength, filled in a form, then went away.

Another friendly bloke turned up a few hours later, to enticingly test a cable modem with the socket, and to report that they still had a shortage of cable modems, and I should ring up and badger them again because it was likely to get me a modem sooner.

So now I have two thirds of a cable modem connection. Which of course in terms of actually enjoying streaming video and all that jazz, is no better than no trace at all of a cable modem connection, but it is progress I suppose. Certainly the throughput on blokes in vans is quite incredible.

No word, meanwhile, from Comsec. Unlike the cable people, they’ve got plenty of opposition, so when and if I get the share trading urge again (I’ve waited so long I don’t feel like it at the moment) I’ll get onto it.

No word from Dell either, but they’ve completely missed this prospective customer now anyway. Gateway are due to deliver the goodies in a few days, which is just as well since they’ve already taken the <argh> dollars from my credit card.

Meanwhile my mate Brian and his wife Deanne have decided to emigrate to America. A bit unexpected, I must say, since they’ve just finished kitting out their new house. But good luck to them, I say, in their quest for fortunes in the wild untamed frontiers of Redding, California.

Anyway that’s enough from me – I need to go start planning my GST-related activities. The whole company side of things still confuses me somewhat. And more importantly, what should I stock up on before it hits on Saturday? Back to the ACCC web site for me…

By Daniel Bowen

Transport blogger / campaigner and spokesperson for the Public Transport Users Association / professional geek.
Bunurong land, Melbourne, Australia.
Opinions on this blog are all mine.