I walked into Verizon's sales office this afternoon to inquire about DSL service. I had enough presence of mind to ask how you get the DSL modem hooked up to the computer, and learned that the box needs either an Ethernet card or a USB port. Wonderful. I have neither. So now I'm faced with taking the box apart to install a $24 Ethernet card (and reinstall the CD-ROM drive), or buying a new machine which has that stuff already installed (and has a larger hard drive capacity and a newer OS than the Win98 I'm currently using). I'm leaning towards the new machine to solve those other two problems, but my budget is saying if you can avoid that, maybe you should. Rats.
In bookish news, I got to the library to pick up my reserved copy of The Price of Loyalty, Paul O'Neill's memoir of his life as Treasury Secretary in the Bush Administration. Even having watched the misbegotten policies he describes as they played out, reading this (I'm 2/3 through already) is like being an observer at a particularly nasty car crash and its aftermath.
I also stopped at the neighborhood Waldenbooks and got a copy of the Clinton autobiography, but Mom snagged it first, so my report will have to wait (maybe quite a while--957 pages!). There was no line, but sales seemed to be steady. Oh, if you want some amusement and some confirmation that the man is either loved or hated, go read the reviews at Amazon.
Posted by Linkmeister at June 23, 2004 04:04 PMWhat kind of machine do you have? It's really not difficult to install a PCI Ethernet card; it's just a pain in the neck to unhook all the cables, take the cover off the machine, and so on. If you have a Dell, they have excellent instructions online for disassembly. If you have a Gateway... Ew.
Ethernet cards are cheap as dirt; even if you plan to get a new machine, I'd recommend installing a card in the old one just for the experience. Besides, that way you can network the old machine in with the new one and use it as storage.
Posted by: Christina at June 23, 2004 07:53 PMIt's a hand-built machine I got from a friend as a Thanksgiving surprise a couple of years ago. I suppose as long as the box the card comes in has instructions for what part of the motherboard to plug into it can't be all that bad.
The biggest issue is just that, of course, everything is in such a tight space. It's hard to maneuver.
Then there's the paranoia about screwing it up and being without the machine for a day or two; after all, it's my sole source of livelihood. ;)
Posted by: Linkmeister at June 23, 2004 08:41 PMIf you have an internal modem, it's almost certainly plugged into your PCI bus, so you would plug the NIC card (Ethernet adapter) right next to it. If it's really cramped in there, you could try just replacing the modem card with the NIC.
I know what you mean about the paranoia, but just think how blissful you'll be once the DSL kicks in!
Posted by: Christina at June 23, 2004 09:36 PMFunny, in UT the Clinton book is hardly moving off the shelves. hmmmm.
Posted by: shelley (not so cynical) at June 24, 2004 07:14 AMI would have thought that you had DSL by now, Linky...with your job and all..
I say go for the new machine and use the other as a backup, as Christina said..
You have to have a state of the art unit with your job, dontcha?
(well, it would be state of the art for about 3 minutes...)
At the risk of treading ground already covered, some thoughts: since the computer is for work, can you write off the cost of a new computer? Same with the DSL.
Posted by: shari at June 24, 2004 03:15 PMShari, probably. It's the upfront cost that bugs me. ;)
Posted by: Linkmeister at June 24, 2004 03:49 PM