Fleet of Foot

[kerravonsen]

I am typing this now from the fleetly fast ADSL-connected katspace.homelinux.org!
(yes, I'm using a free dyndns.org domain name here for my home machine, which I set up earlier this week)

Whee!

I had absolutely no problems, once I actually connected it up. Mind you, getting it to that stage has been a very hard day's work. (I was going to say "morning's work, only I just noticed that it's after 4pm... (later... after 5pm))
It's all because I am in search of better sleep.

Thus have been consulting with my parents in the task of getting a better bed (they have a single-king which Mum's been using, but she's found that with certain of her infirmities, it's too high and hard to get in and out of, so they've said they'll give it to me). But in getting a better bed, I've been thinking where said bed should go, and whether the three "bedrooms" in my house, currently used as bedroom, study, and spare/guest/sewing room, should actually be used for what they are used for, and I decided, no, each one would be better suited as some other room (specifically, the bedroom should be the sewing room because it gets the best light, the study should be the bedroom because it's bigger and has two built-ins, and the guest room should be the study because it *isn't* too bright.
Okay, so... problem #1 is that the phone outlet is in the room designated "study" (which is one of the reasons I made it such, even though it's the room with the double wardrobe). In order to connect to the internet from the room formerly known as the spare room, one would need to put a phone extension cord from the room formerly known as the study, into the spare room.

Which might not work.

Now, my reckoning was, that people connecting you up to ADSL are very willing to be helpful and solve problems when you're trying to get your initial connection, but if you do something which messes up the setup, they'll get snarky and tell you "don't do that then!". So I figured the most cunning plan would be to set up the telephone extension as I intended it to be for the forseeable future, and then try to connect to the ADSL.

Of course, I couldn't just connect up the phone, I'd have to move my computer, the whole setup, into the room formerly known as the spare room.

Oh, and the other thing. Before I could connect, I needed to cannibalize the network card from the old computer, and put it in the new computer, so that the new one would have two network cards and could act as the firewall/gateway etc for the internal network (which, at the moment, is no network at all, since I only have one working computer right now). And while I was doing that, I thought I'd (trepidatiously) take the second disk out of the old machine and put it in the new one (not a very big disk by today's standards, only 20-30G, but still...)

Anyone who has moved things around knows the merry-go-round that it is: in order to move one thing, one has to move something else which is in the way. Even though this wasn't going to be the full room-reshuffle, it was still a lot of shuffling, especially for one person.

1. clear the floor in the spare room
   
2. clear the desk in the spare room
   
3. clear the floor in the bedroom (only partially done)
   
4. and while I was at it, cleared some of the stuff lingering in the front hall. (I discovered an old pair of shoes inside a box inside a bag, amongst other things...)
   
5. move small drawers from one part of my bedroom to another
   
6. empty wire drawers in study, put in lounge (then I put them in the garage)
   
7. clear other things from the study floor
   
8. clear stuff off the little TV cabinet in bedroom (eg cords, tapes, paper)
   
9. move little TV (and cabinet, including extra VCR) into lounge
   
10. put out a whole bunch of rubbish
    
11. empty books from small bookshelf in hallway
    
12. move small bookshelf into temporary spot in study
    
13. pull up telephone extension cord which is messily attached to walls in bedroom
    
14. move bed out of spare room (I was going to move the desk out of the spare room, but it was too heavy, wheras the bed of the spare room is only a little divan with a foam mattress)
    
    
    
    1. move cover off bed, dump on chair
       
    2. move spare mattress which is against wall between wall and divan, into bedroom
       
    3. move mattress off (including bedclothes) and lean up against wall
       
    4. move bed-frame out into hallway, lean against wall
       
    
    
15. shutdown computer and unplug various bits and pieces
    
16. lug old monitor into lounge
    
17. lug old computer, put on desk in spare room
    
18. move first computer desk into spare room
    
19. sit and ponder about the best place to put it, move it around a few times
    
20. move second computer desk into spare room
    
21. periodically in the midst of this, vaccuum up dust
    
22. move small bookcase up against wall of study (where it used to be in a former life)
    
23. move divan frame into study
    
24. put extra mattress on divan, find it is too large, stand it up against wall in bedroom
    
25. put mattress on divan, make bed
    
26. discover that the divan is the wrong way around, turn it around, make bed again
    
27. track down where you put the pillow from the divan
    
28. put the bedcover on the divan
    
29. lie down for a few minutes
    
30. cannibalize network card and disk from old computer
    
31. move old computer into lounge
    
32. connect up the telephone extension cord and trail it up over the doorframe from the study to the spare room
    
33. realize that the best spot for the computer desk means one will have to rearrange everything on the computer desks; do this
    
34. start hooking up all the power and connection cables to computer
    
35. get interrupted by parents bearing lunch
    
36. have a pleasant lunch with parents
    
37. finish hooking up all the cables (except for the ADSL cable, silly to start that when not sure if computer will work)
    
38. get network card working on new computer
    
39. discover you took the wrong disk
    
40. get the old computer back from the lounge, swap the disks again, put the old computer back in the lounge
    
41. periodically through this, put books back onto small bookshelf formerly in hallway, now in room formerly known as the study
    
42. have working computer!
    
43. follow instructions to turn on ADSL
    
44. It works!
    

Comments

[hawkeye7.livejournal.com]

I don't quite follow why the machine needs two network cards. The machines here gets by on just one...

[kerravonsen]

One network card to attach to the modem, one network card to attach to the router. I was originally going to try to connect the modem directly to the router, but figured that it would be easier to do stuff if I just connected the computer to the modem.

Of course, I don't know what it looks like from outside.

[hawkeye7.livejournal.com]

Oh okay... I did connect the modem directly to the router.

[jhall1.livejournal.com]

Phew! I felt exhausted just reading that. Well done!

[mistraltoes.livejournal.com]

Wow. If I'd done the first three of those, I'd think I'd done a lot. Good job!

[kerravonsen]

Some days are messier than others. I'd done a bit of clearing of the spare room last weekend, so it wasn't that much of a problem as far as the floor went. But thanks.