Thursday, April 13, 2006
Recipient Not Known
So, remember K from the post about the potential threesome? She's now getting mail delivered here. Mastercard bills. Lets have a vote: who thinks I should just write "Recipient Not Known" and toss it back in the post office box? Reply in the comments!
Saturday, April 08, 2006
Closing Doors Update
OK, we've now seen the results of what happens when you leave doors open during the winter (other than high heating bills): rodents. Thanks guys, I'm charging you for the traps and the bait.
Worse than CanadaPost
Here's a simple one. If there's mail, drop it in front of the person's door. Not the kitchen table that's usually full of random stuff. That way, oh, I don't know, bills will get paid on time. Useful, no? Honestly, it's just common sense and common courtesy. And they can't say that they've never heard of the concept before. Because I have done it for all of them (with one possible exception - but he's actually somewhat rational).
Save water, bathe with a friend
When this saying came into popularity a few decades back, the idea of sharing bathwater was not necessarily novel, but made for some great jokes. What they didn't intend, however, is how my roommate is sharing the water from his shower with me. No, no, sorry, nothing kinky. It's on the floor. Every day. Puddles of it. Puddles deep enough that ripples form when you walk by. Honestly man, you took down the old, heavy shower curtain that kept the water in the stall and replaced it with your light flowery waste-of-money curtain that might as well not be there. At least have the courtesy to mop up the water you leave because of it.
P.S. Never mind the curtain does work, because the only water left on the floor when I leave is from dripping while I towel off and from condensation. So maybe he should learn to close the curtain. WTF?
P.S. Never mind the curtain does work, because the only water left on the floor when I leave is from dripping while I towel off and from condensation. So maybe he should learn to close the curtain. WTF?
Saturday, April 01, 2006
Routers and viruses and idiots, oh my!
We've been having internet troubles all term. Flakey wireless connection, router going up and down like a demented yoyo, cable modem seeming like it needs viagra... the whole works. The stupidity of at least one housemate has been causing this, over and over, despite our attempts to remedy it:
1. We swap routers, the net starts working. Then, someone comes and swaps it back. It stops working. Bright one.
2. We daisy chain the routers, the net starts working. We did this because we found out that someone's computer is a nest of malware, and spends its days trying to bring our network, and the rest of the net, down. Anyway, the net starts working again, somewhat. It's flakey, but better than before. Anyway, of course, someone comes and swaps it around again, making the net stop working.
3. I fix it and put it back to working order. Next day, I find it changed again. Except this time, one of the routers is connected TO ITSELF. There's three people connected to the LAN jacks, and the WAN port is connected directly by patch cable to the fourth LAN jack. No wonder the net was down. *sigh*
4. I finally connect enough logs about what's happening to the router to pinpoint precisely which machine is doing it. (I know it shouldn't have taken this long, but I've only taken one networking class, so sue me.) I send out an email telling everyone this. Then, I turn on MAC filtering for everybody who's on the router, except for that guy. BAM the internet starts working, and pretty much hasn't stopped yet. I also put a note on the router saying to contact me if their net isn't working, not to screw around with it. (This doesn't work, someone does mess with it, but only minorly)
Sounds great, no? Our saga is almost complete. Turns out I accidentally blocked two people from the net, not just the one. The guy who lives next door is a CS major. He comes to me, a few days later, looking morose, asking how to fix it, telling me that he doesn't know how to get viruses off, and is ready to format his computer. After some quick checking, his girlfriend and I find out that his computer wasn't actually the one killing things, so I apologize, and put them back into the filtering scheme.
As for the other guy? Ken has told me he came down that night, and tried to mess with the routers again. Ken found him, asked if his net had been working (which it hadn't), thus confirming who it caused all the problems. He was instructed to contact me (by email, by note, and by Ken) to get things resolved.
He still hasn't. Weird.
1. We swap routers, the net starts working. Then, someone comes and swaps it back. It stops working. Bright one.
2. We daisy chain the routers, the net starts working. We did this because we found out that someone's computer is a nest of malware, and spends its days trying to bring our network, and the rest of the net, down. Anyway, the net starts working again, somewhat. It's flakey, but better than before. Anyway, of course, someone comes and swaps it around again, making the net stop working.
3. I fix it and put it back to working order. Next day, I find it changed again. Except this time, one of the routers is connected TO ITSELF. There's three people connected to the LAN jacks, and the WAN port is connected directly by patch cable to the fourth LAN jack. No wonder the net was down. *sigh*
4. I finally connect enough logs about what's happening to the router to pinpoint precisely which machine is doing it. (I know it shouldn't have taken this long, but I've only taken one networking class, so sue me.) I send out an email telling everyone this. Then, I turn on MAC filtering for everybody who's on the router, except for that guy. BAM the internet starts working, and pretty much hasn't stopped yet. I also put a note on the router saying to contact me if their net isn't working, not to screw around with it. (This doesn't work, someone does mess with it, but only minorly)
Sounds great, no? Our saga is almost complete. Turns out I accidentally blocked two people from the net, not just the one. The guy who lives next door is a CS major. He comes to me, a few days later, looking morose, asking how to fix it, telling me that he doesn't know how to get viruses off, and is ready to format his computer. After some quick checking, his girlfriend and I find out that his computer wasn't actually the one killing things, so I apologize, and put them back into the filtering scheme.
As for the other guy? Ken has told me he came down that night, and tried to mess with the routers again. Ken found him, asked if his net had been working (which it hadn't), thus confirming who it caused all the problems. He was instructed to contact me (by email, by note, and by Ken) to get things resolved.
He still hasn't. Weird.
