Computer Woes!

*** I apologize in advance for all the techie talk ***

So we've been experiencing computer woes for at least several weeks.

First, Shaw's service was less than stellar. I guess the grid that we're on was getting overloaded. Some of the speed test that we did with the tech guy showed that the download speed really sucked, maybe 100Kb/sec. They finally fixed that, and we're now we're getting 4-5 MB.

Second, the router that we've had for a while finally crapped out. It was always flakey to begin with. When I did ping tests, it either timed out, or the data packets took a very long time to come back. Boo. After calling twice today, hubby managed to get a receipt for a replacement. However, we still need a wireless router as I need to stick my web server out in the DMZ for my school project (I don't know how else to do it, I don't do networks or firewalls =P), and my parents need their Internet. Hubby's friend hopefully can lend us a temp router until we get the replacement.

Then I called hubby today to see how he was doing (he stayed home and spoke to two different tech support people in different parts of Asia). He told me he couldn't boot my computer back up. I almost had a heart attack. I was hoping it wouldn't be my hard drive, because, like every good techie, I backed everything up, not! I seriously had visions of having to restart my project (of which I've been working on for 1.5 years) from scratch, so you can understand my concerns. It didn't sound like it, and lo and behold, when I got home, hubby was in the middle of switching power supplies with another box that we have (I was thinking about putting Ubuntu on that box at some point, but until we get a new power supply, I guess not). So it was the power supply that was the problem, and my computer's happy again. The guts are still sticking out (ie, hubby hasn't put the panels back on; apparently, I don't do hardware either), but it's happy. For now.

Sigh.