Given my 'very early adopter' tech background, until this afternoon I hadn't thought about how much we all really do depend on the internet & phones etc these days. Especially if ONLY connecting wirelessly!
Here in Hervey Bay QLD, I've been doing some video editing for a client and wanted to grab a couple of images off their website. Bumma... website down. So checked some other sites. Same.
Thought it might be my special RV-WiFi unit so re-booted that. No luck.
Tried using the phone as a Mobile Hotspot. Same thing.
Figured I'd take a break and go for a walk. First thing I see is a couple of teens getting pretty upset at 'something'... In my usual friendly manner I asked "Everything ok?"...
"BLOODY INTERNET'S DOWN!!!... Can't even send a text or call anyone!!..." as they continued their rant blaming their 'bloody' Telco ALWAYS having problems. :-(
Of course given Kaye & I work online & chat with family & friends pretty much every day, had it been during the week and we had a deadline or important Zoom meeting etc, we too might have been a bit 'miffed'.
But you know what?... It was a gentle reminder that life before the internet and instant communication, can be just as much fun or just as productive.
You just have to think... 'well unless there's an emergency - although it looks like Triple-0 is still available - then there's not a lot we can do about it!' which was one of the reasons I decided to go for a walk.
Kaye also did 'something else'. Prepping food for the week (mostly Chica's special 'hide the meds' food!)
So when will our local ‘Wide Bay’ area 'net & phone service be back up?
I don't know. I've saved this blog as a TXT file and will hopefully upload later - (if you're reading this then I did!!).
But the bottom line for me personally is that we should NEVER rely 100% on anything 'technical' that we have little or no control over.
If the problem turns out to be just our Telco, we'll think about looking for another supplier if it happens again or on a regular basis.
If it was a bigger issue nationally - say a cyber-attack - then standby... this just might be the start of things to come.
Stay tuned... if you can!
UPDATE: After almost 4 hours we were back online! - Turns out it WAS our supplier (no names) but they have been pretty good in our travels so far so we'll stick it out... whew!
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BRIAN’S TOP TIPS FOR ‘WANNABE’ NERDS WHILE THE NET IS DOWN!
Apart from going for a walk, cleaning the house/car etc or meal prepping for the week you could try some of these!
Tip #1 – CLEAN UP YOUR IN-BOX
Email overload is one of the BIGGEST issues we all seem to have these days.
I suggest going through ALL your mail for – say – the last 30 days and either deleting stuff that is just a reply to a not so important exchange with someone, or reply if needed and then send it. It will go into your sent box and hang around there until you are back online.
Given the ‘net will be down at this time you won’t be able to un-subscribe to anything so I suggest creating a new folder and call it – UNSUBSCRIBE.
Then drag any mail you rarely read or want to unsubscribe from into that folder so that when the ‘net is back up, you can easily unsubscribe from each one. Then make sure you DELETE all those emails too.
Oh & don’t forget to regularly empty your TRASH folder either!!
You might be surprised how many there are!
Tip #2 – SORT OUT YOUR IMAGE & DOCUMENT FOLDERS
Depending on what device you mostly use day to day… be it a phone, iPad, Tablet Laptop or desktop PC, they all get ‘cluttered’ which means we waste a LOT of memory space.
Do you REALLY need 26 shots of dad with the biggest fish he ever caught? Or like we do… HUNDREDS of shots of the most spoilt Toy Poodle ever SLEEPING!!
Maybe 3-5 would be more than enough? And if you already posted some of those to Facebook or Instagram, AND have Google (or other) cloud storage, do you really need them on your local device?
What about that DVD movie you ‘ripped’ but wasn’t your favourite & you’ll never watch it again. DELETE IT!
Tip- #3 - BACKUPS PREVENT TEARS!….
I’m very aware of having multiple backups of ALL my data.
Personally I’m not a big fan of so called ‘cloud storage’ because that means it’s in someone else’s care and might also be accessed by spammers/spoofers etc but of course with the ‘net down at any time (like now when I’m writing this!) how can YOU access it anyway?
Sure, some cloud storage is inevitable – in fact needed – for some apps, programs and devices.
But a simple solution for storage if you’re trying to clean up & make some more room on your local hard drive or mobile device is a back up drive. These are relatively cheap and can be as simple as a USB stick, SSD (Solid State) drive or extra large ‘Hard Drive’.
Personally I like the WD-SSD or Western Digital Solid State Drives. They come in various capacities so chat to your tech guy @ Officeworks, Dick Smith, Hervey Norman etc who will hopefully explain the benefits of each based on your needs.
Basically you just copy across all the folders you want a back-up of. Same names as on your device.
If you are doing this to make more space on the original device, once its all backed up (copied) and you’ve DOUBLE-CHECKED all the files have been moved over, I usually delete the original content but leave the folder empty with a note saying where those files have gone to.
If you are simply making a ‘safety copy’, then voila… It’s all done!
The same goes for your mobile phone device. Access to this is usually easiest via a USB cable to a laptop etc, copy stuff over to your PC or directly to the back-up drive if you have enough USB ports/cables etc.
Meantime… Internet still down??... Time for another walk 😊
© 2022 - Brian Pickering
