A techie’s gotta do what’s a techie’s gotta do.

• Author: DigitalMind
• Filed under: Techie Cartoons, Uncategorized
• Date: Apr 11,2008

As I mentioned in my 10 signs that you’re a techie post, a techie like me has trouble getting by without internet for very long. Don’t get me wrong, when I go camping, there’s no internet and that’s fine. However when i’m home during the day, I WANT MY INTERNET!

Almost 48 hours ago, while I was finishing updating the new theme for TechieNATION my internet suddenly dropped. No biggie, router probably needs a re-boot. As I walked towards the wireless router, something looked wrong ; There was a disturbance in the force. Upon closer inspection I noticed the DSL light on my modem was off. That’s never a good sign.

I’m a cable / phone guy, I know what this means. I rebooted the modem and did a quick check of my inside wiring, but I knew this wasn’t the problem. BELL CANADA had accidentally disconnected my link to the central. It could have been a tech working outside, or someone from inside the central itself. Argh. First thing I did was take a walk around the block to see if I could catch the technician in the act. I did not. That is when the never-ending battle with BELL began. It was so irritating I don’t really want to talk about it, other than the fact that it took about 4 hours of talking with people that BARELY speak english OR french, and 10 transfers between departments. In the end I was told that it would be reconnected 2 days later.

I felt like this guy: (And I love these cartoons so much, i’m gonna put more here)

I decided to wait it out, but that didn’t last. I discovered that if I bring my laptop DIRECTLY against the living room window, I can just BARELY connect to a wireless network with security disabled. (I could have broken the security of a closer network, but I figure the person with the unsecured network either doesn’t mind sharing, or is ignorant enough to deserve me using their internet)

I spent an hour or 2 doing my internet things by the window, but it was very uncomfortable. I decided to do something about it, since I may be in this situation for a while.

First I checked to see if my wireless router could be configured as an Access point that wireless’ly connects to the unsecured network, and then I could hardwire myself into the router. It could not.

Suddenly it came to me. It was so simple. I hi-hacked my girlfriends computer from the other room, and brought it by the window. I connected her computer to the wireless network, went into network connections, right clicked the wireless adapter, and set-it up to “Share the internet connection with other’s on the network”. (Just a check box in there somewhere) Then I connected a patch-cord between the laptop and the WAN port of my router. I configured the router with an internet connection that doesn’t require a login. (So basically set it up to fetch an address and all the info from the DHCP, which the laptop by the window was acting as at this point)

Voila !! Now I can go anywhere in my apartment with my laptop, which is connected to the wireless router, which is physically connected to the laptop by the window, which is connected to the internet via a hi-hacked unsecured wireless connection.

What can I say, a techie’s gotta do what a techie’s gotta do.