No #Instant #Netflix in #Santa Fe, yet.

Les, our computer expert in Palm Desert, CA., was able to get us Instant Flix there by shifting the position of the router from my office to the TV room.  It is now perched precariously on a small tripod behind an easy chair next to the TV set.

         He suggested that I try a new, better and more powerful router in Santa Fe.  With some concern that I was throwing good money after bad, I bought the latest version of the best Belkin router in Palm Desert, CA, but would is find a good home in Santa Fe?

         I waited a couple of weeks after we arrived to install the Belkin Router because I didn’t want to suffer through another technological defeat (e.g. email that I couldn’t send, TV that needed outside expertise just to turn it on, etc.)  Although I was victorious in every case, it depressed me to (1) understand how little I knew about these gadgets, (2) how difficult it was to understand the Indian or Indonesian technical experts on the phone, and (3) how long the process took.  I probably put in eight hours on the phone working to solve this problem. 

Part 1: #Victory Over #NetFlix in #Santa #Fe

        Before beginning this story, which ends with be3ing able to actually watch #Instant #NetFlix (movies delivered directly to my TV set with no discs involved), I need to warn the reader that two technical terms will be used:  modem and router.

         Both are small, gray towers which sit side by side on my desk.  One, the modem, has more than a half dozen green lights.  Green is good because that indicates that all is well.  The other, the router, has one green light.

         I would like to define what the modem and the router do.  Unfortunately, I cannot. 

         All I know is that they are important for delivering access to the Internet and Instant NetFlix.  For all I know, they may also be broadcasting messages from aliens, irradiating our food or delivering insights that can only be understood by our dog.

         Now that we understand the terms, I will proceed with the story:

         After three years of struggling, after three experts were baffled by the problems, we are now able to watch Instant Netflix on Netflix through our Blu-Ray.

         In years previous, my son-in-law, Mark, who can make robots respond with accuracy and alacrity in the movies and who has, to my knowledge, never been defeated by anything based on computers, gears or wheels, was frustrated by this installation in Santa Fe.  He entered various passwords, changed the position of the router, etc., but could not get a signal from the desk in my office to the living room TV set and Blu-Ray.

Victory: I get #email, #Nigerian offers me $25 mil

The next morning I could not send out emails again.  But I knew what to do (short of throwing the computer out of the window).  I opened the options section on entourage, found the passwords line and re-entered that.  And that was when the Internet went down (possibly because of the huge forest fires in the area taking down Internet antennas.)

All I had to do was wait until the next day, turn on the computer and then joyously send out emails confirming that I want to help that poor woman in #Nigeria whose husband was killed by the government and who wants to get a paltry #$25 million out of the country.  She promised to give me half the $25 million in exchange for the $10,000 needed to hire a crooked lawyer. 

Total time expended trying to be able to send emails from our home in Santa Fe: nearly 10 hours over 3 days. 

The Internet remains a joy to all mankind.  Getting it to work for most of us is far from easy.   

Email off, email on thanks to #Apple in #Santa #Fe

At least they were solved until the next morning, wben I tried to sent out emails again and failed.

I called Apple back, reminded them of the service plan I bought the day before and was referred to another tech adviser.

This time, I was told, in no uncertain terms, that I was in the wrong place.  So I went through the phone chain again:  Time-Warner to Apple, etc.

He pointed out that I was using Entourage to send and receive email, and this was a Microsoft product.  He convinced me to call Microsoft, which I did.

Then, while in the hands of another polite lady and while fiddling with the password and email designations, I realized that my name (Norman Mark) did not agree with my nickname (normanmark) and the email (NMark, etc.) did not agree with anything else.  (Not even my alternate email persona: Normal Mark.)   So, while my Microsoft helper was on the phone, I made everything agree, including the capital letters: for one email area, I made sure that the name was NMark and not something else.

After saving my efforts and running a test (sending the email to myself), everything worked perfectly.  Email went zipping back and forward around the Earth, easily and as quickly as my wheezing computer could approve of everything.   Until the next morning. 

Getting/not getting #email thanks to #Time #Warner in #Santa #Fe

This happy state of getting and sending email continued until the next morning when I could no longer send email.  A call to Time-Warner resulted in another gentleman telling me that email was not Time-Warner’s responsibility.   I should go to #Apple and have them solve the problem.

Once in the clutches of Apple, a woman with a chirpy voice and an Indonesian accent told me that the only was to solve the problem was to pay $49+ for help.  This upset me, especially because Time-Warner and others were perfectly willing to give me bad advice for free.

After some snide remarks on my part, I gave her my credit card number and she shunted me over to tech support.  There a nice woman suggested that I enter all the emails, nicknames and poasswords again.  This involved changing 4 or more lines in the email options area, which took some time.

Then, after it was impossible to send email, she suggested that I restart the computer.  I did and the emails went zinging out.  All problems solved, and after only another 2 hours on the phone.   Until the next day.