Dongle Adventures

O.K. first off, who thought up that name?  I'm sorry but 'dongle'?  Really?  It sounds like something from a Carry On movie - "It keeps my dongle warm."  You see what I mean?

Anyway on to the meat of this blog.

We moved on the fourth of August with no knowledge of when we were going to receive our new broadband line.  Two weeks later, in desperate need of some D.I.Y and cleaning supplies order on mass over the Internet, as well as a chance to view my e-mails I finally decided that I was going to have to bite the bullet and buy my next piece of high tech, ultra modern kit - a dongle.  The other thing that spurred this decision on was the sub-committee meeting I had with the other members of the Norwich Writers' Circle who were involved with the revamp of our website.  (For those of you who don't already know I'm the Publicity Officer.  A very fancy title for basically being the PR women.  Still it is normally fun so I don't complain that often.  I save that for when the deadlines are haring up my aft at a rate of knots.)  Anyway, during this committee meeting it was decided that the website, leaflets, posters and, when I finish them, the postcards, all needed to have common themes and graphics in their design.  Thankfully James, bless his heart, said that he would e-mail the necessaries over to me.  However, that depended on me being able to access the e-mails.  Que the decision to buy a dongle.

The committee meeting was on a Sunday so Monday morning a trip into Norwich and a visit to Maplin provided me with what I thought was a dongle.  Ha ha.  It was a wireless internet adaptor, near enough the same thing but with one very important difference - it needs a hardline connected router.  Doh!

Tuesday afternoon I take the wireless internet adaptor back to Maplin and then go down to the T-mobile shop to buy a dongle.  So far so good.  Wednesday I have the fun and games of setting the darn thing up.  A week later I finally discover that the only place in the house with a good signal is out in the garden.  Argh!

Thankfully I was just able to meet the deadline for the leaflets but it has been a month of very nearly throwing my computer across whatever room I happen to be in.  Not good for my stress levels no matter which way you look at it. If nothing else it means that if it decides to rain for a week without stopping I am sans Internet.

And we think computers make our lives easier...