Flying deeper into the century

...the 21st century, that is. And yes, I admit that I stole the title of this post from a poem by Canadian poet Pier Giorgio di Cicco. I've got one of his books on the shelf across the room, and I even read it from time to time.*

This, of course, segues nicely into yet another discussion of Ricardipus fighting with 21st-century technology, following on from my recent battles with Blogger templates, mp3 encoding, an overly complicated digital camera, and so forth.

Come to think of it, battles with even simple technologies are common around this place, at least when I'm involved. Ask me about getting the shrink-wrap off DVDs sometime. It's a private little war all in itself.

Anyway, the culprit this time is wireless internet. Yes, indeed - after minor whining (by me; nobody else cares much) about Chateau Ricardipus being somewhat less than state-of-the-art in terms of Wi-Fi connectivity (i.e., there wasn't any), I took it on myself to remedy the situation. Which was surprisingly simple, really - a $40 router from The Source (which is the Canadian version of what used to be Radio Shack - don't ask, there was some complicated litigation involved I believe). In my usual way, I opened the box more or less on the spot, intending to read the manual on the way home.

Wake up, Ricardipus. It's the 21st century. There is no manual. At least, not one you can read without popping the CD-ROM into a friendly computer.

Having gotten home, the thing turned out to be dead simple to set up and get talking to my slightly-hijacked-from-work laptop (yes, I'm allowed to have it at home, stop calling the authorities). No manual required. Unfortunately, it turned out to be dead complicated to enable the security to stop the whole street from using my high-speed. This did require reading the manual, and I'm still not totally sure I got it right. As for mapping drives and sharing folders between the Sleek and Intelligent Computer™ and the laptop, well... not yet. But I'm working on it. Diligently.**

Nevertheless... Qualified Success! I am now typing at you while lying on my bed, two floors and the length of the house away from the cable modem. I know, I know, it's a trivial thing, but it seems like a big success to me, ok?

So... speaking of "Flying deeper into the century" (oooo, another segue!), since the new year is fast approaching, and with Misty's post about goals for the expiring year in mind, I will add "got wireless working" to my List of Accomplishments™ for this year. Along with starting a blog, leaving all kinds of smart-arsed remarks all over other peoples' blogs, taking a few halfway decent photos, and finally transferring some of my old music to a shiny, modern, digital format. And getting a new job, that was important too.

Roll on, 2007! What astonishing accomplishments await...



*About once every two years, on average.
**This is not entirely true.