20 December 2006
It's ffffffreezing!
Winter arrived in no uncertain terms today. Thick freezing fog, which cleared mid morning to a beautiful blue-skied day, but by god, it's been so cold. It never went above 0c on my wall thermometer by the back door all day. At 3pm when I took Emma out, I had to scrape a quarter inch layer of ice off my car windscreen (it gets no sun up here this time of year, it's too low in the sky.) I only took her down to the park just to get out for half an hour and get some fresh air. Her eye is looking a lot better today, still giving the drops and antibiotics of course, I am hopeful that I won't have to have another 17-quid bottle of drops!
So the rest of my day has been spent sorting out my broadband problems. I was having so much trouble with the new USB modem. Yesterday, I'd sorted it all out, could use the phone without the line dropping, so left it alone, and trailed leads all over the place. Switched on early this morning (I couldn't sleep, it was about 5am) and the bloody thing dropped the connection about 6 times in a hour without even touching the phones. It's such a nuisance with this type of modem too because you have to keep opening up a dial up box much like using the old system, veryfying user name and password, over and over, it was driving me barmy! So I reported back to PlusNet as they had requested, having made absolutely sure that I had all the correct filters and leads in the right places. They are in agreement now that I have a fault on my line and have referred it to BT. They say to wait up to 72 hours for an update, so with it being Christmas, I doubt it will get sorted. However, because of this, I decided to have another go with my wireless router, and I sat myself down with all the instructions, and a cup of coffee, and went through the whole lot again, using the ethernet connection. I reset the thing to factory default and started from scratch. I had all but given up after about 2 hours frankly, but then just thought I'd look at one more thing, as I couldn't see anything wrong with the settings, they all checked out with the handbook. Then I found that my user name and password hadn't been saved, plus another couple of things weren't right. Put them back, and saved and rebooted (I hadn't done this last week, it must have wiped them off again as soon as I changed pages!) and hallelujah, IT WORKED! before my problem was that I was connected, strong signal, but couldnt load any webpages or get email. Just the error Page Cannot Be Displayed all the time. Limited or no Connectivity. Anyhow, I hardly dare look as I pressed Enter with Google loaded in my browser, and almost cried with relief when it came up! YAY. Well that was the good news, but I still can't use the phone, it disconnects immediately, but then it's not a terrible problem with wireless, as it reconnects instantly and I hardly even notice, the only time it will be a pain is on Yahoo chat if my phone rings of course, but it's not the end of the world. I feel like I've won the lottery, because I was considering either buying another router (minimum cost £59) or getting someone in to sort it out for me. What a relief to know that there was nothing wrong with it. I shall keep the plug in modem though incase it goes again, at least I wont have to use dial up and spend an arm or a leg to get online. Also will be handy if I take the laptop elsewhere to anyones with broadband but not wireless, it will mean I can connect I would think.
I set up the heater in my bird shed today too, it needed a good clean up, covered in sawdust, seed and cobwebs, probably wasnt a good idea leaving it in situ all summer after all! Didn't want it to go up in flames of course, so had to make absolutely sure it was cleaned up, and the fireguard in front of it too of course. I didn't want to fry any spiders either, so they had a chance to make their escape all day. (It's a little oil filled rad - doesn't actually make it tropical in the shed but stops it from freezing) My poor old birds out there, the cockatiels that are 15, and my budgie Misty who is arthritic and over 11 years old will appreciate it I hope, as it costs me at least £1.50 a night to run I think. Still I don't care, its worth it to me. I will never have pets that have to live outside again after these have gone, its too much of a worry, poor things.
Few pictures from the park anyway, and now to get the tea done.
Still frosty at 3pm
So the rest of my day has been spent sorting out my broadband problems. I was having so much trouble with the new USB modem. Yesterday, I'd sorted it all out, could use the phone without the line dropping, so left it alone, and trailed leads all over the place. Switched on early this morning (I couldn't sleep, it was about 5am) and the bloody thing dropped the connection about 6 times in a hour without even touching the phones. It's such a nuisance with this type of modem too because you have to keep opening up a dial up box much like using the old system, veryfying user name and password, over and over, it was driving me barmy! So I reported back to PlusNet as they had requested, having made absolutely sure that I had all the correct filters and leads in the right places. They are in agreement now that I have a fault on my line and have referred it to BT. They say to wait up to 72 hours for an update, so with it being Christmas, I doubt it will get sorted. However, because of this, I decided to have another go with my wireless router, and I sat myself down with all the instructions, and a cup of coffee, and went through the whole lot again, using the ethernet connection. I reset the thing to factory default and started from scratch. I had all but given up after about 2 hours frankly, but then just thought I'd look at one more thing, as I couldn't see anything wrong with the settings, they all checked out with the handbook. Then I found that my user name and password hadn't been saved, plus another couple of things weren't right. Put them back, and saved and rebooted (I hadn't done this last week, it must have wiped them off again as soon as I changed pages!) and hallelujah, IT WORKED! before my problem was that I was connected, strong signal, but couldnt load any webpages or get email. Just the error Page Cannot Be Displayed all the time. Limited or no Connectivity. Anyhow, I hardly dare look as I pressed Enter with Google loaded in my browser, and almost cried with relief when it came up! YAY. Well that was the good news, but I still can't use the phone, it disconnects immediately, but then it's not a terrible problem with wireless, as it reconnects instantly and I hardly even notice, the only time it will be a pain is on Yahoo chat if my phone rings of course, but it's not the end of the world. I feel like I've won the lottery, because I was considering either buying another router (minimum cost £59) or getting someone in to sort it out for me. What a relief to know that there was nothing wrong with it. I shall keep the plug in modem though incase it goes again, at least I wont have to use dial up and spend an arm or a leg to get online. Also will be handy if I take the laptop elsewhere to anyones with broadband but not wireless, it will mean I can connect I would think.
I set up the heater in my bird shed today too, it needed a good clean up, covered in sawdust, seed and cobwebs, probably wasnt a good idea leaving it in situ all summer after all! Didn't want it to go up in flames of course, so had to make absolutely sure it was cleaned up, and the fireguard in front of it too of course. I didn't want to fry any spiders either, so they had a chance to make their escape all day. (It's a little oil filled rad - doesn't actually make it tropical in the shed but stops it from freezing) My poor old birds out there, the cockatiels that are 15, and my budgie Misty who is arthritic and over 11 years old will appreciate it I hope, as it costs me at least £1.50 a night to run I think. Still I don't care, its worth it to me. I will never have pets that have to live outside again after these have gone, its too much of a worry, poor things.
Few pictures from the park anyway, and now to get the tea done.
Still frosty at 3pm
# posted by flicker : 18:03
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Been cold here too Jan, it's nice you gave the birds a heater,the bunz have heat on nearly all the time, they have ten watt bulbs in a small sleeping box, and they love them, and the five that live together have a lamp above them, and I have a dimmer on it, so if its not so cold I turn it down, they like going out in the cold, but if some are feeling cold they will go home under the heat, I always worry about animals out in the cold, I would nt like it, so I always make sure they are nice and warm.
Nice you sorted your computer, sometimes its something so simple, yet we can t see it.
Nice you sorted your computer, sometimes its something so simple, yet we can t see it.
I also worry about the animals left out side on these cold winter nights. I have a light in the chicken house that gives off enough heat during the night to keep them comfortable. Happy to hear Emmas eye is improving.
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# posted by 
: Thu Dec 21, 12:57:00 pm
: Thu Dec 21, 12:57:00 pm<< Home
