Monday, October 26, 2009

Connected or Not

Our modem died at home so we've had no DSL for the past week or so. It's amazing how we've become accustomed to having the 'Net available all the time, surf this, look up that. Now I've had to read my FaceBook feeds on my phone, as well as other web look-ups. Not so fun on a 3" screen.

I like that some sites/companies have streamlined sites for mobile devices, but sometimes they are too streamlined. Amazon and mobile eBay are fine if you know what you're looking. I don't always. I like to surf around.

Oh, and I can't print out quilting patterns from my phone, either.

We started having trouble with our service around the same time we turned down Verizon's generous offer of Fios service, phone and 'Net for $80/month. Currently we pay $50 for phone and DSL, and that includes taxes. Why do we need to pay more, right? Dan assures me it's purely coincidental our DSL service is going out at the same time they want us to upgrade to Fios. Really?

Anyway, after resetting the modem and router on my own, I called Verizon the other night for help. The guy stepped me through the modem reset procedure and tried to get a connection but it failed, we need a new modem. Good news is, they are going to send us one. The bad news, another weekend without the 'Net.

We've been toying with the idea of a DVD recorder for a while and Dan saw an ad for one at Kmart a couple weeks ago, but we missed the window. If we have one and get it hooked up, we can save stuff to disc from the DVR and therefore not worry about disk space.

Yesterday I was at Costco ordering new glasses for The Girl and noticed they had a Sony DVD recorder. I bought it. I didn't unload it right away, it sat in the trunk for a couple hours until the hubbub of the evening settled down. By the time I brought it in, the store was closed. I mention this because there is no manual in the box. And we have no Internet so I can't print off a new copy. Grrr.

Now I'm back to work, and Internet access, but I can't remember the model number of the DVD recorder I bought. Sheesh.



 

2 comments:

just me said...

we are actually saving money over our previous phone/DSL cost - especially since Fios comes with unlimited long distance calling. But we really changed because I was tired of having to re-set the modem every time there was a power outage.

I do agree it seems mighty fishy that your service died when it did.

Hit 40 said...

Our cable company just jacked up our "package" price by $40 for our phone, DVR, cable, and internet. And...

my hubby got a blackberry for an extra $40 a month fee!! I called the cable company and got them to go down about $25.