Sometimes, in between slowly forgetting the finer Linux commands, working a lot and no longer tinkering that much with stuff anymore, I find myself wondering: am I still a geek? You see, I take pride in that part of me that likes to figure out how stuff works. Also it’s a lot of fun to do ^_^
Anyway, the other day I got quite annoyed since my internet wasn’t working. I’d checked everything: cabling, the AirPort, the connectors everywhere, the works. I found out there’s a problem with the type of modem I have (an Ubee) and kindly asked someone on irc to help me out. This only made it worse. Basically, if I attached my MacBook directly to the modem it was fine. With my AirPort it wouldn’t stay online for even a minute. After the fix on the modem I got quite desperate and two other friends of mine came over late at night to help me out on location. They tested more: on my other router, a Belkin, it still wouldn’t work, until they cloned its MAC address. Since my AirPort doesn’t do that, we would have never found this out if I hadn’t had the other router. After that it was a matter of asking the guy on irc (serial) about that and he found out there was an IP conflict with another customer. If I hadn’t had these connections I would have never found it, and helpdesk people would have been equally clueless. Likely I would have moved to another provider in the end.
So I can’t solve everything. I needed to tinker. And I did! After my interwebs were fixed, I pulled some cable through the wall, attached some connectors and fixed a UTP wall socket, so I will no longer stumble over cables in my hallway. So I haven’t lost my touch after all ^_^
UTP Wall Socket
I love being a geek ;)