In 1947, engineers working on the Mark II computer at Harvard University found a moth stuck in one of the components. They taped the insect in their logbook and labeled it “first actual case of bug being found.” The words “bug” and “debug” soon became a standard part of the language of computer programmers. National Museum of American History
Attempting to make a living on the internet for my clients and myself, I was very frustrated when the satellite signal strength plummeted (from an average in the high 70s) way low to 13 last week. I have a backup plan, but in a rural area this entails driving to the library and hooking up to a public system. After a few hours there, I had so many “bots”, I had to run scans just to navigate to my own website.
Enter intrepid husband, who called tech support and was given instructions to lock on to another satellite. This worked for about 12 hours and I was able to update some records, but this fix died the following morning. Another few calls to tech support became very tiring and three days with no reliable internet. (Throw in there: son home from college; son leaving for international study, and you get the picture that this was getting all the attention it could, but still no progress).
Intrepid husband (IH) pulled apart the modem on the assumption that it had a bad capacitor that was overheating and going out after several hours use. This modem lying on its side, guts exposed, showed us its cute little blue lights blinking merrily along. This worked for a day and was back down to useless by evening. Must be over heating. We let it cool and tried again. It was up for an hour and back down again at which time IH observed the capacitors. They were not warm…
On to the pole. Laptop connected at the pole supporting the dish told us it was not a cabling problem.
Next he took down the receiver and cleaned it. Wow! We’re rockin’ again! Whoo Hoo!
That lasted approx. 24 hours.
By this time I had been to the library/ friends houses numerous times and was limping along in business, wondering how to survive the latest online training in which I had enrolled. I was beginning to consider transcripts of a streaming webinar equal to gold.
The satellite company would send a tech at $150 diagnosis; $150/hour labor. Receiver head probably had to be replaced $500+ retail…. We were soon on Ebay pricing parts.
They mentioned an upgrade — $1000 up front and rebates to make it finally a “free” installation. At this IH called the sales office and was told that we could be put on the waiting list for the product roll-out in September — 3 months away!
Meanwhile I paid the internet bill $80 (no bundle) and carried on… commuting when I had any real work to do.
Yesterday, I was here all day and went from rockin’ signal strength 77 to 15 numerous times. I was beginning to think our system had quite an intermittent bug.
When IH came home, he agreed and walked out to the dish and flicked his finger on the side of the receiver. A wasp flew out. (The insect guard had been compromised during the winter snow removal). Aha! I was johnny-on-the-spot with a bread-bag and a roll of electrical tape and we are in business!
I am pretty happy with Intrepid Husband and his skills. Glad I could recycle a bread bag. Still thinking seriously about the upgrade and entering the streaming world… later.