The Internet here in Oregon has been running at 1.7 / 1.5 for over a week now. The provider claims it’s my router because he’s putting through a whopping 6/3. The problem is I’m setting up a new Dell because of other computer problems so all of the software has to be downloaded. That blew the 6/3 guy out of the water and meant that the basic tax package alone took almost three hours to download.
I have the installer for a satellite system coming on Monday so I should be back on track after that. Right now I’ve lost almost two weeks due to my desire to forestall problems by buying a new notebook now rather than waiting until the sector read errors on my old one took out something really important. I do have backups but when you have hard drive sector errors, the minute they can’t be read, you lose what’s under it. Since I don’t shut my notebooks down for weeks at a time sometimes, these problems can build out of control unexpectedly and quickly.
I’ve never had a single one of the 25 years of tax seasons I’ve gone through that didn’t contain some kind of computer, printer, or scanner problem. Equipment use during tax season is extreme and things that seemed fine break down. It’s just how it is. I just have to get them fixed as quickly as possible. In this part of Oregon, we have mountains and valleys. My sister’s house, where I’m staying until this cancer is fixed, down in a valley so many kinds of signals just don’t reach well. The medical care is fantastic, the weather okay, the internet is horrible – but I’m fixing it 🙂
