current connection problems

At present I'm having problems accessing the internet from home. Without going into tedious detail it appears that my Mac Mini has stopped communicating with the broadband router except occasionally after a lengthy process including switching the router off and on among other actions. Even when it does connect it tends to only be for a brief period.

I can get online using my Wii but it's not a practical solution for blogging or even replying to emails. Worse, I can't access any webmail from work. Consequently it's difficult for me to update my blog, to reply to emails, and crucially it's going to be very tricky to submit my MA dissertation via the Turnitin system. Since there's no immediate solution apparent I can't say when the problem is likely to be resolved.

This is especially annoying as there have been some interesting responses to my first piece of the year on gaming + poetry which I would like to follow up as soon as the dissertation is out of the way. If it were up to me I'd simply sort out a new contract but with a flat mate to consider and a cheap existing contract in place that's not really practical. The result is that for an indefinite period activity is going to be pretty patchy here, for which I apologise. It also means that sorting out my PayPal account to make last year's CD-Rs of sound poetry available is going to take more time than I thought.

If you want to contact me by email I can still read stuff using the Wii but will have to reply to you either by phone or from my work email. If you have my work email it's probably best to use that for anything urgent for the time being. If you don't have it but would like it then email me using the details here and I will get back to you as soon as I can. If you are going to email me at work you'll have to ensure there are no swears or your message will be blocked.

Comments

Anonymous said…
you can plug a usb keyboard into the wii and use it in opera. you still have that annoying typing window that pops up but at least you can input a hell of alot quicker.
Anonymous said…
not really knowing apple wares terribly well i cannot offer any other things to try, except this. Try turning off your firewall. Risky, i know, but alot less risky than if you were on a windows box.
Matt Dalby said…
Thanks Adam, I'll give both of those a try. I don't have a USB keyboard at the moment, just a wireless keyboard so that'll have to wait. Also the resolution on the old TV monitor I use is fine for gaming but fucking woeful for reading text, so it's only ever going to be a stopgap.

Yesterday my machine was saying I was connected to the internet (which was a change) but still wasn't able to connect using Safari. I don't have an alternative browser to try any more. Safari had addressed all the glitches that meant some sites didn't load so I got rid of Flock (a Firefox-based browser) because it's really memory hungry.
Anonymous said…
on a further technical note I experienced a similar problem several months ago. Turns out the problem was the DSL itself, not the line, but the way in which data was shuffled down it from higher up in the network hierarchy. I.E. It's the ISPs fault.

The only solution i could find, after much googling and consulting with some deep geek friends of mine, was to alter the MTU in the router settings. That's the Minimum Transistion Unit and is basically the size of the packets the router sends and recieves. by dropping it down and up in units of 100 I got my connection working again.

If you want some on the phone guidance with this i would be glad to be of service. In fact, I called you earlier but you were out, so i might try again later or tommorrow, but don't be surprised if I forget. Just gimmie a call, innit.

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