Fuck You, Technology

February 21, 2008 9:11 AM

ow, don't get me wrong, there are few things I love as much as new-fangled gadgets. If there's a needlessly technological way to do something simple, I want it. And if there's some fancy new equipment out there, I want that, too. For example, I don't know how I've lived this long without GPS--how can I go on without knowing my exact location on the surface of the Earth?

Still, there are time when technology lets you down in a profound way. Today was one of those times.

It all started innocently enough--the "ABS" light in my car came on during the drive to the office. I was worried, but not too worried because it's come on before--always after doing some ridiculous offroading--and then gone off. Since the roads around Madison have been shitty to an unimaginable degree in the past few days, I figured something similar was happening.

But things didn't get better when we got to the office. See, our fax machine and phone are on the same line, even though they each have a different number. I thought our fax machine was set up to answer the fax calls, but what had been happening was that our answering machine was picking up the calls too early. The result? Annoying modem sounds on the answering machine and now faxes in the fax machine. Still, we were able to take care of that problem fairly quickly, and I set out to tackle the biggest technological problem of the day: getting our new--and free, courtesy of Co-SME's dad--print server running. First step: turn on my laptop. That's when things really started to go South.

I got my laptop--or rather, my family got me my laptop--over three years ago, just before I came to law school. During that time, the little Averatec served me well and never let me down. Even during 3L year when the "Q" key started to come off, the thing soldiered on through editing, notes, and finals. Ok, I didn't take that many notes, but you get my point. It hadn't let me down once. Until today. When it completely crashed. Hard. So much so that I didn't even get a blue screen of death; no, all I got was a black screen, some nonsensical characters, and a sinking feeling in my stomach. But I didn't dwell--there were more technological disasters ahead.

Using Mr. Vice's laptop, I set out to get our printer working through the print server, thereby eliminating the need to have a host computer directly connected to the printer. After some initial confusion involving IP addresses and subnet masks, I started the setup in earnest. I followed the manual's instructions to the letter. I set the whole thing up perfectly. I told it to print a test page. I waited. I waited. I waited. I checked the settings. They were correct. I waited. Nothing happened. I waited. A light on our printer went on. Nothing happened. Goddamnit, what the motherfuck?

Several hours later, I was at exactly the same place--everything was set correctly, and everything seemed to be working, except for one crucial flaw: the printer wasn't printing. The computer seemed to be sending the information to the print server, which seemed to be relaying the information to the printer. The printer, in turn, would turn on the light indicating that it was processing data, then do nothing. Over and over again. I finally threw my hands in the air and we went to lunch. Then I had another idea about how to fix it, so I ran back to the office. But no dice--it was fucked.

The afternoon dragged on, and Mr. Vice decided it was time to link his business and personal bank accounts. Only the people on the phone were completely unable to make that happen and he ended up without access to any of his accounts. Great.

Then he tried to send a fax and we realized that, when we had decided not to get long-distance service on our office line, we completely forgot about the fact that we might have to send long-distance faxes. Needless to say that Mr. vice's attempts to send a fax out of the county failed. Fine. So I called up the phone company and asked them what the cheapest long-distance plan was. It was very reasonable, so I asked them to sign us up and asked them when we could expect the service to be available. They told me that it should be just a few minutes, definitely not more than a few hours.

Flash forward a few hours. We're getting ready to leave and decide it's time to send that fax. So I dial the number, the fax machine scans the pages, and then it beeps and just sits there. Nothing happens. I try it again. Nothing happens. Then I think "Hmm... I wonder." I pick up the phone and listen for a dial tone. To my shock, there isn't any. Somehow, instead of hearing "please sign us up for long distance," the phone company heard "This is an emergency! You have to cut off our phone service now! The very future of the world depends on it!"

Oh. And the battery on Mr. Vice's cell phone is having the same problem mine was having a few months ago--it's allowing him a grand total of about 3.62 seconds of talk time per charge. After charging all day, it started indicating that it was low on power almost immediately after he unplugged it.

We left the office, dejected. My ABS light was off.

Epilogue:
When I came home, I was determined to find out why the print server wasn't working. Here's what I found out. Our $200 copy machine-printer-fax machine-scanner, which is awesome in every other respects, will only work with one print server in the entire world. And that print server costs about $180, almost as much as the fucking printer itself. What the fuck is that?

Oh, and now my internet's not working, so I'm typing this in Notepad so that I can post it in the morning.

3 Comments

Santi said:

Ha! Notepad...

February 21, 2008 9:31 AM

Vice said:

You bastard. I was just going to post about this, and you go and steal it. I can't believe you would go and betray me like that.

Now I'm glad I broke our phone system.

February 21, 2008 12:57 PM

Ismael Tapia II said:

Santi,
I was only using Notepad because it doesn't do any of the fancy stuff with the fonts, so when I copy and past it into my blog software, it doesn't screw up the apostrophes or anything like that. Also, I love Notepad.

Mr. Vice,
I'm sorry to have stolen your blogging thunder. In the future, I'll leave hilarious office happenings up to you to cover--you do it much better.

As far as the phone system goes, no harm no foul. I mean, who needs a phone, anyway?

February 21, 2008 11:44 PM

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