New Thing #87--Driving on the Information Superhighway

Every morning, I have the same routine. When I come into the kitchen, first I pour my coffee, then I put together and eat breakfast while reading the newspaper comics. The next thing I do is check my e-mail before I leave the house. However, today that last activity didn't go according to plan. Instead of connecting to the Internet, I got the message that "The server cannot be found". I closed the browser and tried again; I got the same response.

On a normal day, this is where I would wait for Tony to come home and fix the problem. But since he was going out after work, I knew it would be a very long time before I could surf the Net, so I fixed an Internet connection problem myself.

I knew that there was a sheet somewhere in Tony's desk that detailed what to do when this happened. I rummaged around until I found it (in the third file folder I opened). The instructions were hand-written...and somewhat hard to interpret. Finally I found something that looked promising. Over by the right margin, I saw a list of computer components. The first three steps said to turn the components "off"; the next three steps involved turning the components "on".

I followed the steps and nothing happened! I had to leave the house then, so I cursed under my breath as I drove away. Later in the morning, I came home expecting more frustration. Much to my surprise, one click on the browser icon had me up and running!