Today I was helping Denise set up her new computer. As we made sure that both old and new computers were visible on the network and able to connect to the internet and printer, she said that she’d never really thought about having more than one computer at a time, and how that must seem a little funny to me.
Well, yes and no!
There are seven working computers and only two human residents at my house. One of those computers is on its last legs, and one is used only for German style dog shows (forgive me for not explaining fully, and I’ll probably write something here about German style dog shows soon enough anyway). Usually, the sole desktop and two or three of the laptops are live on our home network at any given time. So we’re really not that geeked out. Hey, I saw you laugh. Stop it now.
But even though having and using multiple computers is a given at our house now, that was not always the case. And we did not even plan for the possibility. We did quite a bit of remodeling shortly before we got DSL service in 2000. We ran a separate phone cable to the back office, and coaxial cable for TV to every room that didn’t already have it. But for some reason I never thought of running CAT5 for networking at the same time. Looking back, I am not even sure why we didn’t do it. The expense wouldn’t have been prohibitive, and obviously, we were running wires already.
I guess at that time I never envisioned having more than one computer, or wanting to have a computer anywhere other than an office area. And if I didn’t think of it, Dan certainly wouldn’t have thought of it either, not back then.
By the time we did get our first laptop, home wireless was available and pretty functional, so it’s never been a huge inconvenience. It would be nice to take advantage of the faster broadband speeds (another thing I didn’t see coming, I guess) with wired connections, but the thought of running cable again is not a pretty one.
Ah, well, live and learn…
(NaBloPoMo | August ’09: 30 of 31 | 75% Challenge: 218 of 274)