Boater wrote:
Eisboch wrote:

"Boater" wrote in message
...
Eisboch wrote:
Bought a new laptop Saturday and tried to get our home networking
router (installed by Comcast) to recognize it by calling tech help
line. The result was losing all Internet access on all the
computers until about an hour ago.

New laptop runs on Vista, but that wasn't the problem. I actually
like Vista.

The problem was the total incompetence of Comcast's technical
helpline via telephone.

Long story which I won't go into, but finally a couple of
knowledgable people showed up and got everything up and running
better than ever.

BTW .... I heard a rumor that Apple is going to get out of the
business. Macs will be no longer.

Eisboch


Who did you hear that rumor from? Your guys at Comcast?

What brand router do you have? It shouldn't really require much if
any specific setup, or are you referring to the "cable modem"?


I don't know what we had before as a router. It was setup in a
strange way. Rather than using WEP or the newer secure network system
(forget what they call it), it was "unsecured" but invisible to all
but the specific computers that were registered to log on to it. The
only computers that could connect were those that were registered
through Comcast to use it. It wasn't a problem before. When Mrs.E.
bought a new computer we simply called up Comcast and they remotely
added it to the registered list.

The problems started Saturday when I tried to add this new machine.
The telephone guy initially said, "No problem, then proceeded to
completely shut down our Internet access remotely and couldn't get it
back up. Then, we went through the "next tier" of help within 48
hours, etc., (which never happened) then a home visit this morning
between 8am and 11am to "upgrade" our equipment (which has worked
perfectly for several years) ... and nobody showed up. This is all
with numerous and increasingly frustrating calls to Comcast's help
service which has been going on since Saturday.

Believe it or not, here's how it got fixed. Around 1pm this
afternoon (after waiting all morning for the Comcast no show) I
happened to take a ride to the store 2 miles from my house. In the
parking lot were two Comcast trucks parked side by side and the
drivers having a smoke and chatting. I drove up and asked them if
either one had a service call scheduled at our address. They didn't,
but asked what the problem was. I briefly explained, they told me
to lead the way, came over to the house, installed a new router,
programmed it and made sure all of our computers (5) could log on and
work.

The guys (and gals) that "do" the work are great.
The telephone help people are total losers. They lie too, and I can
prove it.

Oh. The rumor. Yep, it was one of the Comcast guys who was very
knowledgable regarding Vista.
He said that Vista and a current Mac OS (forget the name) are
basically built on the same platform.
He told us that it was done for compatibility issues because Mac will
be getting out of the business.

I didn't ask him anymore because I was overjoyed to have our Internet
access back.

Eisboch


The Comcast phone service for internet is pretty miserable, but I have
been pleased by the two guys in trucks who answer the service calls in
our immediate area. Your Comcast guy's Mac-PC story is going nowhere.
My Belkin router can be set up to only see and acknowledge the computers
entered into the router by the person with administrator privileges to
the router.

After hearing your story I glad I did not go that way to set up the router .