"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