January 17, 2010

Tip of the Day: Engage Resources (that are free)

Last year, our friend Roxy lived with us while she and her husband, Bertrand, packed up their house in Dallas to move south. Bertrand is a computer engineer, so not even the federal government could figure out our wireless network key code. That said, Mother Nature can blow it out with one breath. Bertrand advised us to call the phone company to fix the box and the wireless connection the bad weather knocked out. They did come, and it was not an external problem. Bertrand tied to work his magic again, but he could not seem to get the wireless working again. We hate to ask too much of friends when they are so good to help us out with thing Jeff and I can not manage, like electronics - though Jeff is better at it than I. The next call was to yahoo to see if there was an issue with the desktop computer. While we did extract a few needless wires, the wireless was not helped any. Five years ago, I would have called the Geek Squad at this point, giving myself the excuse that I tried what I could to repair the problem cost free. A decade of Januaries has taught us to keep engaging free resources where ever necessary.

A few google searches on the wireless router indicated that we needed a software package to reinstall the drivers, which we did not have. I was one step closer to the full retail call as I can not go too long without wireless, especially when I need to work from home.

Jeff called his best friend, Dustin, who is a computer network engineer for Whole Foods. I did not get the details, but Dustin was able to wield his magic over the phone for Jeff.

I looked online at the price for the Geek Squad to do a house call for this issue, and if Dustin had not saved the day, we would have been out $149.99, which is the entire January budget!