October 2007 Archives
So after launching the new website, my Mother and Sister complained the site didn't work anymore. It would partially load but a lot of the CSS failed to render and it looked like some very bad abstract art. After some gnashing of teeth, I had isolated the problem to dial-up of the ISP. Unfortunately, it would work depending on time of day (4AM it would work fine but at 6PM it wouldn't).
Now, I knew that DSL was offered in the town where my Mother and Sister live but convincing them to change was going to be a problem. In the meantime, I continued to try and figure out the problem.
After musing about the problem at PerlMonks, a very friendly monk pointed out that not all 4 of the domains the website is on resolve in DNS reliably. To test the theory, I had my sister modify her local hosts file
C:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts
and put in all 4 domains
After rebooting, she told me not only did the site load correctly - it did so much faster than before. Great. I could probably fix the problem by internally changing every page in the site to refer to itself using a single domain as well as ensure that the DNS entry for said domain was 100% but that was effort I didn't want to do.
On to plan B.
My sister jumped at the idea of DSL because it would save her about $30 a month and give her faster internet. My Mom was discouraged by the idea because it would mean re-wiring the second phone line which the phone company charges $110 to do. I asked my Sister if she would be willing to try and do the re-wiring and she agreed.
This morning I called after she had removed the cover from the jack and there were 8 wires. 2 of each color on each post. Unfortunately my Sister can't count and repeatedly told me there were 6. Since this is the second phone in the house, I had her remove the red and green wires which are normally the primary line and unexpectedly, the line went dead. Hrmm - perhaps the original technician just reversed the primary and secondary lines. I had her switch the black and yellow with the red and green - line still dead. Grrrrr. At this point my Mother points out that the technician had changed something in the basement.
My sister goes down to find a bundle of wires running everywhere - oh great
She tells me that most of the lines running out of this "junction box" look like they don't have the black and yellow wires attached. That makes sense, we wouldn't want both phone lines ringing on all phones but why isn't the black and yellow working on the second phone line. The answer, the tech took the primary wires (red and green) and put them on the secondary line. Confusing but not difficult to fix now that we know.
My sister moves the red and green wires from the black and yellow posts back to the red and green posts and presto - her secondary phone line is now back on the primary number.
On Monday I will put in the order for DSL and after that is installed I will disconnect the second phone line and she can discontinue her dial-up service.
Again, another $30/month savings and faster internet to boot.
Now I can take my time fixing the website.
So, a big thanks to crazy Auntie Margaret!
Now, I knew that DSL was offered in the town where my Mother and Sister live but convincing them to change was going to be a problem. In the meantime, I continued to try and figure out the problem.
After musing about the problem at PerlMonks, a very friendly monk pointed out that not all 4 of the domains the website is on resolve in DNS reliably. To test the theory, I had my sister modify her local hosts file
C:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts
and put in all 4 domains
After rebooting, she told me not only did the site load correctly - it did so much faster than before. Great. I could probably fix the problem by internally changing every page in the site to refer to itself using a single domain as well as ensure that the DNS entry for said domain was 100% but that was effort I didn't want to do.
On to plan B.
My sister jumped at the idea of DSL because it would save her about $30 a month and give her faster internet. My Mom was discouraged by the idea because it would mean re-wiring the second phone line which the phone company charges $110 to do. I asked my Sister if she would be willing to try and do the re-wiring and she agreed.
This morning I called after she had removed the cover from the jack and there were 8 wires. 2 of each color on each post. Unfortunately my Sister can't count and repeatedly told me there were 6. Since this is the second phone in the house, I had her remove the red and green wires which are normally the primary line and unexpectedly, the line went dead. Hrmm - perhaps the original technician just reversed the primary and secondary lines. I had her switch the black and yellow with the red and green - line still dead. Grrrrr. At this point my Mother points out that the technician had changed something in the basement.
My sister goes down to find a bundle of wires running everywhere - oh great
She tells me that most of the lines running out of this "junction box" look like they don't have the black and yellow wires attached. That makes sense, we wouldn't want both phone lines ringing on all phones but why isn't the black and yellow working on the second phone line. The answer, the tech took the primary wires (red and green) and put them on the secondary line. Confusing but not difficult to fix now that we know.
My sister moves the red and green wires from the black and yellow posts back to the red and green posts and presto - her secondary phone line is now back on the primary number.
On Monday I will put in the order for DSL and after that is installed I will disconnect the second phone line and she can discontinue her dial-up service.
Again, another $30/month savings and faster internet to boot.
Now I can take my time fixing the website.
So, a big thanks to crazy Auntie Margaret!
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