Finally, I am able to access Internet, courtesy Airtel. It’s just been installed in my premises after a tough fight with the dodos who had very specious arguments about “ports” and “pairs”. I literally had to throw a fit time and again to make it work out; all’s well that ends well. Despite the screw up in the final legs of installation, I must appreciate their professional approach to their new connection. There was a seperate team to collect cash on my doorstep, seperate team to install the wiring, another team to activate the voice line and finally an “engineer” to set up the modem.
I shudder to think of the time being spent in the dingy waiting hall of MTNL (I moved to New Delhi recently- thats a seperate story). Or wait for the lineman to appear at my doorstep. It was all over in a jiffy and I am online. It took 72 hours to connect me to the infobahn highway; minus the 36 hours it took me in the hospital doing my night duties.
I still have not been able to install my favourite Ubuntu on my new Lenovo laptop due to some quirk in not recognising the trackpad. I am at my wits end because the last time I had used it, it was absolutely flawless. I am forced to use Windows Vista which I am very keen to get rid off like an itch in my ass.
I shall get with the regular updates as and when I am able to have some iota of time at my disposal. Cheers and stick around for some exciting bitching of the first order!!
Nice to have you back
If you get time have a google around for “Customer owned fiber networks”, some canadian site, proposing ideas how to get around the last mile (or tens of miles) problems. See how ppl in the sticks take the initiative to bring internet to their homes when local ISPs are not interested.
CANARIE (Canada) has many interesting articles and presentations on cracking the last mile problem. In short: municipalities contract someone to build dark fiber networks to the home, homeowners buy a strand of fiber, and competing service providers plug their electronics into the fiber. There are variations on the theme of course but with a neutral party owning the fiber it makes it very easy for new service providers to set up shop.
for some reason their site won’t open unless you use an overseas proxy, has some ppts etc.
touchpad? get a mouse.
I faced similar problems with the trackpad thingy. So I documented the resources that helped me here:
http://naturesplay.blogspot.com/2007/06/ubuntu-and-thinkpad-r60e-trackpoint.html
Hey, it’s finally done and Ubuntu kicks some real ass. It’s worth it and the shimmering wobbling desktop effects are cool. You may debate it’s utility but the fact that it works the works is worth it.
Vista was a pathetic joke.
I dunno what really fixed the trackpad thingy but now it’s a matter of time that it would play everything out of box…
Have you tried out compiz fusion yet? that kicks even more ass.
doctor saab sathiya gaye hai…
hoo… the comment was approved. thank god for democracy
Democracy at work!! Indeed! What’s better than happiness in the 60th year of independence??!
I do have some issues with the trackpad. At times it fails to work but I cannot really diagnose the problem. However it takes time to get used to the whole process of the laptop keypad and the central mouse. Nonetheless, I need to spend some time with the WiFi networks since I know not how things really work out. It would be really cool to have your stuff working out of box but then, I realise the frustration of the open source guys trying to make it work for us.
wireless networking on ubuntu?
good luck on that!