Learning Curve

  This day has been FULL of computer time as a direct result of 45 gigabytes vanishing from our download allowance in less than 4 days time.  Mysteriously, no one knows how that happened, though the "when" is recorded on the Hughes Net Gen 4 web page.  Too late to track it down this time, I spent the morning and early afternoon learning how to password protect our wireless network and how to set the router to create logs of incoming and outgoing activity.  Armed with those pieces of information AND the personal IP addresses of each internet enabled device in our home, maybe a catastrophe of this nature will be avoided altogether in the near future.  Did I forget to mention that we have a mere 754 megabytes left of our download allowance, which will need to last for 4 more days?  Satellite internet is better than a dial-up connection, but not hugely better.

  Recently we decided to upgrade to the newest Hughes Net satellite package, which has been an improvement as long as our 2 collegians are not home for an extended period of time.  Despite the verbal parameters I have set for them (and all) in regard to not downloading or streaming ANYTHING, the d.a. seeps out consistently faster when THEY are in the house.  This I do not appreciate AT ALL!  I do not watch YouTube or other videos nor do I stream anything.  I take care to download updates and files larger than 70 meg during what Hughes Net calls the "bonus hours," 2 a.m. to 8 a.m.  While we are on that topic, according to my calculations, much of our downloaded bytes are happening during the bonus hours, but are being subtracted from the other hours.  Perhaps the new Gen 4 service is not fully functional as of yet.  I'd call and ask, but being on hold is annoying and wastes my time, plus the chances of talking with a non-native English speaking tech support person are more that 75%.  Getting the same unhelpful response to my specific questions after waiting on hold for said treatment FEELS like life being sucked out.

  In the midst of all of this electronic fussing, a familiar error message alerted me that my Hughes Net Status Meter had stopped working; this is a new joke I've had with Windows 7 for a couple of days now, though the meter stopped working correctly about 4 months ago.  Since that time and until after noon today, the status meter in my system tray cheerfully proclaimed that we had 100% of our download allowance for the month left.  I knew that couldn't be true, so I would check each day at the Hughes Net Gen 4 web page for the REAL amount remaining.  That's how I knew that we had 54% left on Sunday, but only 8% left today (so, I don't ALWAYS check daily; I thought with only 7 days left and more than half of our gigs left, we were in good shape).  I don't know what tipped off Windows 7 that there was a problem these past couple of days, but something did.  So I clicked and checked for a solution on-line and closed the program as suggested by the error message.  When I restarted my laptop many hours later, I discovered that my Hughes Net Status Meter is accurately reflecting the download allowance shown on the Hughes Net Gen 4 web page.  Bummer for me that it has to happen when things seem so "dire." 

  Much of this pricks at my justice wiring, because it feels unfair and unresolvable.  Surrendering at just the right moment, when it stops being my responsibility, has been easy today with this particular problem.  I hope that this revelation and application will travel from my head to my heart and bring about transformation.  


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