Sometimes it feels like our three computers in our shop are like in this image; behind a wall, and can’t look out into the world.
This isn’t actually the kind of internet rage you might think. The type where you see hugely insulting comments in some new article, whether they be racist, misogynist, homophobic, or any other ism or phobia (or even some troll who has the mental function of a 10 year old). Nor is this the type of rage where you get pissed off so badly at a game you rage quit in the middle of it.
No, this has nothing to do with those things, but everything to do with internet connectivity.
I’ll be the first to admit, I have no clue about the complete working of an intranet or network for our work place. But I do know that ours is so horrid that we often lose connection several times a day and can’t even do the most simplest thing like sending an email. It’s a pain because it often interrupts important things like ftp uploads for our newspaper pages to several different sites which includes our provincial association, our company headquarters and a repository for several newspapers that can use stories from different places to flesh out one or two of their own pages or stories. In the event of a lost connection to those, it’s really annoying because we have to shut down the client, restart the router and try again. I’ve thought we should maybe call our local computer shop and see if they can help, but there’s two problems with that. Problem number one is money. It costs money to have that service done, and we had to fight tooth and nail to get our new computer systems in. We’re probably the smallest of all the newspapers in this chain, so our needs aren’t as high a priority as other newspapers. The second problem is a case of network specialization. I know there’s no difference between networking a Mac and a PC, but Macs (which our shop has) bring out this very intimidated feeling among anyone. I know people who’ve never touched a Mac, but they hate them.
Maybe one of these days, we can get our network connection fixed and all our problems will be solved. For now, we struggle on.
Then again, maybe spring will arrive sometime in West Central Saskatchewan as well.
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