Leaderboard

I think it's because the microwave is made in China. When it runs it sucks all the data out of my computer through the router, beaming it to the Chinese military. Yesterday they learned I have exactly $2.36 in my checking account and my house payment is due next week. But I have a simple solution. I've fashioned an aluminum foil three-corner hat that I wear to disperse the transmissions & connect a 6-ft long ground strap between my wrist and the water pipes while typing. This ground fault interrupts the process and causes their Beijing server to crash. See? It's working right now, because you can read this but the ChiComs don't have a clue what I'm up to. It works - trust me.

Being married to an electrical engineer whose specialty is microwave-band communications, we bandy all kinds of odd words about, with disgusting regularity, in this house. Faraday cage. Gigahertz range. 50db. Ground plane (not a plane on the tarmac). Impedance. Lossy. Non-ideal. Non-linear. RF. Plus lots more. We have a wireless network that works within the confines of the office, roughly. The house was built in 1952/53, during civil defense days. The walls are 3/8" rock lath, covered by 3/8" of a very sandy, brownish cement, covered by 1/4" hard plaster. Ceilings (basement and first floor) have expanded metal lath. The whole house is basically a set of interconnected Faraday cages. To download books to my Kindle, I cannot be farther away than the dining room. My daughter's laptop regularly loses its connection from the living room. All the business hardware (and much of the non-business hardware) is hard-wired to the network -- and will stay that way! I've worked in plenty of office buildings with fewer pieces of equipment and simpler network configurations than what we have here... Yes, you do have to be aware of the frequency bands of the various other bits and pieces around your wireless network. You need to be aware of metal studs in office building walls, expanded metal lath, and more. Plus with a wireless network you also have to have security protocols. It's best to have the network locked down so that only equipment with approved MAC addresses can even see the network. Anyone coming here with a wifi laptop can see several of the neighbors' networks (only *some* of which are secured) -- but even sitting right next to the hub, cannot see ours.

Thanks for sharing that. My son (2 years old) is obsessed with trains. He'd rather watch an hour-long YouTube video showing train after train after train than any movie or cartoon. I guess now I know what he'll sound like as an adult. Poor kid.

Thanks for the replies. Got the return done Wednesday. It was like eating pudding with a fork: not impossible but a total pain in the @$$. Glad it's done, because they were very anxious about what they were gonna owe, and I figured I might as well do it right now rather than do it sorta right now AND later. I love these people. I had to deal with the sale of about 20 assets, and the wife wanted a reduced rate for the tax return since they were only in business six months. (Uh, nooooo.) They only paid the realtor $32,000.

We will have both, if we decide to try ATX for 2013. Can't take the chance. I just spent 40 minutes on the phone with a new (3 1/2 months) design manager for 2013. After some in-depth technical discussion, my hopefulness is increased. Still waiting to see what happens when "the rubber meets the road" in the beta testing.

Posting just a few, for those who don't click on links. Hope you like these, Tom.

JohnH, thanks so much for the great photos! I had to step out after posting and just checked in again. That's what makes this forum the best ever! All I had to do was ask and the caring community that is ATX responded! I forgot to ask whether this is heavy duty foil or will the regular strength suffice, maybe doubled.

The instructions can only be passed along verbally, unless you have the decryption key for the secret version. But here's a picture you can use to fashion one that works pretty well. Also, here are a couple of my friends wearing variations on the basic design. I don't have any data on how effective these versions are:

JohnH, please send a photo of the hat and construction instructions, if you would. I think it might be useful for many of us and deter NSA from prying, too.

My main computer is not hard wired to the router. My old computer is. I have no issues with connectivity. However, I do know about the telephone frequencies as I replaced my phones with Uniden Dect 6; which eliminated that problem. With a new office addition, I have not had any issues with Wi Fi, but often have to go out on the deck to get cell phone reception: a steel roof is the culprit. When sitting in the living room with my tablet, I often have to switch to Telephone mode as the Wi Fi is iffy. Again, I blame both distance and the steel roof. Crazy stuff, eh, Catherine?

There have been many changes in the IT dept. since May. I have spoken with 3 different heads of departments concerning this. In fact, 5 different e-mail communications with them today already. The development leadership has been changed as well. I have spoken to the new director of development. They seem to be completely and honestly sincere about making the software work for 2013. You can still paint me skeptical, but I am onboard to help with the process. I don't know about the responsibility and accountability question. I have spoken the words "If 2013 doesn't work, you won't be around for 2014" and received acknowledgment that they are keenly aware of that. 2013 is "do or die" for the CCH SFS group.