This Wordpress thingie, upon which Pattaya Days depends, is just a black box of wizardry as far as I am concerned. It’s easy enough to install, download the files, stick them on your friendly server, fill in three or four pieces of information, and away you go.
Upgrading, which I have never done before, should be almost as easy. Delete a couple of folders and then load the new versions, and then replace most of the other files. Even a Luddite like me could manage it. But I reckoned without the intervention of TT&T’s internet service (or lack of).
I started yesterday afternoon with the deleting the folders mission. On any other day this would have taken ten minutes. Yesterday, having spotted that I was doing something that was deemed important in my little world, the wide wide world of web decided to make itself unavailable by disconnecting me every few minutes. Then I was required to coax my modem back into life, sometimes by turning it off and then on again, always by swearing at it. Once connection was restored I had to get back into my service provider, locate the remains of the files I was deleting, re-start the delete; only to have the connection break again. If there had been a fluffy rabbit in the room, I would have kicked it.
Once she who must be obeyed came home, the stress levels were raised. Not only did I have an annoying problem in front of me, I also had one sat behind me.
Has that TV show you were downloading for me finished yet?
No.
Why not?
Because the internet is broken.
Can I get into eBay to check my vital bag purchases?
No. Because the internet is screwed.
The internet is very slow, can you turn off that torrent of the TV show I want to watch so I can have quicker access to my eBay.
No. The internet is totally fucked, nothing is working. Leave me alone. Go and wash a cat or something.
The stop/start nature of my connection meant that I went to bed with more stress than is healthy, a Pattaya Days that was broken and a wife who had spotted that I was not in the best of moods.
This morning I jumped out of bed with the optimistic thought that all would now be well, but it wasn’t. In fact it was worse. I tried calling TT&T’s “support” centre where they did the usual thing of wasting five minutes of my time by making me give them all my details, and then telling me that a technician would call me back. Of course, he never did.
Four hours of frustration followed, and finally everything that should be deleted was deleted and everything that should be added was added, and the site is back to life. Haven’t found any improvements, but at least I am up to date.
Next task, make my photos display more elegantly. Having worked smoothly for the last hour, it must be time for the wide wide world of web to go into hiding again. Bastard.
Comments 🔗
2008-09-16| Billy saysI let the guy in Jakarta do if for me, so that my attention wasn’t diverted as concentrated on kicking my own equivalent of the cat for nearly two bloody weeks.
They are talking about an “auto-upgrade” which sounds like something I could handle.
2008-09-17| Spike saysIt’s really not difficult, if your internet is working. I have no idea why your man in Jakarta took two weeks.
2008-09-17| mart saysGuess he’s paid by the hour…
2008-09-17| Billy sayshaha … pretty good guess in normal circumstances Mart, however, I tell him the fixed sum before each job …
I suspect he is just hopeless and actually learning at customer expense .. there again that is what all IT guys do, so nothing new there
2008-09-17| mart saysNot completely sure that I like the new theme of this blog. The first one was just lovely in my opinion and Grandma loved it too by the way…!
2008-09-17| Spike saysJust trying out some options.