Today our computer network stopped working.
I needed to access a file on our laptop from our Windows 98 machine. Nothing. Nada. The helpful message from Windows told me the nework was unavailable and I should contact my network administrator. Hello, that's me, and neither I nor me had any clue. Even more helpfully it told me to start the network troubleshooter, which then presented me with a totally blank screen. Apparently it had no more clue than me or I. For the record, Porter was equally stumped, though he manfully plowed through our home networking book for a while.Of course we tried the Universal Cure for Computer Problems: rebooting both machines, and even rebooting the router, although our connection to the Internet was still working fine. Ya never know with computer problems. But no dice.
Figuring the problem might have been caused by some Microsoft updates we had installed today (since everything had worked fine yesterday), I contemplated the other Computer Panacea: a System Restore. But it was dinner time, and then we watched Annie Hall, which movie left me just disoriented enough to be able to accept the absurd fact that when I returned to the computer the network was working cheerfully, just as if it had not stubbornly hidden itself all day. We had not done a System Restore (only contemplated it), we had not rebooted, we had done nothing but eat and watch a movie.
When the problem first became apparent, Porter asked me what I'd done to fix the problem last time it occurred. I was somewhat embarrassed to discovered that I had not made a note of the solution.
Now I know why.
