What to do when you've got the offline blues...

I don't know about you, but occasionally I lose my Internet connection.

How it gets misplaced I just don't know.

Where I live is so rural that cable and DSL are not available - yet. Dial-up access could be used, but who wants to go back to dial-up after using broadband for the past 5 years?

So, for now, I subscribe to a wireless Internet provider. At first, the service was down right horrible. Internet connectivity would be down for at least half a day almost every day and then for some reason, there would be no access over the weekend.

I spent a lot of time on the telephone with the provider, they don't like me now. Their customer support is absolutely pathetic.

Want to hear something funny? I had a competing wireless provider come out to the house and do a site survey to see if they could provide our Internet access. They couldn't, their tower was too far away. But you know what? The competitor's technician climbed up and inspected my provider's wireless antenna. He found the antenna was loose on the post. He also found that the antenna was actually angled to high and therefore overshooting the tower.

Ten minutes of "tweaking" and my Internet signal was better than it had ever been. The adjustment was made about a month ago and since then, I've only been without an Internet connection twice - for around 15 minutes each.

As soon as cable or DSL becomes available, I will be switching to one of them, even if it costs more each month. At that time, I will also divulge the name of the company that provides such poor customer service (I don't want them to pull the plug on my access as retribution if I name them now).

The competitor's name is Indiana Data Center, I was extremely impressed with the professionalism of the technician. Professionalism is one thing that is totally absent from my current wireless Internet Provider.

Click here to read a list of things to do with your computer when it is offline. You might want to print the list out and then tuck it away somewhere for use later down the road if you ever find yourself without an Internet connection.