Victory over Google!

I slash my hit rate!

This must be how BP felt after capping the blown-out oil well in the Gulf of Mexico. The Google tsunami is over!

For now, anyway.

As I reported in an earlier post, my blog had become the “beneficiary” of a tidal wave of visitors (speaking in relative terms, of course). My hit rate suddenly doubled or even tripled. According to Sitemeter data, as much as 72% of the new visits were to Where's my money?, a snarky observation on the inanities that characterize San  Francisco's KSFO talk radio. It was all Google's fault. People who searched for “money” were being treated to a strip of “Images for money” that included a clip I had used to illustrate my post. That was enough to divert hundreds of people every day to look at an image of a guy carrying an oversized money bag.

Ordinarily, I would be happy to welcome more visitors. In this instance, however, I grew weary of the flood. Sitemeter reports acquired a deadly monotony as the horde of picture-seekers swamped those who had come to Halfway There to read actual words. I could no longer keep track of who came to see what. Last week I took steps.

First I deleted the image from the post in question. Days passed without Google noticing. The deluge continued. Then I made the post unavailable by saving it as a draft. Success! Traffic returned to normal. After a couple of days, I restored the post. The mob was instantly back. The sought-for image was gone, but Google was still lagging. I took the post off-line again and the hit rate dropped accordingly.

A few days ago I felt brave enough to repost the article. It was still without the attractive nuisance of the money-bag illustration, but now it was also missing the stress of Google's regard. The search giant had found another source for Mr. Money-Bag and the stampede was quelled. My victory was complete.

I got rid of over half of my traffic and I'm happy about it. Should I be concerned about this happiness? Oh, oh. Confused now.

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Browser bigamy

Double your pleasure

Firefox knows that I am Zeno, remembers all kinds of things about me in its cookies, and enables me to post blog comments under that name with a minimum of difficulty. I can go traipsing through the ScienceBlogs and the Discover blogs and Facebook with my Internet identity firmly established (an on-line identity, by the way, that actually dates back to the pre-Internet era—no kidding!). My browser's memory preserves my preferences and smooths my on-line excursions.

Except when it doesn't. I need my real-life identity when I check into my faculty website or my personal Facebook page (not to be confused with my blogger Facebook page). Before I hit on a convenient solution, I found myself having to log out of various accounts and log into others. It was a minor nuisance. I especially didn't like it when I would be finishing up a post or comment, only to discover upon trying to publish it that I was operating under the wrong handle. (My students really don't need comments from some stranger named Zeno.)

The solution arose rather naturally. My school district has (big surprise!) standardized on Microsoft Office products, so all of our computers default to Internet Explorer. On my campus computer, therefore, I became accustomed to accessing the college's website using IE. When I finally prevailed upon our microcomputer support people to give me installation rights on my own office computer (not a particularly easy task, by the way), I promptly installed Firefox. While beginning to use it to log in to my favorite sites (like the aforementioned ScienceBlogs, for example), I paused to consider whether to use my real-life persona or my blog identity. Soon I realized it was easy to let Firefox be Zeno's browser while retaining IE as the real-life math professor's browser.

I set up a similar configuration at home. These days it's not unusual for me to have two different browser windows simultaneously open on my desktop. Google Reader tracks my favorite blogs in Firefox while IE keeps an eye on my college pages. Depending on which browser I'm using at the moment, I'm either real-life me or Internet me. I am such a power user!

Um. Not really. A genuine power user would configure different personalities within the same browser program and toggle back and forth at need, but I've never taken the time to learn how to do that. This is as much a story of “good enough for now” as it is a story of browser bigamy. It reminds me of the glory days of Lotus 1-2-3 (remember that?). One of the officers of my local computer club revealed that he didn't have a word processing program. He was using the 1-2-3 spreadsheet to do the job. He'd create wide cells, format them as text, enable word-wrapping, and type each paragraph of his document into different cells. He was very proud of himself, even though it sounded like a cumbersome and jury-rigged system. But what the heck. It worked, and he was comfortable with it. My computer-club colleague and I aren't quite Rube Goldbergs, but we have our delusions of adequacy.

Speaking of which, now it's time for me to pop over to my IE window. I just graded an exam and discovered that one of my chronic underachievers didn't bother to show up to take it. Zeno can't drop him from the class roster, but real-life math professor can!

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Internet service preventer

Zapped by the Death Star

My day began. It was still dark, but that's winter for you. I tend to wake up rather slowly, so I dragged myself to my computer to check my e-mail. Hmm. Nothing since 1:30 in the morning. Slightly unusual.

Then I noticed the error messages from my e-mail program. They indicated that both my personal and school in-boxes could not be accessed. I looked at the modem.

Rats. The Internet light was out. I rebooted my computer and watched the modem lights start to blink as the operating system reloaded and began polling the computer's peripherals. I relaunched Firefox, which splashed my home page on the screen very nicely, but I soon saw that it was just the cached version. No new information was being downloaded. The modem lights were flickering between red and green. It wasn't settling down to the nice steady green I was used to.

Time for breakfast. Let the modem fuss with its DSL access while I scan the morning newspapers and take on some fuel.

When I returned, my Internet connection was still on the fritz. I powered down the modem, powered it back up, and rebooted the computer again. The very Christmasy red-and-green light show returned, but no DSL.

I called the AT&T support line. A very friendly recorded voice told me the number I was calling from. “Is your call related to service on this phone number?” I replied in the affirmative and entered the maze of twisty little passages, all alike, that constitutes AT&T's automated help system. By answering several questions, I eventually managed to get the system to understand that the problem involved my DSL service.

“I need to run some tests on your DSL line,” it said. “Please wait. This may take a few minutes.” I muttered to myself that “DSL line” was surely a redundancy—like “ATM machine” or “PIN number.” The voice ignored me, of course. A different voice thanked me for my patience and various commercial messages assured me that AT&T could sell me services that were much better than anything I currently had from them. I believed the voices.

“I have finished the tests,” announced the original friendly recorded voice at last. Despite our long-established friendship—or at least working relationship—it could not be troubled to tell me what was wrong with my line. Instead it informed me that one in five connection problems could be resolved by powering down the modem and rebooting my system. Had I done that recently?

Yes.

It suggested I try it again. Grudgingly, I did. With mechanical patience, the disembodied voice waited for me while various commercial messages assured me that AT&T could sell me services that were much better than anything I currently had from them. But I was already quite sure of that.

And it was still no-go. No green Internet light. My life as a denizen of the computer world was in jeopardy.

The recordings suggested visiting a local AT&T store or rebooting my computer. (I did that already! More than once!) It suggested that after visiting a local AT&T store and/or rebooting my computer, I could call back the help line in 24 hours if the problem persisted. Considering the length of time I had been on the line, I wondered if calling back in 23 hours would be considered a trifle hasty.

I hung up the phone and immediately redialed. (Actually, I hit the Redial button on a phone that doesn't even have a dial. Modern life is weird.) The whole process started again, but this time I mashed the zero key for Operator and was rewarded with the digital miracle of a live human voice.

The young woman ascertained that I was having a DSL problem and ran some line tests. She asked me if I had reset the modem and rebooted the computer.

Oh my yes.

She got her test results. She was getting a null response from my modem. She asked which of the display lights were lit up. I looked at the modem again and did a double-take.

Whoa! None of them.

Not even the power light?

Not even that. They're dark. All of them. No red. No green. Nothing.

My modem had gone completely dead. Stone cold. Perhaps the problem was now identified.

The young woman suggested I switch the power cord to a different power source. I did. Still no lights. I reported the same back to her, wondering whether she had put me down as one of those goofballs who don't even notice when they're unplugged. But there were lights earlier. I swear! (The modem had died while waiting in AT&T's emergency room.)

The young woman asked for my Zip code and gave me the addresses of the two nearest AT&T stores, suggesting I take the modem and its power adapter to one of them for testing.

I disconnected the modem from the computer, unplugged the power cord from the power strip, and conveyed the modem and power adapter to the nearer of the two AT&T shops. The assistants looked at my modem with goggle eyes and said, “Oh, we only do cell phones here!”

Uh, thanks.

I went to the second AT&T store. It was a much bigger facility. I took the modem and power adapter up to the counter and explained the situation to a company rep. She carried my distressed equipment to the inner sanctum where they keep their technicians sequestered. A few minutes later she came back out.

“Your modem is fine. The power adapter has failed.”

I felt a sense of relief. Just the power adapter!

“Okay, good. How much is a replacement adapter.”

“Oh, we don't carry those. Power adapters are only sold in a bundle with a modem. Would you like to see our latest modems?”

“You're kidding!”

“Sorry. We don't carry separate power adapters.”

“Thank you for your help. I think it's time for a visit to Radio Shack.”

“Oh, that's probably a good idea,” she admitted.

Soon I had a Radio Shack replacement power adapter, matched to the specs of the original device. Instead of spending $100, I had spent under $20. (I later discovered that the AT&T on-line shop carries the adapter as a separate replacement item for a list price of $10, but the company's fancy service center in my town can't be troubled to have it in inventory.)

Back home, I reconnected the old modem with the new power adapter and was soon rewarded with bright green lights. Hurray! Problem over!

No.

AT&T had reset my password after my service call. After all, my modem had failed and it would be necessary for me to log in as a new user with a new modem and initiate my service anew. When I opened my browser, it informed me that additional log-in information was required before I could access my Internet service. It switched me to an automatic log-in system on the AT&T support page that offered a swift and sure re-initiation process—which failed multiple times. (Perhaps it was upset when it discovered I was using the same old modem.)

I tried one more time, choosing the “manual” mode over the “automatic.” It had me punch in the access code on the bottom of my modem. It asked me for my new password. Did I have one? Was it in the support e-mail that the on-line technician had told me she was sending me (that I couldn't access until after I was logged in)? I dug out my steno pad, where I had been scribbling notes all during the on-line support sessions. (This is one of my very best habits.)

Aha!

In the midst of all the hassles, the young woman had had me write down a six-character network access code. Was that it? I wasn't starting a new account, so I had not worried too much about it at the time. I didn't really expect to need it. But I tried it.

Log-on successful

It was only six hours after the original discovery that my connection was down. Life was good again.

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