Tuesday, July 03, 2018

PANIC IN VAIN

In prehistoric days before computers, before the internet, we never had this strange sense of being cut adrift into outer space, lost, abandoned, rudderless, when something in the system breaks down for no apparent reason and our home, our online home, which sometimes seems more real than our actual physical home, is suddenly Not. There..

I'm exaggerating a little bit but I have indeed been pacing the floor, climbing the walls and tearing what's left of my already sparse hair simply because my website, for a few days, vanished from the internet as if it had never existed. Yes I know this is not a bona fide catastrophe but only a vanitas vanitas type of thing. Nevertheless, panic. 

I'm pretty good with computer stuff and can solve problems by myself most of the time, but this one struck too close to home, literally my home page which reassures me I'm still alive, digitally speaking, each time I log into the worldwideweb: NOT THERE!

I phoned my broadband provider. Surprisingly quick to act they sent me an engineer today, Abdullah, lovely guy who admired my art on the walls. We chatted about art, life etc. while he efficiently installed a new modem and concluded that the problem had nothing to do with broadband connection but only with my website host.

Long story shortened: I phoned mine Host. Polite guy with slight French accent answered. I asked would he rather speak French than English? We continued in my native langue de chat. The problem, quickly discovered, was their fault, not mine. My website was blocked by mistake because they were slow in confirming its renewal. Website restored. Two friendly guys in two different corporations in two different countries doing their job cheerfully and well. One foolishly panicked, vain customer satisfied. Tout est bien qui finit bien.

2 comments:

Catalyst said...

I feel your pain, Natalie. I'm going through a thing now where I can't save or edit any of my documents. I haven't gone to the nerds yet but unless I can figure out what I did wrong . . . Arrrrgggghhhh!

Natalie d'Arbeloff said...

Uh-oh! Sounds like a hardware problem, maybe? Good luck!