a steampunk moment

[sergebroom]

I have a laptop provided by my employer so that I can support our system from the comfort of home at all hours, ungodly and ungodly. I normally plug in thru a cable, but there are times when I take the laptop to the living-room, in which case I connect to the system thru my home's WiFi. (I'm so proud that I managed to set that up.) This week though, whenever I tried to connect, my laptop would say that there was no wireless network around (which wasn't true) and that I should make sure that the wireless switch was on. After poking around the various softwares, and finding no such switch, I called tech support last night. After a 30-minute wait listening to a voice breathlessly telling me that serving me was very important and that somebody would get to me as soon as possible, I finally got a live human to talk to. After 15 minutes of scratching our heads, I found the switch.

It's an actual switch hidden on the thin front side.
A physical switch.
In this day and age.
That was quite a steampunk moment.

As for why the laptop has a switch to interrupt wireless communications, I have no idea.

Comments

[pnh.livejournal.com]

Thinkpad, right?

[serge-lj.livejournal.com]

Yup. At least their cooling fan isn't under the laptop, as is the case with my own laptop. That's the kind of thing that will have me grumbling about crappy design.

[come-love-sleep.livejournal.com]

An effort to make it easier when you encounter some nasty virus or another? Every time I have to clean out my bf's laptop, it's easier if I can just click the switch physically.
(By 'easier,' I mean 'I remember to do it.')

[serge-lj.livejournal.com]

Good point.

[redrose3125.livejournal.com]

So you can save battery by turning the wireless off.

[serge-lj.livejournal.com]

True, but it could also be turned off thru the same software that turns it on.

[etumukutenyak.livejournal.com]

Actually, I think the software only turns off the programs -- the radio itself needs to be physically turned off to save even more power. ;-)

[serge-lj.livejournal.com]

Hmmm... So there was a valid reason for this switch after all. Still, how much power does the radio use up, compared to the flat screen?

[n6tqs.livejournal.com]

My Panasonic W4 has such a switch. Very handy when you board an aircraft.

[serge-lj.livejournal.com]

They don't make you turn the laptop off until the takeoff is over?

[n6tqs.livejournal.com]

Yes, which means the computer is off when I want to disable the wifi BEFORE I turn it back on. The machine has to be on to disable the wifi by software.

[serge-lj.livejournal.com]

Of course.