Misanthropy Today

Because I moved recently and knew that there’d be a period of time that I wouldn’t have cable I picked up an ATT Aircard so that my hobby of sitting at my desk drinking and looking at websites (which is also apart of my job at work) wouldn’t be interrupted for even a week.

(above, a piece of dog poo molded by artisans to look like technology)

So here’s what this thing does:

First, you plug it into your laptop (DO NOT PLUG IT IN BEFORE YOU INSTALL THE SOFTWARE, the manual screams at you. I did anyways. The manual was right.) Then you install the “software”. Then you tool around the internet for about 20 minutes (rather slowly… I’d say prob 35MPH if you’re works’ T1 is 70MPH).

Suddenly your attention is drawn to a status bar. It’s not loading. Hmm.

Then you get pissed and open their “communications manager”, which is really a practical joke made to look like a useful piece of software. The best practical jokes are believable.

Hmm not working.

“File”, no…

Ah “Connections”. that dropdown says “Select GSM Profile” (two choices, ‘accelerated’ and ‘non-accelerated’….choices, choices) and “Edit Connection Profiles” which basically has the same options as the previous one.

You start thinking to yourself, shouldn’t the software be making these choices for me? Ok next menu.

Tools. Eureka! 2nd choice (between Text Messaging [doesn't work, btw] and install firmware [yeah let's assume thats installed fuckers] ) is Diagnostics. Excellent, lets diagnose this bastard.

Two choices here: GSM INFO and EVENT VIEWER. These don’t sound useful and further look like something you’d see in an early version of Red Hat linux, and also assumes that you’re an engineer for AT&T and have an inside line on which of their GSM networks actually work:

(click for full size lulz)

Then you start resetting your network and that doesn’t work. CMD>IPCONFIG, nope. Hmm let me try closing this shitty ATT program. Stuck.

CTRL+ALT+DEL> task manager, Kill Process “ATTCM.EXE”, unplug card. Slam back in (hard), restart Connection Manager (haha) program. Surf the web for another 20 minutes.

For this privilege, you pay $200 up front and $59.99 per month.

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