What should you do if the internet goes down?

[Lucas]

Every year we grow more and more dependent on the Internet. But would you know what to do if your connection suddenly went down?


No one knows when the Internet will fail. It could happen at any time, leaving you berefit of your e-mail, your CMN, and your Blogs. Therefore, it's important that you and your family have a contingency plan for just such an emergency. If your connection to Cyberspace were to ever get severed, you should at least be prepared. We have included a few key points that should assist you if that were to happen.

1. Panic!
An excited, agitated state will give you that heightened sense of awareness and will increase your thought processes allowing you to come up with rational solutions. Panic is just nature's way of putting your body into over-drive. It's a defense mechanism that gives you an edge when dealing with potentially harmful situations, such as a severed arm or the loss of your Internet.

2. Find A Telephone
Do you have access to a telephone line? Early computers connected to the Internet using a dial-up device along with a hardware device known as a "modem." Since this technology is obsolete, it will be of no use to you. Instead, use your telephone to call your friends to see if their connection is also down, as you will have lost the ability to send an email or an instant message. You can also use a telephone to call 911, an emergency service that will first tell you to calm down, and then will send out specially-trained technicians to find the source of the Internet's failure.

3. Use Your Back-Up Computer
It's always good to have an emergency laptop handy, in case you need to hurry over to a buddy's place where the Net is still up. If there is still no Internet at that location, at the very least you could connect to a small network or LAN (Less-than Adequate Network). Laptops can also be placed on tables at coffeeshops, while you sit around with a latte, nervously waiting for your connection to be restored.

4. Install A Game
In emergency situations, installing a single-player computer game can occupy your down-time. While it won't replace the adrenaline rush of intense networked multiplayer action provided by the Internet, a quick game of Sim City or Flight Simulator may distract you long enough for your connection to return.

5. Perform Routine Maintenance
While programs such as AVG Antivirus have removed most of the tedium of computer system maintenance, nothing could help pass the time faster than cleaning out your hard drive, emptying your cache, or organizing your Desktop/ My Documents folder. Take the time to stare at your screen while you perform a defragmentation. The time will literally fly while you barely notice your separation from the Internet.

6. Turn On A Television Or Radio
Televisions, strange boxes that sit in your parents' living rooms, were once used to provide entertainment, long before DVDs and Playstations were invented. Televisions have the capability of broadcasting streaming information similar to the content on multimedia websites. With a "remote control," a wireless device that is like a small one-handed keyboard, you may be able to surf a limited number of "channels," while you deal with the loss of your connection. Unfortunately, television is only a one-way media.

In ancient times, radios were also used to entertain. A radio allowed you to listen to news, sports, and music, much the same way that you listen to live streaming audio on a Shoutcast server. Like the television, a radio will only have a limited selection of listening stations, and no video. Hopefully your separation from the Internet will be brief.

7. Read
People in pre-Internet times used to read "books" and "magazines", written materials once created in printable format to pass the time. Some e-books are still available on paper, and may offer a short-term solution until your power is back and your broadband is restored. If reading is not an option, as a last resort, you may wish to try doing "chores," or try your hand at cooking. While these activities cannot replace the Internet, they may be able to make the down-time a little more tolerable.

8. Go Outside
The idea of leaving your workstation may seem a little extreme, but you can perform errands that you normally get parents or spouses to do: grocery shopping, drycleaning, etc. Leaving your dorm room, basement, or above-garage apartment suite, may be risky, but again, the time may afford an effective distraction from your Internet woes. NOTE: Be careful to avoid the sun, because your skin will not be used to the exposure.

9. Spend Time With Your Spouse
Communicating with your wife or girlfriend may seem like a radical suggestion, but the time investment may offer long-term rewards. Spending any amount of time talking about your "relationship" may free up more Internet time for you later on, when your ADSL or Cable link to the World Wide Web has been restored. WARNING: These will probably be the longest hours of your life.

10. Use Your Emergency AOL Disk
If you find that your connection to the Internet is going to be longer than you can possibly stand, as a last resort, pull out an emergency AOL CD, the one with 910 free hours of connection to the AOL service.
STOP, WHAT ARE YOU THINKING!

Hopefully some of these Internet alternatives will be able to assist you during an offline crisis. Emergency radio broadcasts will likely advise you of the state of the Internet and be able to predict when your bandwidth will be restored, but remember to have an emergency plan in case your digital detachment is longer than you expect.

[twj]

In a hundred years, when computer history majors stumble onto this post, they may think of Lucas as some kind of computer religious guru trying to figure out what a telephone "line" was.

[Gracetech]

Love it!!!

crt

[tedanderson]

LOL! Imagine that! 20 years ago I would have never believed that a connection to the internet was on the top 10 list of concerns for Americans. But nowadays people would take the internet over food and water if they had to make a choice.

When I worked for a company based out of Southern California, they had a major earthquake that turned the entire office upside down. When someone from the IT department tried to help a sales manager get from under a pile of cubicle walls, he said, "Don't worry about me. I'm OK. Just make sure that the email is working!

[[Director] Joseph B]

Why would you ask that question? Do you know something we don't? Are you planning something? When is this going to happen? I think I'm having a panic attack...

[greg4god]

Two flaws with this....

1. Use a phone (assuming not a cell phone since talk about used to use modem on them): Will be down, have Vonage, uses the internet

2. Watch TV: Will be down, have AT&T's uverse, all the shows are via network (in fact, none of tuners connect via COAX, but all use cat5)

The list of what to do is narrowing.... But here is one added from my work... Sit on hold forever to Warner cable to let them know we don't have internet so they can check it (after already calling 3 other people in two counties and verifying they are all down too....)

Actually had this 2 weeks ago....

-Greg

[Smob]

How about "Use the mail". Once upon a time, people used to communicate by mailing things to each other using something called the post office. This could be harder than usual if your only printer is a network printer, but then there are loads of other media, like CDs and floppy disks (?!?) that you cold send stuff on.

[WilliamR]

The internet is vital to (1) feed my addiction to it and (2) for my company.

I really do have several backup plans in place if my primary connection goes down for any length of time due to a disaster:

1) Switch to a cellular connection
2) Use dialup to one of three providers if for just email and basic stuff
3) See if my neighbor's unsecured wireless network is down
4) Take my laptop to either:
--- my wife's employer where they use T1's from another provider
--- another company that uses another provider
--- a friend's house with commercial satellite access
--- the county's Emergency Operations Center that has government satellite access
5) Drive until I find access
6) Grab a shovel. There's warning sign by the road in front of the house that says there's Sprint fiber under the ground.

And, of course, there are generators that figure into most of the locations above. And there's always the power inverter in the car.

Sounds a bit overboard, but this really is the plan living on the hurricane prone Gulf Coast.

I just happened to see this just now on Woot:


9 Tips For Coping With The Next BlackBerry Outage

1. Always keep a spare fiber-optic cable with tin cans attached to each end.
2. Take a deep breath, stretch, and count to 20. When you're relaxed, you can throw your BlackBerry much harder.
3. Acquire an advanced degree in telecommunications engineering, so you can decipher the eventual explanation from RIM.
4. Call your local Homeland Security office and threaten to blow it up in the name of Holy Jihad. Then the BlackBerry outage will be the least of your worries.
5. While they may not be fast, today's carrier turtles are more reliable than ever.
6. Use your writing or photography skills to chronicle the tragedy for future generations. The world must never forget.
7. Consider learning semaphore.
8. Take advantage of the accompanying chaos to loot an iPhone.
9. If you experience feelings of murderous rage, remember: incompetent buck-passing millionaire executives are people, too.

[WORDpictures]

Originally Posted by tedanderson

. . .20 years ago I would have never believed that a connection to the internet was on the top 10 list of concerns.

How timely! Ice has my internet (as well as most other sources) shut down for a few days here. I'm on an "emergency" internet source as we speak!! Life as we know it has almost shut down.

[[Director] Joseph B]

well there is always my verizon air card.