Maybe I Should Just Put The Book Under My Pillow

For some bizarre set of reasons, I have been actually figuring out and solving my own IT/Communications problems lately. This is very unnerving because it is not consistent with my historical behavior at all. Historically, if something didn't work right within a day or so, I would throw a tantrum and return the device or wait until Wife or some other friend shoved a Valium down my throat and fixed it for me.

I related a couple of weeks ago how I had problem solved a problem with contact manager program and my new web site/email server service. Well when I was in Chicago, I suddenly had this problem where I couldn't send out emails using the new server service address. I would get an error message that said I wasn't connected to the internet when in fact I was receiving emails on the same address and sending out on another! This was only happening at Lakeview Joe's so I thought it might be a problem related to his internet access portal.

But then I got home and I started having the same problem. The tantrum started to bubble up but amazingly was contained. Instead I called Microsoft (even figuring where to call in the past would have frustrated me to no end). I got someone who very quickly told me where to look. Evidently the hosting company we use has some unusual portal numbers and you have set that in your settings. Problem solved.

Personally, I am blaming St. Louis Mike for all this, an IT person whose blog I follow. It must just be the IT problem solving vibes that infect his posts that have gotten to me over the years.