I decided to move my computer from the office downstairs in the garage to my small work area upstairs, so that I can work at night without having to go outside. What a bad decision! The first mistake I made was not labelling the end of every single cable that I disconnected. A veritable spaghetti explosion of cabling was hiding behind the tools of my trade - from the phone to the ADSL filter to the router to the fax/printer to the computer to the monitor to the keyboard to the mouse to the power supply to the 5-section plug adaptor to the wall plug. Not to mention each piece of equipment's cord to that adaptor. I lugged this lot upstairs without having made proper arrangements such as drilling a hole for the cabling in the desk top so that they could be out of the way when plugged in again (when I decide to do something, I do it immediately, particularly if it involves moving furniture around). So I had to balance the printer/fax on a pile of old telephone books, and use a small coffee table for the computer box and put the ADSL modem and the phone on top. Then came the reconnecting part.
I don't know what the mathematical formula is to calculate the number of possible combinations for connecting 8 or so cables to various bits of equipment but I spent about three hours trying every conceivable sequence and at various times got the ADSL to work, the phone, the fax, and the internal fax modem, but never simultaneously. Something was always not part of the finished setup. I even consulted the diagram supplied with the ADSL router, but of course, their pictures didn't resemble mine! There was always one end of a cable without a corresponding hole (you can see that I don't have much grip on computer terminology either). Defeated, extremely irritated, shouting at the dog and definitely not cooking supper, I was forced to call in an expert to reconnect my office. I am happy to say it took him rather a long time, too.
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