Today a woman came in to buy some networking equipment. She wasn’t sure what she needed but she gave me a very long very detailed account of what equipment she had and what she wanted to do. Essentially she wanted to make her desktop computer wirelessly connect to the internet.

At this point in the conversation I asked her how much range she wanted. How far away is the computer going to be from the router?

“Oh not far at all, only a metre.”

I had her go through her entire computer setup to make sure I understood it all. I made the mistake of assuming she wanted to move her computer far away from her modem, where it wouldn’t reach. I was wrong. So I asked her, since her computer is right next to the modem, why doesn’t she just plug it directly in.

“Because every time I unplug the ethernet cord, my internet drops out.”

I gave her the free advice of not unplugging her ethernet cord. She left with her money and some sound advice.