annoyedfriday night the internet in all of the dorms went down. there were a few brief moments of getting it back, but they haven't lasted more than 5 minutes since around 10:30 friday night. after yesterday afternoon, it was just completely gone. my computer has told me a various number of reasons ranging from "there is no wireless network available to connect to" to "you have a full signal but no IP address" to "you can connect, but you need to reenter your network key" Great, no internet access whatsoever for anyone I know.
now, the thing that pisses me off most about this is that they never give us any warning when the system shuts off. the one time they put up a sign saying "the system will be down for 24 hours" they put it in an obscure place where i didn't notice it until the internet was back up again. it's not just the fact that the internet is down and I can't talk on AIM. our school disk drive is connected to the internet network. so when the internet is down, we can't connect to the school drive. which means any homework we had on the school drive is lost to us until the internet is back up.
now luckily it's only the dorms that have no internet access. we can still use the libraries and any computer labs that may be open. but there's two big problems with that. (1) everyone in the dorms is using the libraries and computer labs to do hw, talk on AIM, and whatever else. there's barely any empty computers left in the libraries. so if you can't find a computer to use, you could get screwed. (2) what the hell was the point of my family buying me a laptop and paying money to connect to the internet if it's going to be down on the weekends? this isn't the first time it's happened this year and personally, i have papers due every monday for my one class. i have to submit a copy online as well as hand in a paper one. so if the internet is down, i can't get any information online and i can't turn it in either. it's annoying as hell.
the most ironic part of all is that there was an article in the school paper a few weeks ago about how the IT department is so much better than last year and they are able to disable individual users if a virus is found on their computer instead of turning off the internet for an entire building. but for some strange reason, they enjoy turning the internet off for weekends at a time anyway. grrr...