My experience with electronic entertainment equipment varies between complete bliss and pure frustration. Murphy’s law always seems to rear its ugly head when it’s least convenient.
One time, we installed video and music for an Austin Way Magazine event at Antone’s, and everything looked great at the pre-show run-through. I took a music server, a hard drive, and a router to the event, intending to provide high-quality music for the party, DJ from my phone, and mingle simultaneously. I figured nothing could go wrong with everything on-site and using my own secure network. It worked perfectly in our store before the event, but when the party, everything went south really fast. The music server kept displaying the error message, ‘Sorry, Try Again Later.’ Luckily, I had a CD case and CD player as a backup.
With the advent of digital music and video via local or wide-area networking, the chance of frustration when using these technologies is, unfortunately, very high. I can tell you that almost everything electronic you bring home today has a Wi-Fi chip, even when it doesn’t seem necessary. So, that fancy toaster you just bought and plugged in is clogging up your wireless network and allowing Murphy’s law to do its thing.
Let’s face it, the adage ‘you can’t live with it, but you can’t live without it applies to modern entertainment equipment. I believe that, as do many others, the convenience of having all your entertainment at your fingertips is worth the risk of technological hiccups. So, what can you do when that big event is happening, and electronic entertainment is essential for success? Well, a solid network configuration is necessary.
This is where our new System Performance Evaluation program comes in. We have structured a preventive maintenance approach to minimize these situations whenever possible. The program’s root is a thorough analysis of your internet connectivity and network speed (wired and wireless). Technicians will start by ensuring that your internet service provider is delivering the reliable connection and speed you are paying for. Then we’ll go through and identify all the devices on your network and isolate the ones hoarding all the bandwidth. Last, we’ll examine the Wi-Fi radio spectrum, eliminate unused Wi-Fi-enabled devices, and assign compatible frequencies to the ones you need.
It’s a simple program; you call us up, tell us how often you want us to come out, and we’ll set you up on the schedule and do the rest!
I’m not saying that the next party won’t have some gremlins—but at least you’ll have done all you can to keep the electronic ones at bay.
