Eric's Beijing Diary

Physical examination today. I guess they do this once a year, but somehow, I don't usually get the announcement. We boarded the bus at the North Gate at 7:30 and headed to the clinic. I was ready for a long day, but somewhere in the process, someone stamped VIP on my paperwork, so things moved pretty quickly.

After the physical, I took my laptop to the coffee bar to get some work done, but I could not manage to connect. Said I was connected, but nothing work. I actually moved to another coffee bar, but I had the same problem there. Maddening. Finally, I checked the IP configuration, entered everything manually, but changed the IP address. Worked perfectly. I'm not even sure why. Sometimes there is one person in a network who enters an IP address manually, so the DHCP server is not aware of this system's presence on the network, and assigns the same address to another computer, creating a conflict. Wireless technology has come a long way, but improvement is needed. You shouldn't have to be an engineer to get online. In the present state of things, though, it sometimes helps.