Libertine: On the Prowl

Vidi, vici, veni -- I saw, I conquered, I came. _______________________________________________________________

Local Only?

12:55, 2008-Jun-19 .. Posted in rants .. 5 comments .. Link

When I got a new computer last year equipped with Vista Premium, I noticed that my internet connection would sometimes degrade to something called "Local Only".

I was baffled the first time I saw this. Local Only? What the fuck is that? I thought it meant that I could only access websites that originated in the area where I lived.

But I was soon disabused of that notion. I tried clicking on the site for my town's newspaper and I was just as unable to access that as I was any other website. I discovered that when the connection reads "Local Only", you can't access any websites.

A "Local Only" connection isn't any sort of a connection at all. You are, for all intents and purposes, offline. Using dial-up, when I'm reduced to "Local Only", I have to officially disconnect and then reconnect.

So, going back to my original question: What the fuck does "Local Only" mean? What purpose does it serve? On my two previous computers with Windows 95 and Windows XP, respectively, you were either online or offline. There wasn't any of this "local only" limbo, a connection that didn't connect you to anything.

Perhaps some of the techie geeks here can clear this one up for me.

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01:38, 2008-Jun-19 .. Posted by Aielman
What the fuck does "Local Only" mean? What purpose does it serve?

It means you have access to your local network and/or local computer resources (what's on the harddrive) only, and not the internet. The purpose is to let you know this. Vista is more internet aware than previous versions of windows. Where XP only could tell you if there was a connection to it's network interface, Vista knows both when it's connected locally, and when that connection is capable of reaching the internet.

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01:43, 2008-Jun-19 .. Posted by libertine
Local network?

If I can only access what's on my hard drive, then I'm disconnected, as far as I'm concerned. I'm offline. I'm not connected to anything when I can only access my own computer.

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02:28, 2008-Jun-19 .. Posted by Aielman
If I can only access what's on my hard drive, then I'm disconnected, as far as I'm concerned. I'm offline. I'm not connected to anything when I can only access my own computer.

Sorry. I didnt' make up the term...that's just what it's used for. Local resources are just that...local. You're connected to local resources. When you connect to the internet, you are connected to local resources and remote resources.

For that matter, you might be using multiple accounts on your local computer that have differing levels of access, at which point what is local to you may not be local to another acount.

You happen to be a decade behind in internet connection type, with good reason, so you'll just have to deal with the fact that the operating system is geared towards the other 70% of Microsoft's customer base that is actually making use of a local network with a router/switch, for whom the term has a more meaninful definition.

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03:37, 2008-Jun-20 .. Posted by texican
Seems to me that some marketing genius probably came up with the term so that "your ass has been disconnected" will never pop up, thereby giving the illusion that you always have some type of connection. Thus, no one will think to call their provider and bitch about all the downtime.

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10:33, 2008-Jun-20 .. Posted by Aielman
Seems to me that some marketing genius probably came up with the term so that "your ass has been disconnected" will never pop up, thereby giving the illusion that you always have some type of connection.

Actually, an engineering genius came up with it to let users know that they're still connected to the local network despite the loss of internet connectivity, which became much more relevent as more and more people added networks to their homes. Networking used to be soley a commercial thing, and the IT workers who set up and used such data connections didn't think that just because internet connectivity was down that they couldn't reach anything else on the network...and could advise their users accordingly. But now you have better than 30% of American households with a home network, most of whom have no idea how it works. Messages like this one were designed for them since they don't have a helpdesk on site to advise them.