I work for individuals, now all of a sudden a hotel wants my help. HELP!
So, I'd like to think I'm pretty savvy when it comes to computers. Build my own (pc, hackintosh), never really met a problem I couldn't solve (thanks google). That said, I'm no genius. It usually takes me lots of searching and banging my head against a wall before I find a solution. But still, I get by.
I usually help individuals around town with their problems, which range from mild to extremely mild. Generally the most complex issues I come across are the ones I create myself.
Que some hotel owner asking me if I can take a look at their business. Not being one to turn down a job, I agreed.
I have just spent my first day in there and oh man its a mess. There are wires everywhere, most of which I'm pretty sure do absolutely nothing. They have had at least 3 other people come in to "re-do" their system, and it seems that those people didnt take the time to un-do what others had done, so its just a huge mess of what the fuck. So I have some questions that hopefully you guys can answer.
- Is there some kind of tool that is used to trace cables? I found one online that had headphones hooked to it, which seemed odd to me, I was hoping for something where I could hook up to one end, then hook up to the other and maybe it would blink or something if I got it right. These guys have like 4 wall jacks that are hooked up, but not working. At first I suspected the jack, but after further inspection the jack seems fine, and my current guess is that the cable end is in limbo somewhere. It would be nice to not have to get up in the ceiling and manually follow the line.
- They have a server, which honestly I know nothing about. What I do know is that they run some software from the server, which is shortcutted to all of the PC's that run it. They want 2 new laptops to run this software. So I called the software company. They told me how to get it going, which is just finding the server on the network, finding the folder for the sofware and creating a shortcut. I didnt have the laptops at the time, so I double checked this on one of their currently working computers. Everything checked out, found the server, found the file, easy peasy. Then I got the laptops and it was nightmare city. For one, the laptops didnt have ethernet ports, so I went and bought some usb to ethernet adapters. Plugged in, "Unidentified network, no internet access". Cool, installed the drivers....same issue. Any ideas how to solve this? At this point I might just tell him to go get computers with ethernet ports, I suspect the adapters. *Also I have already gone down all the "11 ways to fix this" guides, and no luck there.
- Even though there is no internet, the computer is on the network, I can see printers, I can see other computers, but there is no server to be found. How do I find it? I saw something about mapping the network drive, which I think might work, but I dont know the IP of the server. How do I find that? There is a screen connected to the server back there, but honestly with as little as I know, touching that thing kinda scares me.
- Finally I went back to the original computer where I saw the server in the first place, and its gone....awesome. The software that runs of the server still runs on that computer, so its obviously still connected in some way, but I dont see it in windows explorer. Am I just missing something obvious?
Sorry this was so much, I realize that there probably aren't any easy answers for this stuff. But any insight would be appreciated. At this point I almost feel like I should cut my/their losses and tell them to find someone else, but I dont like to give up, so I figure I'd give it another shot. Thanks for your time.
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