NAS

What's a NAS?

Asked the good lady innocently as I faffed about in the kitchen.

I gave her my best James Bond look, eyebrow arched to handsome perfection.

We all have one my darling, yours is mighty fine if I do say so myself!

I walked past her and gave her a reassuring slap on the NAS.

Oh hahahah. Very good. But really, what is it?

I resisted the urge to tell her to use Google instead of thinking, like everyone else does. That would be mean though.

Network Area Storage my little pum-pa-tum-tum.

She looked puzzled, as if standing up after a giant poo only to look in the pan and see nothing there.

It's a big hard drive that is attached your Wi-Fi and you can access it from any computer or Smartphone type thing in the house.

I clarified. Somewhat brilliantly I might add. Perhaps I should rethink my career and start teaching simple things to simple people?

I could see myself now, surrounded by nubile disciples. All of them fawning at my feet as I explained how a kettle actually worked.

The good lady's face shone with a manic excitement.

Oh wow! Really! Can we get one? We have so many pics on that old pc upstairs. I would love to be able to access them from my phone!

I gave her a long and hard look. I had the niggliest feeling that the good lady was perfectly aware of what a NAS was and that somehow I was being played.

Ok then. I will have a look...

I checked online for the easiest NAS style thingmybob available and quickly found one. I was drawn to it because the top reviewer claimed - wow, I can't believe this is so easy to set up! I was literally copying stuff to and fro in less than five minutes.

I was sold, I clicked

It arrived yesterday.

After I put the little lady to bed I gently took the NAS out of its packaging. It was a sleek little beauty, an ebony delight, tantalising me with its sensual good looks.

I pushed the network cable into the router gently, murmuring sweet nothings to her reassuringly as I did so. Then I gently but firmly inserted the plug into the wall socket.

A quick flick of the button and she started to purr softly.

I smiled, like a dog smoking a cigar.

Following the instructions I installed the NAS software. It installed in mere moments. It was all going very well.

There, now all I had to do was click on Discover NAS and I was done. I did so with a manly flourish.

Cannot locate NAS

The application quit. I looked at the clock. It was only half past eight. That's alright. I will have it fixed in a jiffy and no mistake. After all, I worked in IT. This was what I did!

Five and a half hours later after a stramash of router/port opening shenanigans and installing flash plugins I finally got it working.

I went to bed a broken man.

Four and a half hours later I got up for work, even more broken.

As I sat downstairs, coffee in hand, staring into the long night, the good lady came downstairs.

Did you get the NAS working ok Daddy-Waddy?

Of course lass. It was a piece of cake.

Deep inside, the cold winds of winter blew across the frozen tundra of my heart.