I forgot the corollary.
Theorm #2048: Only work on your computer system at night after at least two martinis.
As you can tell from the header, I finally reverted to XP which I got up with the video card I had in the drawer for a year. Maybe next Friday night I'll try putting Ubunto on the other currently dormant disk drive...
I got off brand name internet services long ago for exactly the same reasons, flaky service and no tech support. I got caught out when North Point crashed and burned. They were a big commercial provider that I think Earthlink used, here and NP went belly up about ten years ago. I switched to a local company that used to be in Berkeley and has since moved to San Bruno.
CG