June 08, 2003

WiFi
So Mom just bought herself her first new computer in several years, a nice little Toshiba laptop, and I spent the day helping her configure a new wireless hub. On Windows it ain't easy. We got the thing home and found no wireless connectivity, so I:

  1. Wired the existing computer to the WiFi hub and loaded up a web site, to demonstrate that the network worked,
  2. Got my laptop out and connected to the hub, to demonstrate that the problem wasn't with the ether,
  3. Screwed around in mysterious Windows wizards that insisted that your broadband connection should already be configured to no avail,
  4. Accompanied Mom back to Best Buy, where they:
    1. Ascertained that they had failed to bother installing the WiFi driver into the new laptop (which isn't done at the goddamn factory!?),
    2. Installed the driver,
    3. Refused to test the connection because they don't have a WiFi network set up to test computers against, despite selling WiFi cards, computers, and hubs of all stripes,
  5. Got the thing home and got it running in five minutes.
  6. Spent 45 minutes debugging the other Windows machine, which turned out to have a zombie network connection that all the shuffling of networks activated, resulting in an IP address conflict that I resolved by digging through that machine's mysterious network wizards.
Grunt. (The first time I tried this with a Linux machine it took under ten minutes from the time I opened the boxes.)

Now I can sit on the deck overlooking the valley and surf. I could work (do my job) from here, if I were so inclined...
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On
The GYWO Players in: Cavalcade of Knock-Knock Jokes.
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