Two whole days without blogging - just too pooped at the end of the day. What I really need to figure out is how to remotely blog. Then I would be able to blog witty insightful comments throughout the day.
Adventures in Technology: Episode #2
The Easy Wireless Home Network
Today's big technology project was installing an 802.11b wireless card into Peter's new desktop computer. All the pundits say wireless is simple. I am very actively involved in a wireless project at work, I run a wireless network at home, and I have 3 (!) wireless PCMIA cards for my laptop. So I think it's safe to say that I am a fairly experienced 802.11b kibbitzer. And I am here to say that it is never simple. It is never plug and play.
First things first - we buy Peter a Linksys 802.11b PCI adapter. We get home. We open the box. The box has everything but the CD containing the driver. Hmmm. We go through the pain of downloading the drivers and the config utility over a dial-up modem. We then download WinZip so we can unzip and install the newly downloaded files. An hour has passed. Are we having fun yet?
Finally, we are ready to install the card. So Peter gets to do his very first computer card install. He was a little concerned but did very nicely and didn't even drop a screw onto the mother board. However, prior to the install, I examined the card and noticed something very fishy - there was no wireless radio on the card. It appeard to be just a receptacle. Uh Oh. Maybe this is what Linksys meant by the word "adapter" in the name of the product - Wireless PCI adapter. One is supposed to buy a separate PCMIA wireless card to fit into the adapter. Oops - boy don't I feel dumb?
So here we are - late Saturday evening. An adapter card installed but no actual wireless card. Despair is rampant. But hark - I realize that one of my three wireless cards is a Linksys card that I know longer use. We go upstairs to paw through the boxes in my as yet unpacked office. Chances are slim that I will be able to find the card. But, viola, luck is with us - in the bottom of a very full box, I find the card and a Linksys CD that happens to contain the missing drivers (after we spent an hour downloading drivers sigh...).
I install the card. I configure Peter's card with the access point's SSID. We now pick up a signal on Peter's PC. But the strength is low low low...I go back upstairs, disentangle cables and move the access point across the room and turn it upside down. Peter turns around his computer so its butt faces the door with its wireless card facing out. After much finagling and running up and down stairs we get enough of signal to actually establish a connection. Ta Da. Whew.
Wireless is not simple.
10:12:40 PM 
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