Here’s the screen shot showing the contradictory state I managed to get into setting up my wireless network on XP …

And now I have the picture! Maybe it just didn’t like the GIF format of the previous post?

Here’s my exciting picture of my wireless fiasco. Well it’ll be exciting IF it loads as I’ve never added a pic to blog before…

Wireless should be easy? Now I have a wireless access point & my work laptop is connecting no problem I thought it should be easy to connect up my daughters PC. I had to plug in a cable to download the driver for the wireless USB adaptor (fair enough, I shouldn’t have misplaced the CD) but after that it seemed fine, driver loaded, adaptor found, wireless found (strength “excellent”), WAP key entered (after a bit of head scratching!) but it never gets further than “acquiring network address”. I tried a hard IP (10 on from the DHCP on another PC) but even that doesn’t seem to work, I can’t even see the firewall on my router.

Any bright ideas?

Why (oh why etc) can’t someone design a better way to attach peripherals? No, not some clever Bluetooth advance or wizzy technology, just a nut that doesn’t come undone when you screw / unscrew monitors, serial connectors, printer cables,… to the back of a PC.

Years ago I had this problem as I was often working on serial comms solutions and customers (and colleagues) insisted on tightening the screw that held the adaptor to the back of the PC. In these modern times there aren’t so many serial ports in use but I’m often swapping monitors even with my Belkin switch and (especially with my Belkin switch) you need to screw the cable down as it is so thick it untwist itself & pulls out. A real irritation with my laptop as it cleverly (hah!) realises there is no external monitor and switches to internal display only - requiring much fiddling with display properties to get back to the correct twin head resolution.

Processors advance, peripherals advance, cases advance but we still seem to have these crappy little nuts. Captive ones rather than screw in ones would do the job. Is there a solution out there? Maybe I just get naff PC’s!

I’m having the building work done so I can start my working from home. It’s so scary for a ditherer like me to commit to where the sockets should be & I’m trying to get it right (after having to crawl under my desk to turn the mains off for years last time I set up an office at home!).

I’ve got that far but I’m desperately trying to install enough cables before the plaster board goes on - two phone lines, cat 5 in & out (a feed from my router & a spare as I guess I’ll need a hub on my desk so I can take an out to feed the kitchen), speaker cables from the lounge stereo (I could do with screened lead going back to feed the stereo from the desktop but at a pinch I could use the speaker leads?) and last (and least flexible) coax from the video for a TV. I already had speakers & coax running through to the kitchen but I’m bringing them out to wall box so I can break in if I need to.

It’s the “now’s the time” pressure. I can run cables later but if I do it now it’s so much neater… Oh well, it’s what makes me (I hope) a good software engineer. When I’m laying the foundations I like to keep all the options open. It may be good software design but in building terms it’s stressing me out - what will I need next week? What if decide the desk should be the other side of the room? Which is exactly what happened to this office, where I now have to crawl under the desk to turn the mains off…

I (or my family) have just knackered the 2nd PCMCIA Ethernet connection to my laptop at home. Because it keeps getting moved and no one unplugs it the connector eventually wears or breaks.