New router

Why in the world have I been down for the last day and a half? Well, I'll tell you. Where do I begin?

Our old wireless router only does web. Wep blows so I decided to hook up a new router. $20 Belkin. Not a bad deal to be honest. It is small, and does 802.11g wireless with wpa2. I've heard that wpa2 has been cracked. They are all cracked. Who cares. I'm just trying to keep the look-e-lieus out for the most part. Not a bad router for $20 like a say, but a different router showed up in the box than was in the ad. Not a bad thing. It looks like it has all the same stuff. I'll deal.

First attempt: unplug the old router. Plug in the new one. Disaster. Nothing works. Everything breaks. No connection at all. Normal first attempt. Read the instructions.

Second attempt: Get an IP on the inside through the wired network. One thing down. No internet. Try repeatedly to hook up the internet. Finally, get something to come through on the wired network. It is an at&t page saying I got the password wrong and to call the number.

Call the number:
Robot: "What OS do you have? You may answer Windows, Macintosh or other."
Me: "Other."
...
Rep: "Please activate Internet Explorer."
Me: "I told the robot I'm using Linux."
Rep: "Um .. OK. Let me put you on hold."
Robot: "do-te-do-la-la."
Rep: "OK .. let me try to reset your password."
Me: Hooray. Not this is not in quotes. That is because I only thought it.

Then I had to call back to get the password reset again. The lady was far more helpful even though she too nearly swallowed her own eyes when I said the word "Linux". This time went much more smoothly because I now have a security question. I feel so special. she really really needed me to check my swbell email, which I have not done in 5 years to give her a good review.

Whatever, the internet now works on one machine.

Third attempt: I tried to set up my computer to have a static IP. This has got to be easy peasy because it doesn't tell you anywhere in the manual how to do it. It turns out the router and computer are very picky about IP addresses and gateway numbers. So picky that the computer will tell you it is updating a number when it is really just happy to try to use the old wrong one again and again. Got the two computers up as static that I need.

Fourth attempt: Hook up wireless. This was shockingly the easiest thing to do. Type in the pass key and bob's your uncle. You are as on the network as the wired computers. Even got my phone running on wireless in no time.

Still need to do the DynDNS settings. ... Can't tell, but that might be working as well.