[retracted]Alicia received a nice Dell Inspiron Notebook for Christmas, but since bringing it home, it has been a bit of an outcast on our home network.
You see, the poor little computer, which Alicia has christened Enid-Eugenia, has a wireless adapter; however, our home network was entirely wired. I know, there are some of you out there who can’t even imagine a network as archaic as ours must have been. Wires? I mean, who the heck uses those nowadays?
An interim solution was to add li’l Enid-Eugenia to the network via her wired network adapter; unfortunately, this entailed having the notebook in quite an inconvenient location in order for the only spare wire we own to reach our router.
So Alicia has had a spiffy, new computer, but for the most part, she’s been forced to use it in a perpetually offline state, excepting brief moments to download various things via the inconvenient location that befit our wired network’s reach and the even rarer moments that she was able to hop on a publicly Wi-Fi network.
All that changed today when a valiant DHL deliveryman hand-delivered a wonderfully futuristic looking Linkys WRT300N Wireless-N Broadband Router. Oh, sweet, sweet future! ((Or would that be present? Or even past at this point? Oy!))
I wasn’t sure how long the setup procedure would take; I haven’t toyed around with wireless networking in a couple years, and back then, my computer was but a client on the family network. Configuring a wireless router ((If your wireless router required no set up, you might want to go back and check that! Make sure it’s password protected and that you’re utilizing any available security features, lest you leave your home network open to anyone within range who happens to have a wireless adapter.)) and setting up a mixed ((Wired + wireless.)) network was unexplored territory for me.
So all of that said, I’m very pleased with how easily the setup process went. Actually, the only part of the process which ever knocked on the door of Mr. Frustration was dealing with all of the networking cables and finally placing both cable modem and router in a place which made much more sense than where they have resided for the past year.
I do admit that the WRT300N is a bit more advanced of a model than we actually need; indeed, I passed on the model available at Wal-Mart after I saw the WRT300N mentioned on the back of its box. At least I’m ready on the off chance we ever come into possession of an Internet-ready game system! ((I am holding out hopes for a PlayStation 3 or Xbox 360 for a variety of reasons, notably Guitar Hero 3, the upcoming LEGO Batman, and the also upcoming Ghostbusters…))
Regardless, at least I didn’t completely geek out by splurging on a WRT600N.
Okay, I admit, I didn’t find out about that one until after purchasing our router; kinda takes an edge off of that restraint I showed, no?
Well, that’s the story of how Alicia can now blog from anyplace in our house.
And I’m here stuck like glue to our home office.
Dang.[/retracted]