Well, I'm having difficulty with the ethernet bridge again. It's a Linksys WET54G. For those who don't know what it does, here's the scoop. It has an antenna which picks up the WiFi signal from my router down here, then converts it into wired Ethernet so that you can plug a computer's Ethernet port into it as though it were a port in the wall. The theory is simple. However, the execution is pretty grim.

It worked with the BT router. However, when I got my O2 broadband service (and router with it) it seems to have stopped working. While it can see the WiFi router, when you plug something into it the bridge doesn't seem to be able to get an IP address and connect to the Internet through the router. The DHCP service seems to be at the route of the trouble.

I have tried everything under the sun to get it to work. Neither the iMac (which has a very unhelpful helpless Help Assistant for such things) nor the Asus EE can connect. I bought a Belkin Wireless N access point but then found out that it was not designed to work with an iMac. So I got the drivers from someone who specialises in such things, and installed it. The access point can see the WiFi but, again, cannot connect.

My conclusion is that it's the router that is failing me here. I need to buy a new one.

Rats.

I will do research to try to find the best WiFi ADSL modem/router and buy that. There are instructions for placing non-O2 routers on the linel. Boy, do I hope that works.

As you mostly might be aware, BT was once the government owned monopoly telephone supplier in the UK. It was privatised, but continues to act as though it were part of the government. This extends to having a license for stupidity.

I got a new BT Hub last week, but had to add a switch so that it would serve all my wired devices. So today I bought the switch and a short patch cable, and thought, "Boy, now I can go to town".

Well.

I set up the switch first, and made sure that it worked with the old router. Then I disconnected the old one, and set up the new one, attached the cordless phone (we get VOIP on this plan as well, with a cordless phone attached to the router), and plugged it into the ADSL socket and the electricity.

The switch worked, and my printer, my Sun box, and my main computer worked fine. However, using the instructions, I entered the SSID and the key printed on the back of the router into the software on our living room laptop. As usual, I couldn't get it to work.

After a while, and after some time wrestling with the interface to the router controller (which was "improved" to make it easier to use, of course), I discovered that the SSID and the key were totally different from those printed on the box itself.

Fiddlesticks!

It is finally working, and tomorrow I'll make sure the iMac and the Dell laptop in the kitchen are working.

The router is quite stylish:



but, a pain to configure.

Worst of all, as is my wont, I was swearing a bit as I was trying to figure out what was wrong. That gets HWMBO all riled up. I've discovered that statin drugs (of which I take 40 mg every night) sometimes have the extra special added attraction of making people more irritable. Oh joy. Not only can't I drink grapefruit juice because of it, I'm cranky too.