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So my lovely and talented wife and I bought a new router the other day. A Cisco Linksys E1000 wireless router, to be exact. Our current router is full (four slots, all taken) and we still have connectivity needs. So we talked to a helpful guy at Fred Meyer in the electronics department, and bought a wireless router with four ethernet slots. That should be more than enough for our needs.
I just finished installing it. Which took all afternoon. Which is where the "harder than it has to be" part comes in.
The router comes with a CD containing the software. I loaded the software on Snippy's PC (which runs Windows, as opposed to my Linux machine), plugged in the router, plugged her PC into the router, and set things up. Easy peasy. I changed the router name, the password, and the wireless name and password--and that's where I made my Horrible Mistake.
For you see, when I fired up the laptop to assure myself that I'd not only secured the wireless connection, but that I'd made sure it wouldn't advertise itself to anyone who wandered by with a wireless-capable device...I discovered that I hadn't. But it was an easy fix. The network vanished when I refreshed the wireless hotspot list on the laptop. Alas, the GUEST network on our router was still there, still visible and still UNSECURED. The software helpfully defaults to creating a "guest" network in addition to the main one, so guests can access the router without gaining access to the other devices on the network (assuming you haven't made that verboten).
I spent an hour using the web interface (the advanced control interface) trying to do something about it, and failing. So I goggled the problem--and found the answer. See, you can only activate or deactivate the guest network FROM THE BASIC INSTALL SOFTWARE PACKAGE. The moment you do something in the "advanced" control interface--like, say, CHANGE THE DEFAULT PASSWORD--you are forever banned from ever using the basic setup software again.
I spent two hours in Live Chat with someone at Cisco (and the glacial pace of hte conversation was evidence enough that I was far from the only person he was chatting with at one time, let me tell you). He was friendly, and helpful. Of course, none of the things he tried (or told me to try) helped.
Ultimately, I uninstalled the software on Kai's PC, then reset the modem with the little red reset button, loaded the install CD into the laptop, and installed it THERE. I made very sure to turn off the Guest Network this time, and to connect the Wii to the wireless router (which was one of the whole points of this exercise), and only THEN did I dare to employ the advanced interface to do some of the housekeeping chores (changing default passwords, making sure the network doesn't announce itself, etc).
If, god forbid, I've overlooked something that can only be done via the original install interface...we're fucked.
I just finished installing it. Which took all afternoon. Which is where the "harder than it has to be" part comes in.
The router comes with a CD containing the software. I loaded the software on Snippy's PC (which runs Windows, as opposed to my Linux machine), plugged in the router, plugged her PC into the router, and set things up. Easy peasy. I changed the router name, the password, and the wireless name and password--and that's where I made my Horrible Mistake.
For you see, when I fired up the laptop to assure myself that I'd not only secured the wireless connection, but that I'd made sure it wouldn't advertise itself to anyone who wandered by with a wireless-capable device...I discovered that I hadn't. But it was an easy fix. The network vanished when I refreshed the wireless hotspot list on the laptop. Alas, the GUEST network on our router was still there, still visible and still UNSECURED. The software helpfully defaults to creating a "guest" network in addition to the main one, so guests can access the router without gaining access to the other devices on the network (assuming you haven't made that verboten).
I spent an hour using the web interface (the advanced control interface) trying to do something about it, and failing. So I goggled the problem--and found the answer. See, you can only activate or deactivate the guest network FROM THE BASIC INSTALL SOFTWARE PACKAGE. The moment you do something in the "advanced" control interface--like, say, CHANGE THE DEFAULT PASSWORD--you are forever banned from ever using the basic setup software again.
I spent two hours in Live Chat with someone at Cisco (and the glacial pace of hte conversation was evidence enough that I was far from the only person he was chatting with at one time, let me tell you). He was friendly, and helpful. Of course, none of the things he tried (or told me to try) helped.
Ultimately, I uninstalled the software on Kai's PC, then reset the modem with the little red reset button, loaded the install CD into the laptop, and installed it THERE. I made very sure to turn off the Guest Network this time, and to connect the Wii to the wireless router (which was one of the whole points of this exercise), and only THEN did I dare to employ the advanced interface to do some of the housekeeping chores (changing default passwords, making sure the network doesn't announce itself, etc).
If, god forbid, I've overlooked something that can only be done via the original install interface...we're fucked.
