This is for anyone with a notebook computer and/or wireless network.
Recently, SC was lucky enough to get a new notebook as a result of his change of positions at work. Since it included wireless network capability, it made sense to get a wireless access point so that the notebook could also be used at home. Had your host not recently purchased a new router, it would have made sense -- and saved signifcant money -- to have simply bought a hybrid wireless/wired router. Oh well, serves SC right.
Readers unfamiliar with wireless networking might be amused to know that wireless access is relatively promiscuous; unless you set up your access point to be secure, it will invite everyone with the right hardware to join the party. When the notebook arrived last week, this fact confirmed that the wireless network card was working correctly.
So last night, your host bought an access point, plugged it into his router, saw all the diagnostics light up to say that things were fine -- and got no signal at the computer. He promptly dialed the "24/7" support hotline of the access point manufacturer (Belkin), and concluded after 40 minutes of on-hold time that in fact there was not going to be anyone picking up, which the Belkin folks confirmed this morning. SC explained to their technical support people that it was at best misleading to refer to the support line as 24/7, when nobody picks up at night, which they justified by noting that "valuable support information" is provided by the recording (which tells you: 1) to visit the company website and 2) that someone will be with you shortly). This got nowhere, though, as the employees were only interested in going through the script, which took an hour. Especially frustrating was the part at the beginning where they asked for the maker and model number of your host's router (Linksys and BEFSR41 for those who care), said "Ok, there's no compatibility issues"...followed by the part at the end where they put SC on hold, then came back and said "Your equipment doesn't all work together; our access point doesn't always play well with that router, so you might want to return it."
Thus, back to the store to exchange access points for Linksys' version. Shockingly, even that produced no detectable signal at the computer. At this point, SC decided that this was actually a problem with the computer, not the access points, and called Dell. Although your host insisted that the problem was with the computer, and that the network was configured correctly, some 45 minutes were spent walking through my network configuration, at the end of which they concluded -- that SC's network was configured correctly.
The poor Dell support technician was at his wits' end, and was about to declare that, since they test all of their computers before releasing them, my network must be broken somehow after all. But then he had one last idea: uninstall the wireless card. Windows promptly redetected its presence and reinstalled the drivers. This then caused the wireless network to be recognized, and it now works correctly.
Arthur C. Clarke once wrote: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." In the absence of an adequately scientific explanation for why the exact same code should fail in one case, and then work in another, I can only conjecture that he really meant that both technology and magic exist, and that the confusion can go either way.
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