No Strings Attached
Impulse purchase — yet another. I got me a WLAN router. I didn’t know that I needed one until I got one. Usually I am not that enthusiastic about new consumer electronics 1 but this nifty router finally lifts the burden of ever too short LAN cables even in my cramped spatially challenged campus room.
The delivery man rang twice and twice as fast I jumped into my pants to greet the man in red bearing gifts. After the worst garble of signature I gave on his handheld he handed me the packet and off he went.
On opening the box there was additional to the router a little surprise in it, apart from the cancerous smell of new plastic manufactured in the hinterlands of China: A small pack of chocolate along with the invoice and a sheet begging me to give a five-star rating on Amazon. The free chocolate is perhaps the most compelling reason to order from a certain company because, let’s face it, any provider of networking technology is kinda the same. For your information: The chocolate tasted much like the plastic smelled.
I unwrapped the shiny bugger called TL-WR642G, placed it somewhere under my desk where I keep all other truckload of electronic crap I don’t want to see because it’ll remind me of the uncomfortable amount of money I spent in accumulating them. I plugged all the LAN cables in the correct plugs, started my computer and it connected me to the internet. Was that too easy?
It was, I couldn’t connect to my router (which is configured via IP/TCP). When I set the IP address of my PC manually to 192.168.1.2 I could reach my router, but not the internet. Annoying. While rendering some compositions I had some time to fiddle around with the settings. I did more or less the same things over and over again and suddenly it worked. Currently my PC gets its IP automatically from the router, still it has set an alternate configuration set to 192.168.1.2 / 255.255.255.0 and obviously that did the trick. In minutes I set up a WLAN and started to flood my place with internet-waves.
I’m rather borderline now with all my wireless gadgets and use them to the max: My Nokia E51 currently connects to Google Maps; my PSP is hooked up via line-in to my PC and plays AnimeOST and Radio Kawaii cheerfully loud; Desdemona, my notebook-girl, updates her Windows XP installation; my Wii displays all the current news from Reuters and AP on my TV and I just tried to get my Nintendo DS also online somehow.
The sexiest feature is being able to Skype-call from the PSP anywhere around my room so theoretically I could invite friends to play volleyball or barbecue while being outside. Unfortunately I’m not much of an outdoorsy person.
Still my Wii kicks me after about 1.5 matches of playing Dr Mario online and every time I get disconnected it counts as if I chickened out and hence loose the game. According to the game’s highscore I’m ranked last — worldwide! Especially painful for me as the current world record holder.
- Okay, I am. But I keep the glee to myself usually ↩
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