One Problem Solved, Two (at least) To Go...

Well, I figured out why I couldn't go online with the new laptop. Two reasons: first, it already had a built-in wireless adapter. *Unhhhh??* How was I supposed to know that? It works fine if you take out the wireless card I had bought. I can now return that, and get a refund. Now why would there be a slot for a wireless card if you don't actually need one? The other reason: Well, apparently DSL is not like water flowing through pipes, where you can turn on any faucet in the house and get the same water. Or electricity coming out of every electric socket. No, it seems only one modem can be in operation at any one time. Once we temporarily disconnected the old modem and tried out the new one with the laptop, I could surf anywhere.

My thanks to 'Michael' and 'Steven' late on Sunday night who were kind enough to call back and help me troubleshoot this situation. Yeah, and if their names were really 'Michael' and 'Steven', then I'm the queen of Gondor. I guess if that's the aliases they need to go by to be more comforting and familiar to clueless Americans, then so be it. I really don't care.

But now we still haven't been able to network with the old computer. We can use only one or the other. I was told confidently by 'Michael' that all I had to do was plug the ethernet cable running from the iMac to the new modem/router, and presto: instant connection. It sounded too good to be true, and it was. Because this doesn't work. There's more to it than that, and I need to find out what. The CD that came with the new modem doesn't work on the iMac, and in fact I got it hung up in an endless loop that resulted in our having to manually eject it from the drive.

The other problem is that Outlook Express is having a major snit with our password on the laptop.

I did set up a free Hotmail account, so I can get mail that way, too. But it would be nice to have the same mail on both computers.

So I need to call or email again and continue this saga. Except if we can only troubleshoot on the phone at 9 at night (these guys have got to be working out of some Asian country), this is going to be problematic. I have to leave for work then, and I probably shouldn't dump this on Tim. The next night I have off again is Sunday.

I guess as long as we have one computer still working, it's okay for now. But this is going to get old in a hurry only being able to go online with one or the other.