Wireless router fiasco Jan 25, 2006
I got a wireless router this weekend as a late Christmas present.  I've had DSL for about 3 months, so this was obviously the next logical step. 

I'm pretty smart when it comes to techie things.  I'm not trying to brag; I have a lot of experience using computers and reading about geek things.  I spend about 28 hours a day on the internet.  Ok, maybe 25.  Either way, it's a lot.  So I expected this little installation to be no problem at all.  Plus, I know a bunch of non-techie people who have already done this, and it worked out great for them.  The people that sell wireless routers have to make them pretty simple to setup, otherwise people wouldn't buy them. 

So I got my new router out of the box and followed all the instructions on the CD.  They were pretty simple:  Plug some things in, press some buttons, eat some Ho Hos, wait for things to install.  Everything seemed to be going fine.  But uh oh, it didn't work.  I couldn't connect to the router to change its internal settings, which was the next step in the instructions.  So I tried it again, this time following every little detail to the T.  It said to wait 2 minutes before plugging in the router; I waited exactly 2 minutes.  Things were going ok, but then I had the same problem.  So I read through some help files on the CD and tried it a few more times.  Nothing.  I reset my computer and tried it again.  Nothing.  I reset my computer, unplugged the router and DSL modem, plugged everything in again in the right order, and tried it again.  Nothing.  Needless to say, I was a bit angry that I was unable to setup my wireless router.  So far in the course of my life, following directions has produced positive results.  I didn't understand why this would be an exception. 

As my last resort (though I obviously should have done this sooner), I Googled my problem.  I looked up something about the wireless router and the DSL modem.  It turns out I had to login to the modem's admin options and change a few things around, including changing something from "PPPoE" to "Bridged Ethernet".  I didn't even know I could login to the modem's admin options, let alone what those settings meant.  After I did that, I had to login to the router's admin options and enter my ISP username and password.  So after I made all these changes and tried a few things out, it finally worked. 

This whole process took about 3 hours.  What should have been a 10-minute plug-and-play operation took 3 hours of my Sunday afternoon, which meant missing some NFL playoffs.  How dare something get in the way of the playoffs. 

Conclusions:  My wireless router should have come with instructions for how to get around a DSL modem.  Maybe they could have a link in the instructions to some sort of troubleshooting website.  I was able to get all my information from the Broadband Reports forums.  But just the fact that I had to suffer through installation instructions that were doomed from the start shows that there's something wrong.  And once again, I'll claim that I'm not an idiot.  I know stuff.  I'm pretty tech-savvy.  So for these installation instructions to be insufficient for me, they had to be pretty bad. 

For the sake of reference, I have a Netgear WGR614 v6 wireless router and a Westell 6100 DSL modem with Verizon Online DSL service. 

Update (2006-10-19 9:06am):  It would be wise to write down (securely) usernames and passwords after changing them from the defaults (which is also wise).  Otherwise, you have to reset the device and go through this whole process again.  For a more specific reference, I used this page and the included links to solve all my problems.  Both times. #technology
Interactive Voice Response cheat sheet Jan 25, 2006
IVR (Interactive Voice Response) systems are the annoying computers that answer phones.  This link is a cheat sheet of several hundred IVRs from all different kinds of companies.  For every phone number, it has "steps to find a human".  Never wait to talk to a person again.  (via Kottke) #technology
Rocket bike (1) Jan 25, 2006
CNN has an article about a rocket scientist named Tim Pickens, who strapped a rocket engine onto a bike, enabling him to go 0 to 60 mph in 5 seconds (which would beat a Porsche in a drag race).  Sign me up.  Here's a Discovery Channel video of this happening.  Here's a video of a similar but different rocket bike.  It says it reached 236 km/h, which is about 147 mph.  I don't know if I believe that.  (via Digg) #technology
Major site redesign (5) Jan 25, 2006
Wow!  I redesigned my entire website!  Actually, it's mostly just aesthetic changes, but there were also a few plugin additions, which I'll talk about some other time.  This is the first major redesign since I changed to the plain black text on a white background, which was also when I started using WordPress as my content management system and stopped using static PHP/HTML files.  That was a good choice from a logistics perspective (There's a logistics perspective for this website?  Yes, meaning that I used to have about 50 different PHP/HTML files that needed to be edited by hand each time I wanted to change the site.  Now there are between 5 and 10, and they're editable from within WordPress.).  Before that, I was using some pretty bright colors, but I decided they were a little too busy. 

You might be saying, "I don't care about your stupid new site design."  To that I say, "I don't care that you don't care.  I do this for me.  And for the starving children somewhere."  But I hope at least one other person enjoys it. 

Update #1:  I temporarily went back to the old design because there's a problem with commenting.  Thanks for noticing, Rich. 

Update #2:  The new design is back up.  I fixed the commenting problem, whatever it was. #technology