Literary Discussions

 stayed up until 6am this morning trying to get all 5 computers to connect to WiFi on Roadrunner cabel modem via Airport Extreme WAN.  The modem and Airport Extreme box had been shoved beneath a bureau in the bedroom under the assumption that the WiFi signal should be clear through all rooms and several floors in the building, since I can detect our neighbors channels. I was SHOCKED to notice that the Macbook several tims was unable to detect the Airport Extreme. So I fished the boxes from beneath the bureau and set them atop the bureau and that seems to have made all the difference.

My wife's main desktop is an old Dell XP with service pack 3 and I could not get the Belkin WiFi to connect to the Airport extreme. At 4am I was ready to give up but just for the heck of it I popped the Belkin install DVD in the drive and plugged one of the 3 Belkin adaptors in the USB and did an install which turned out to be a DOUBLE install since I now have two Belkin wifi icons in the tray. One of them automatically lights up like magic with a strong connection to the Airport Extreme while the other sits idle. I do not have any idea WHY it should suddenly work after so many fruitless attempts nor do I dare to fiddle with it further lest it decide to stop working. But I can reboot it, and it automatically connects. The Dell is 10 years old and is at the end of its upgradable useful life I am certain. The only machine which I could not get to work is a Compaq XP which has only service pack 2 installed.  I think now my best move will be to back up all useful files and simply try to install Ubuntu on it since my other Ubuntu machine works fine with the Belkin USB WiFi and Roadrunner.

I did something with the Macbook today that many will find odd. I installed every known browser, Opera, Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, and yes even that most hated Windows Explorer... they do have a Mac version.  I very much depend upon Logmein.com to log remotely into 81 year old Dorothy's computer and help her out. Logmein is very much dependent upon Java and it is not clear exactly how to insure that one has just the right Java. Opera actually CRASHES regularly when I try logmein even though Opera shows a logmein plugin. Firefox just sits there dumbly pretending that I am connected but showing me nothing of Dorothy's desktop. Only Chrome seems useable on this Macbook with logmein and it was not initially useable so I suspect that it somehow upgraded a few things in the background but who knows.  I THINK I downloaded GIMP, but cannot remember. Anyway, if I have not I shall do so shortly.  I am composing this post on the Macbook and I am connected to my mother-in-laws Wifi which is also Roadrunner via D-Link. My Macbook was on line to the Airport and charging when I carted it over here and opened up and Lo and Behold it just automatically switched to the D-Link channel.  

I am slowly learning how to actually DO things on the Macbook that I have done for years on Windows, and have done for one year on Linux.  Mostly it is the same things over and over but with a slightly different interface using slightly different keys. And one may always GOOGLE and say HOW does one CUT AND PASTE on a Mac, or HOW DOES ONE force kill a task. The Apple Cmd key replaces the Windows key and option-shift-esc replaces alt-ctrl-del.... actually from memory I am no even sure that I am saying it correctly... but ones fingers simply learn to do differnt things on different operating systems. So, I shall be keeping everyone updated on these little learning adventures.