Thursday, April 26, 2012

Sorry about that...

Went on vacation and found my laptop refused to work with the rental's wireless system.  Talk about withdrawal symptoms....

So I'll start with what I'd like for the squirrels in my vegetable garden...

Photobucket

5 comments:

Steve Bates said...

How frustrating! Welcome back!

You know I have little good to say about Apple, but recently a friend brought over her new iPad. It promptly located my wireless router. I entered the password... and we were on the 'net, just like that. No hassle; no fuss. That's how it should be.

ellroon said...

Damn right. I just need to learn more about the process of connecting to the wireless, the options, the mistakes, the really-stupid-omg-why did-I-click-that stuff..

My son swears by his Apple...

Steve Bates said...

ellroon, the point is that it shouldn't be a "process" for the end user... it should be walk-in-and-go, with at most a password to enter. I have tried to explain that to the Harris County Library folks, whose wireless was configured in 1957, or seems like it... I've never gotten it to work. By contrast, the City of Houston library at the end of the next block from Our House is as automatic as it should be... although it does make you enter your library card number, which is 12 friggin' digits...

Ole Phat Stu said...

@Steve,
why 12 friggin digits needed?
There are not 10^12 possible cardowners in the whole world let alone Houston.
So are the last 6 digits CRC checks or what. And more to the point, why? ;-)

Steve Bates said...

So are the last 6 digits CRC checks or what. And more to the point, why? ;-)

Same answer as to the question of what you get when you cross an elephant with a rhino... elephino!

It is not 12 contiguous digits; there are several breaks in the number, which leads me to think they must have embedded some "smart codes" (translation: dumb codes)... e.g., the library you registered at, the date of expiration, a phone number to call for a good time, etc. etc.