linksys kicked my ass

In a virtuoso display of obsessiveness, I spent the entire day yesterday unsuccessfully trying to set up an ethernet bridge to link our classic iMac G3 to our wireless network. That'd be in the neighborhood of eight to ten hours lost forever in a fog of distraction, while Finnian, unnoticed, sprinted past developmental milestone after milestone. The insane crabbiness is fading away now, but it was touch and go there for a while. Wife, child, and dog huddled behind the couch for safety while the ugly obsessive fireworks show quietly unfolded. The litany of woes went something like this:

1. Linksys touted their device as being platform agnostic. Works with everything! No drivers to install! Easy! Whip the QuickInstall disc in. . . and it's configured as a PC-only installation wizard. No documentation included for Mac. But no problem. . .
2. There are plenty of forums out there with ad hoc instructions. Change ethernet settings to connect manually to the bridge, configure the bridge, and switch back to DHCP. Easy. . .
3. Except that the bridge inexplicably refuses to send an IP address. And thus begins endless hours of rebooting, tweaking, and ping-ponging between ethernet settings. The forum chatter is vociferous and passionate but fails to shed light. The leading theory is that a firmware upgrade left Mac users out in the cold---the iMaculate rejection. Note to all you neo-networkers out there: Abandon hope, all ye who enter http://192.168.1.226.

There comes a time when the only remaining option is to cut your losses and walk away. That time came about 4 pm yesterday afternoon, then again 11pm last night, and one more time about noon today. But it's really and truly over now, I promise. The device is back in the box, waiting for the UPS guy, or for the bonfire flames to get high enough, whichever comes first. Despite Linksys' nefarious efforts, we've managed to solve our little home networking problem by moving the iMac and wireless modem closer to the phone jack.



To add insult to injury, we realized we missed Arcade Fire on Austin City Limits last Saturday.