I am trying to help someone connect their XP laptop to a wireless network (I've never done that before). I connected two Mac without any problem, but the XP laptop keeps saying "Acquiring network address." So it says it's connected but it never gets an IP address.

Any ideas?

If it says it's acquiring the network address, I assume that it's seeing the network and has made contact with the server, and there is some hiccup in getting the router to assign an address to the network card.

Here's what I've had to do in the past when confronted with that problem, particularly on Mac-configured routers with my Dell laptop.

1) disable the network card.

2) if you have internet access, through a direct port or through some other means, download the specific driver software for the network card. Most PC laptops don't have proprietary cards, and the card manufacturer usually will have specific software outside of the Windows network set up. Download and install.

3) restart the computer.

4) first try re-enabling the network card. sometimes a reset and a restart will make it work; who knows why.

5) if that doesn't, open up the proprietary network software and attempt to connect via that program. if it asks you to disable window's wireless network function, that's fine, you don't really need to use it exclusively anyhow.

6) if it connects via the proprietary software, bueno! if not, check the router settings.

hope this helps.

Anyone remember the name of Gud's IP detection program? It's for Linux (Gnome, I think) and he keeps it at Freshmeet or somesuch....

I remember it. It's Giplet and it's at giplet.sourceforge.net. It's a GNOME panel applet so it's only of use for GNOME. If you are using Ubuntu Edgy Eft, it's also in the Universe repositories and can be installed using apt-get.

I really need to finish the update on that, I put it on the backburner and haven't done anything with it for quite awhile.

I have two questions about the wireless router problem.

Is WEP or other security enabled?

Do you have access to the wireless router? IT might need a reset.

Is WEP or other security enabled?

Yes. I think it's WAP or something.

Do you have access to the wireless router? IT might need a reset.

Yes. We'll try that. Thanks.

Hey guys; I have a client who's rebuilding his website. He had hired someone else to rebuild it, we'll call this guy A. A told the client that he was going to build the website using dotnetnuke and to choose and buy a skin from snowcovered.com. Well, A was less than reliable and the client dumped him; now the client's come to me for design and content-- the public face of the site--and another guy, B, for the mechanics and database end of things. The website will require multiple log-ins with multiple levels of security to pull data. The old website pulled data from the client's system where the database was built in Access. Now, B is going to rebuild the database in .Net and do all the hooking up of the security and multiple users, etc.

However, the client still wants a dotnetnuke skin. I'd never run into dotnetnuke before and I'm learning about it as fast as I can, but is that really what he needs to do? He just likes them because they look pretty, but he wants me to take the skin and change it to fit his content and redesign the flash presentation that comes with it. I'm concerned that:
1. using a pre-made skin will lock him into a format he won't want, at least not without a lot of tweaking. 2. installing dotnetnuke on his server may conflict with whatever guy B is doing.

Am I crazy? Is he?

Deena, using a premade skin will force him into a format that may not fit his needs, plus it looks like dotnetnuke is designed to replace a designer and programmer. It seems to me it's kind of an either-or situation. Also, there is the chance that his site will look exactly like other sites.

While we're talking about crazy clients, I have a question. I am implementing a design on giant website that was created by an agency. They're looking at the (thank god nearly final) version and object to links that take you "abruptly" out of a section. What those are are things like in the "Your Home" section, I have a link to "Residential Rates," which are with all the rates in the "Your Account" section. Isn't that kind of crosslinking what the web is for? It's not like they're going to get whiplash. The design is the same; just the headers and navigation changes. Or should I take their approach, which is the "if they can't find what they want in our lovely design, fuck 'em."

Ginger, tell 'em that if they really want you to, you could make the pages load reeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaallllllly slow, and then it wouldn't be so abrupt.

Thanks, Ginger.

Do they want a middle page? You could talk to them about drill down rates, and clicks per site... as in, "it's well-documented that web users prefer not to click more than twice to get any piece of information on a website. Drill down below three levels is not recommended for optimal site stickiness. You know, confuse them.