Willow ,'Help'
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Bah - went and picked up a DLink router at lunchtime (802.11n, on the overwhelming recs of the hive mind) and the damn thing won't even turn on. Dead like a dead thing that is dead. So it's back to Best Buy to exchange it for one that works tomorrow.
(DLink v Belkin V Netgear v Linksys? I've had good luck with Linksys routers in the past, but they're far and away the most expensive brand on the shelves.)
I have had a terrible time with Linksys of late. The last time I got a linksys router I had to return two of them before I got one that worked at all. The first one dropped the WAN connection every 10 minutes or so, the replacement started smoking after a few minutes, the second replacement worked alright, but still dropped the WAN connection every few days.
My dad had trouble with a Belkin.
In both cases we ended up with a Netgear router and they have worked great.
My BIL has had trouble with DLink, but he's always tweaking his equipment so I think he'd have trouble with any brand.
I CAN HAZ INTERWEBS!!!
Apparently there was water in one of the lines on the roof. It has now been replaced and all my HD channels have returned. Huzzah!
I have only owned Linksys after a Dlink cable modem did a bad thing years ago.
We were generally not pleased with our DLink.
I've been pretty pleased with my Belkin. The cat's knocked it off the table a couple of times, and it still keeps working. (The cable modem keeps working, that is. The cat disdains work as is right and proper for his species.)
Our whole system is hodgepodge now. We have the Belkin router, 24-port D-Link wired gigabit switch, Linksys -n adapter to upgrade the SO's laptop. My VAIO came with n, which is another part of why we went the way we did. The switch was for all the wired outlets in the new house, which are super nice to have. We were dubious about whether or not we'd actually need them, with wireless hitting its peak when we were planning, but it's been handy to have reliable quick connections all over the place.
Oh, and we'll be replacing the router shortly with a Cradlepoint, which will play nicely with our cellular modem.
As soon as I'm not scrambling week to week for cash, I really need to dump the DSL service I've been getting for a while, and replace it with cable.
How do I change a shortname in OS X? The shop that repaired my laptop set me up as firstnamelastname, and I want it just to be firstname. I can change my user name, but the "shortname" stays long.
You will have to create a whole new account: