Diary of a Wolfeman

So the Boss gave Da Roomie and I a new wireless firewall to play with – something that has some real security to it, compared to the Linksys model we have been using to date.

Installation wasn’t too much of an issue – I have used this model before, so it was just the usal jumping-through of hoops. The real fun came when I went down to the garage and tried to get the laptop online.

I had taken special pains to keep the setting the same, as I couldn’t remember at the time the name of the obscure file I had had to edit the first time I set this up. Still, no luck, even after a half-hour or so of bashing on it.

This morning, I gave in and booted the laptop to the Win2k install just to check my daily webcomics, when wouldn’t you know it? It didn’t work in Windows either! Now we’re getting somewhere!

It turns out that the Orinoco card that I am using is the culprit, due to them being cheap in the driver code. Orinoco cards only use the WEP key for encryption, not for authentication like everybody else. According to the article on the forums, I only need to change one thing on the firewall to make it work. So basically, to use the shiny new security device, I have to disable half of its security.

Dontcha just love standards?

Well, now that I have a real job again, I can add a new wifi card to the list. Come to think of it, maybe I’ll just dig a used lappy out of Craigslist or something while I’m at it.