techrecovery | (no subject)

I recently started renting a room from a local family. Friendly bunch, but not the most technically oriented. Being the Net junkie that I am, one of the first things I do upon unpacking is set up my computer and jack into their wireless network. No encryption key -- I make a note to suggest they add one. Then I try to access the Net... nothing. I check my connections: solid to the router, but can't even find the DNS, much less ping the wider web. I ask a passing family member if they've been having trouble reaching the web today, and get the response of "Oh, you tried 'Linksys' didn't you? You want to connect to 'Belkin'; that's the Internet."

Wait, what? "Belkin" is one of the wireless connections available, but it's getting a whopping ZERO bars of connectivity to Linksys's three. I pry further, asking to see the physical router, and discover that no one actually seems to know where it is; "someone from work" set the wireless network up. Okay, where are the computers in the house? Easy enough; other than the laptops there's only the one machine.

Discovery #1: The router is a Linksys, which means the weak Belkin signal they've all been connecting to for who knows how long is a neighbor's unencrypted router. They'd cluelessly switched to that when "Linksys" hadn't worked.

Discovery #2: The reason Linksys hadn't connected to the Net. It's got power, it's a wireless, and the Internet line is plugged into the proper slot on the router, with the other end of the line plugged into... nothing! Someone had skipped that minor last step of, you know, connecting to the cable modem.

Two plug-ins and a modem and router reboot later, "Linksys" was operating normally. I don't blame the family for letting things stay like that for so long -- they didn't know any better -- but I hope Mr. "Someone From Work" isn't in a tech department.