One of the challenges of our trips to Faerie is that I get to put on my Technical Wizard hat — a bit faded, crumpled, and moth-eaten — and show off how much I don’t still remember about working on PCs.<\/p>\n
I have a laundry list of things to do at the Ks this year, but the first was reestablishing the wireless network here. I had a setup all working the past few years with the DSL modem from AT&T (SBC) Yahoo and a Netgear wireless router, but sometime midyear their DSL stopped working, and the AT&T technies had gotten them back working by undoing everything and getting their PC hooked directly to the modem.<\/p>\n
Which would never do as I moved in with my PC, and Margie’s too, with rumblings about their getting another additional machine here, to boot (so to speak).<\/p>\n
So first step Friday was trying to get the wireless hookup back working. And … no joy. For whatever reason, the Netgear router wouldn’t dial the DSL successfully. Now, I’m not a DSL guru by any means, so I wasn’t sure if there was just something I needed to tweak, if there was an actual failure in the DSL modem, if AT&T had changed something to not allow it, or if the particular older router was somehow no longer compatible. I did a bit of poking at the AT&T\/Yahoo pages, but didn’t come back with anything clever besides the fact that they flog their own home networking kit and didn’t have any support info beyond that. <\/p>\n
In fact, the last thing I wanted to do was call AT&T Tech Support for help. After dealing with explaining why I wasn’t Jim, having all the identity validation stuff at hand, and knowing to a moral certainty that they would simply offer to sell me an AT&T solution for eleventy zillion dollars a month,<\/p>\n
*sigh*<\/p>\n
So on our shopping peregrinations, yesterday, we swung by Best Buy and I resolved to pick up a newer router for the Ks, which would cover at least a couple of the above cases. I mean, I’ve had a couple of Netgear routers go out on me, so I thought I’d replace it with a Linksys one like at home and see if that worked. When in doubt, swap out the hardware …<\/p>\n
“Hey, look, here’s an AT&T one,” Margie noted. And, by cracky, Best Buy was selling the same AT&T integrated DSL modem\/router gateways that were discussed up on their pages. Which would (for a few dollars extra, natch) give me a full solution that AT&T tech support would accept. Huzzah!<\/p>\n
So we picked that up, and this morning …<\/p>\n
… with some help on the tech support line trying to puzzle out Jim & Ginger’s password …<\/p>\n
… we’re up and running. Easy-peasy (relatively speaking), and now blogging this wirelessly from the card table (and my notebook).<\/p>\n
One issue dealt with … dozens more to go …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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Since the DSL signal light was not lighting on the modem, and...","rel":"","context":"In "Travel"","block_context":{"text":"Travel","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/travel"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":160985,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2026\/02\/15\/i-tech-support.html","url_meta":{"origin":11961,"position":3},"title":"I, Tech Support","author":"***Dave","date":"Sun 15-Feb-26 3:24pm","format":false,"excerpt":"For better or worse, I have my niche in the family.","rel":"","context":"In "Hi-Tech"","block_context":{"text":"Hi-Tech","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/hi-tech"},"img":{"alt_text":"1990s computer","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/computer-1990s.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/computer-1990s.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/computer-1990s.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/computer-1990s.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/computer-1990s.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":40868,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2014\/01\/24\/thanks-xfinity-for-not-much.html","url_meta":{"origin":11961,"position":4},"title":"Thanks, Xfinity! 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