** Reply to message from "Lewis G Rosenthal"
<os2-wireless_users@2rosenthals.com> on Mon, 15 Feb 2010 11:00:11 -0500


  

Once I got "the rest of the story," and had a look at the WRT54G emulater, it was a simple fix to walk them through the configuration to get things back to normal. :-)

Note to self: Don't ever assume things are as easy for anyone else as they may appear to be to me. The next time someone asks if he can "plug in his X-box," say, "you'd better leave that to me!"
    

LOL!  Talk about topical material!

I got two calls last week from my brothers.  One is stuck in the snows of the
West Virginia hills, the other down near Ft. Hood in Texas.  Both had computer
problems: one an HP laptop with an apparent bad drive, the other with a dead
keyboard ("but the mouse works!") and both wanted online help with "fixing" the
problem.  The laptop was simple: send it to me but don't hold your breath.  The
other was a little more challenging - until he revealed that he got tired of
reaching around back to plug things into a USB port.  His solution was to get
an extender and plug 4 things into that.  Of course, that overloaded the single
parent port's power capability and took out the whole hub (the extender had an
external power supply but he didn't think he need that).  Once that was
established, sending him to Walmart to replace his 7-year old machine was an
obvious solution.  Your moral is well taken: the telephone with a marginally (ahem!) qualified
tool on the other end is a very poor diagnostic...