Two Steps Forward...

[timill]

and none back yet.

Yesterday evening the_magician disconnected the ADSL modem from Marcia's machine and plugged in the router we'd got. Follow the instructions for configuration, and hey presto it all worked. Just like that - straight out of the box.

I took the wireless connector down to my study and added it to my machine. First problem - blank screen on power up - fixed by pushing the monitor cable back in. Put the CD in the drive, answer the questions, and it finds the network OK. Not much signal, but enough to be going on with. Try IE, and get nothing that isn't in the cache already. Check the connection info, and it's clear that it hasn't installed properly. Press the "repair" button, and up pops a Zone Alarm warning that it's prevented some process trying to access the router's address (198.168.1.1? I forget). Add that to the Trusted Zone and everything starts working as expected.

Still To Do: pull the 486 box out and move it to storage in the garage. I'd be tempted to set it up as a file store running Linux, but that would mean finding and installing a network card, and it's not worth the hassle.

Comments

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

I've tested the firewall on Gibson Research's site, seems to be doing the things it should. It's a linksys, seems to work OK.

Re Zone Alarm, it's the free version I'm talking about - never used the paid version, ran into so many problems with the free one it put me off. lproven can tell you plenty of stories about his experiences with it.

[timill]

So far as I can tell from hanging out in tech conferences on cix, ZA is perfectly capable of working fine for many people, but if you start having problems you'll never get it under control.

So far, it's all working fine for us...