acme hates software: Windows and wireless

• From: Leon Brocard
  Date: 17:27 on 20 Feb 2007
  Subject: Windows and wireless
  
  I apologise for not writing in a while. Software has been very
  hateful, and I should get it off my chest.
  
  I recently visited my girlfriend's parents in Germany and installed a
  wireless network in their house. Their house is nice and full of
  wooden beams and not really a faraday cage at all. I provide a
  wireless router thingy and buy a generic A/B/G wifi PCMCIA card from,
  I think, Linksys. This is where the fun begins.
  
  The first instruction on the PCMCIA card is to disable Windows
  wireless networking. This is slightly worrying, but as I see later on,
  the wireless card provider is really giving us a treat. Instead of a
  simple, workable wifi selector, what you instead get is a brain dead
  UI with flashing red status updates telling you it's failed to connect
  to a router in channel 1. Channel? Why would I care what channel it is
  failing to connect to, as long as it connects to the perfectly working
  wifi?
  
  Eventually I beat it into submisssion, getting it to connect to the
  access point whenever Windows boots up. I check this. I check this
  again. I check it a third time, knowing full well that I won't be
  there to fix it after that weekend.
  
  I return to London. The wifi works swimmingly. The wifi skype phone
  works great. Everyone is happy. The sun is shining.
  
  Until a month afterwards, when the stupid non-windows wifi selector
  decides to no longer connect to the frickin' access point which is
  30cm away from it. This is annoying to debug over the phone, and we
  just give up. The software is all hateful. Windows is hateful. The
  access point is still there, but the laptop can't talk to it.
  
  Ninjas, please strike out at all network card manufacturers that
  provide their own custom software.
  
  HATE. Leon
  
  ps on the plus side, I'll get some nice wurst for fixing it
  
  

• From: sabrina downard
  Date: 18:07 on 20 Feb 2007
  Subject: Re: Windows and wireless
  
  On 2/20/07, Leon Brocard <acme@xxxxxx.xxx> wrote:
  > Ninjas, please strike out at all ... manufacturers that
  > provide ... software.
  
  +1!
  
  

• From: David Cantrell
  Date: 23:27 on 20 Feb 2007
  Subject: Re: Windows and wireless
  
  Leon Brocard wrote:
  
  > The first instruction on the PCMCIA card is to disable Windows
  > wireless networking.
  
  Friends don't help friends run Windows.
  
  
  

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