The Repairinator!!!

So tonight I played the computer repairman again for some people my mom works with. They have a wireless network that needed fixing and two laptops that needed to be integrated into the network. What I thought was going to be a half hour job ended up taking almost three hours and it still isn't done.

The router is a Netgear and I know it is funtioning properly because I can access it and jump on the net with it from my own laptop. But the other two will not jive. They are both Dell Inspirion 4000 systems and the wireless adapter I am trying to use is a Netgear MA111 802.11b antenna. The systems are running Windows 2000 w/sp1 but do you think I can get the goofy antenna to work on either of them? NO! I tried everything I could think of to make those little buggers get on the network and my reward was one of them getting on the net for about ten seconds and then dying. I have no clue why. I followed the installation instructions to a tee and nothing. I think it may be the adapter though because I then plugged it into my laptop and it still didn't work on there.

So tomorrow, I am supposed to meet my client at my favorite place, CompUSA to see if we can get a PCMCIA card instead of the USB one. The fun part is that he is going to try to return both antennas and knowing how the CompNazis are with their return policy I already know how this is going to turn out. The one thing that sucks too is that the sales goon that helped these guys gave them one 802.11b adapter and then sold them an 802.11g adapter and told them it would work with the 802.11b router....WTF?! I hate those people. I wish Fry's would decide to come to Boise just to run the punks out of business. But then again, if it weren't for CompUSA, I wouldn't get half of the computer repair work that I do. So go for it my CompNazis, you mess up peoples' stuff and I will be there to fix it. And take away your customers. :) The one thing I will give to Best Buy is the fact that their Geek Squad guys are at least competent and make far fewer repair mistakes than the CompNazis. They also get paid a ton more too so I guess you get what you are willing to pay for.