A Sign of the Times

No posts for weeks, and then three come along! This one's been on my mind for a while though.

We moved our wireless router recently. No longer sat on my desk, it's now attached to the wall at the bottom of the stairs. I'm moving room soon, which was the principle reason for moving it, but in any case it was becoming inconvenient to keep it there. Without noticing it happen, we now have no less than nine devices that connect to the internet by wi-fi: three computers, two mobile phones, two game consoles, a TV and even a printer.

When the router first arrived in our house, the Wi-Fi was almost an optional extra. The main PC plugged straight into it, and only my wife's laptop needed wireless. Slowly the creep began, driven more by manufacturers pushing wireless into their devices than by us seeking it out. Every time we upgrade a machine now, it seems that it comes with internet access.

All this is probably just the beginning, if the Internet of Things is to be believed. For now I'm just amused that our household routine has acquired a slight alteration after all these years: the last thing to do before bedtime is no longer checking the front door, it's making sure the router's turned off.

Next time, remember the shift key

Just bought an internet-enabled TV. We had to also buy a £75 (!!) wi-fi dongle to connect it to our router, and it didn't work. Very annoying, as a laptop, my smartphone, and a Nintendo 3DS had all connected effortlessly in recent weeks. The error report from the TV was quite basic: 'Failed'. It did at least confirm that it could see the dongle, and our router, but no indication of why it couldn't connect.

I went on to the web and googled "Sony Bravia wireless connection problem". Loads of people in the same boat, but no solutions, other than a couple of people for whom it had just started working eventually. One guy wanted me to go into my router and start setting DNS settings. I think not.

After half an hour of trying to set the TV's IP address manually, changing the wi-fi channel, and moving the router into the living room, I gave up for the night.

Today my 11 year old son has a go. He converts the letters in our SSID to uppercase, and suddenly the TV is on the net. I am more than a little bit miffed, and not because I've been outsmarted by someone four decades younger than me (I've grown used to that). Those letters in the SSID are hex digits, so it shouldn't matter if they're uppercase, lowercase or in bold italics. And if it does make a difference, why did the TV let us enter in lowercase in the first place? Am I missing something?

Anyway, that's behind us now. Tonight we will spend the evening watching YouTube videos from the comfort of our living room. Truly this is the Golden Age for nerds.