Saturday 18 August 2012

COM or UK?

I've just noticed that my blog, without anyone asking me, has been changed from ".com" to a ".co.uk".  This change pretty much happened server side, I've had no say in this, and it resulted in my blog being offline when loaded from a cache'd copy... A refresh cleared this, but hey ho.

Right, onto todays blog post... I've had a fair bit of networking problems... My main PC, running an N Band/class wireless network card from RALink Technology suddenly could not connect to my wireless network, there was pretty much no reason for this, and windows being windows it had no idea.

My Linux laptop, and hot boots from a Live Linux CD (thank you Linux Format) worked without a problem.

I tried all kinds of fixes, the end result was I got back onto the network after:
1. Banning a local MAC address from swamping my router with requests to connect (Someone has a new machine/laptop, imaginatively called 'ASUS01', which was hitting my SSID with a request to connect repeatedly) - But, a bug in my router software was stopping me being able to see the whole MAC Address, so I trooped off down stairs wired into the wireless router and turned off the security.  This ASUS01 instantly connected, and I had its MAC Address, which I then banned from my network.

2. I turned my security back on, and since I have a swanky router, with an LED status screen built in, I could see my machine upstairs connect, so I unwired and headed back up... The machines were all on.  But not everything was sweetness.  I was getting randomly dropped, sites were showing DNS errors and worse of all I had to move my antennae way across the room to even stay connected... That ASUS01 was basically broadcasting so much wiresless noise it was breaking my tenuous link to my own network.  A painfully slow download later, and I had an updated driver for my wireless card, installed and the flakeyness stopped being such a problem.

3. ASUS01... I'm tempted to let this thing back onto my network, and to nuke it... Dunno right now, its gone midnight, and I was hoping to do some work.

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