Well, sort of. When I finally conceded that I was spending way too much time worrying about how to get the iBook to play nice with the old wireless router, I headed out to CompUSA and bought the NETGEAR WGR614 router. Yes, I took the coward’s way out, but it was worth the $50 or so (after rebate) to get this problem resolved, especially since my time was running out (Denise returns home today).

All of our computers, including the new iBook, are connecting just fine now. Thanks to those of you who responded with suggestions.

Whenever Denise is out of town I have a mini-film festival, where I rent and watch the movies that she has no interest in seeing. Past entries include “Kill Bill” and “Mystic River”, for example.

Last night’s screening was “Napoleon Dynamite”, which is one of those stupidly funny movies that’s destined to become a cult classic. Unless you just take yourself much, much too seriously, you will probably laugh out loud at least a few times, and isn’t that worth the four bucks it will cost you to rent this one? On tap for tonight is “Hero”, unless of course I decide to watch Napoleon one more time.

Since I switched over to using an Apple PowerBook a few years ago, I’ve had a number of friends ask what I like most about the PowerBook and Mac OS X. My typical answer is that when you’re working on an Apple computer, things “just work”. After having spent years working on DOS and Windows-based PCs, I remember the astonishment I felt when I first turned on the PowerBook and it connected to my wireless network with little or no help on my part; it “just worked”.

That’s why it pains to me to say that I can’t for the life of me figure out how to get Denise’s new iBook up and running on our wireless network. I know that nothing’s fundamentally wrong with the iBook: it “sees” our wireless network and can connect to it. I’ve even connected to some of our neighbors’ wireless networks (in the name of science, of course) to confirm that the iBook’s built-in Airport Extreme card is working. But alas, something is preventing the iBook from getting to the internet from our wireless network.

I’m also fairly sure that nothing’s wrong with my NETGEAR MR814v2 wireless router either. After all, it’s the same router I’ve been using all along with my PowerBook, and it’s been upgraded to the latest possible firmware version. I prefer to have as much security in place as possible, so I typically run the network using 128-bit WEP encryption and restrict access only to certain MAC addresses. But even when I disable these features, and leave the wireless network “wide open” (as at least two of my neighbors do) the iBook won’t play nice.

I’ll keep you posted in case some miracle solution pops up. Otherwise, it looks like I’m going to reward NETGEAR by buying one of their newer routers (like this one).

According to this CNN.com story, the FCC will, in 2005, start taking public comment on whether the ban on using cell phones during flights should be lifted. Other than the obvious technical issues, such as whether airborne cell phone calls could interfere with a plane’s navigation and electrical systems, there’s this concern:

“The ability to communicate is a vital one, but good cell phone etiquette is also essential,” FCC Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein said. “Our job is to see if this is possible and then let consumers work out the etiquette.”

I wonder if Mr. Adelstein has been out in public anywhere during the last five years. If the “consumers” haven’t managed to work out cell phone etiquette on the ground, why should I have any expectation that they’ll do any better at 35,000 feet?

While clicking through some of the links attached to this Slashdot story, I landed on the Wikipedia entry for Jimmy Wales, one of the co-founders of Wikipedia. I was surprised to learn that Jimmy was born in Huntsville, Alabama (where I live and work) and is a graduate of Auburn University (my alma mater).