As a Web Chick, it’s really hard to do any work if you can’t get on the web. After all, it’s the first part of our nickname, otherwise I’d just be, well, a chick. So you can imagine how frustrating it was when all of a sudden my wireless connection would try connecting to every router in the neighborhood except mine! Let me correct that, it would try connecting to every router except mine for the first 20 minutes after booting up, after 20 minutes it would find my router, connect and not hiccup again until the next time I rebooted. Obviously, this was not going to work for me since all my neighbors are apparently smart enough to have secured connections. I couldn’t even steal a wireless connection. After weeks of trying multiple solutions, updating router software, getting a new wireless card, changing the frequency on my router, even getting a new cordless phone that didn’t use the 2.4 frequency. This was going to be the end of me!

Finally, someone suggested changing my router’s wireless connection settings from unsecured to secured. Well, let me backup a little bit and tell you how I originally had my router set up. Instead of having a secured wireless connection, I decided to give my network a unique SSID, instead of the default “linksys,” and chose the option to not broadcast. This way my neighbors, or random kids walking down the block, wouldn’t be able to connect unless they 1) knew I had a wireless connection and 2) knew my SSID. So even though it was unsecured, I felt secure enough. Well, someone happened to point out that my PC was trying to connect to all the secured networks so maybe that had something to do with it. So off I went to test out this latest theory.

The first thing I did was log into my router’s admin panel through a wired connection and broadcasted my SSID. I was still on an unsecured connection at this point. I disconnected the wired connection and tried connecting wirelessly. Still nothing. Ok, next. Plugged in again, and changed my security settings from “Disabled” to “WPA Personal” and added a WPA shared key - basically a password and turned off broadcasting. Again, I unplugged the cable and tried connecting, nothing. At this point I’m just ready to give up and deal with the fact that I have to boot up my PC ½ hour before I want to work, but I decided to try one more thing. Plugged in for the third time and let my SSID broadcast, but leaving the security settings alone, unplugged and before I can say, “Networking for Dummies,” up pops this WPA Shared key request box. Hallelujah! I can’t believe this is going to work! Enter in the same key I setup in my router settings and Voila’, I am a Web Chick again!