Update: By “park in a snow bank”, I really mean “leave in snow bank once car becomes stuck”.

It looks like I’ll have to break out some glue.

I stopped by Radio Shack and picked up a new 12v power adapter. When I plugged in the power adapter, the router started right up and felt cool. It routed at full speed (I ran speed tests) and was giving no trouble. Of course, the real test wouldn’t come until the router had been running for a few hours.

In the evening, I went to play some Team Fortress. By now, the router was feeling warm. Hmmm. And sure enough, it started dropping connections. Damn.

I now have two choices. Either, I can crack that router’s case open to keep it cool, or I can replace it. The Linksys WRT54GL is looking pretty good — especially if I flash it with Tomato firmware.

• When web pages stop loading, I can’t access the router itself either (at 192.168.1.1). Once webpages start loading again, I can also access the router.
• I’m seeing no slowdowns or stalled loading of pages when I connect the computer straight to the cable modem (bypassing the router).

It’s probably time to shop for a new router. First though, I’m going to try and open the case to see if there’s dust accumulation; that could keep it too hot.

Now, the End Has Come. It recently began powering itself down at random times for no apparent reason. Additionally, the phone’s second battery as been in decline for a while now, and it wouldn’t be economical to replace it again. Time for a new phone!

My basic requirements were simple:

• Flip phone: I’m tired of always having to lock and unlock the keypad.
• Bluetooth: For handsfree use.
• Keypad that doesn’t suck: That means that the keypad should be square, not curved or staggered. The keys themselves should be large and have good tactile feedback.
• Few extra features: This is a telephone, not an entertainment device, so I don’t want to play extra for crap I’m never going to use.

The LG VX5400 seems to be a good compromise. Notably, it has Bluetooth but not V Cast, an MP3 player or a fancy camera. The keypad is what really sold me: large, mostly-straight buttons that actually click when you push them. Nice. Hopefully this new phone will last me as long as my Audiovox did.

I’ve been very happy with this power supply — the cable management system rocks — and I think of Antec as a quality company, so I’m a little disappointed and surprised at this failure. Hopefully their warranty service will come through.

Update: I finally got around to installing the replacement.

I was never a very big fan of this vacuum. Emptying its bin was a dirty chore, as most of the dust would compress itself onto the filter rather than settling into the bottom of the bin. The most effective way to clean the dust off the filter was to beat the filter against the inside of the Dumpster. Obviously, this was rather messy.

More importantly, the parts that suffered damage in the failure were very flimsy plastic. I was quite annoyed to discover just how flimsy the guts of this vacuum were.

I may still fix this vacuum at some point (possibly for donation), but in the meantime it has been replaced with a Dyson DC07. What finally sold me on the pricey Dyson was the five year warranty and the bottom-empty bin. And it really sucks — in a good way.

(Note: the cyan Dyson DC07 “original upright” sold at WalMart only has a two year warranty. If you want the five year warranty, you need to buy a yellow DC07 “all floors” at a normal store.)

I went with Netgear to get away from the crap that Linksys has put out the past several years (I’ve personally seen several pieces of Linksys hardware fail), and now it seems that Netgear is no better! The damn thing is almost certainly out of warranty, so it appears that I have nothing but a tempting shotgun target.

Why is it that this kind of hardware even fails? It’s not like it contains hot-running CPUs or huge power supply capacitors. This is relatively simple, solid-state stuff that, in my mind, just shouldn’t fail under normal conditions.

Will a D-Link router be any better?

Update: Tonight, it seems to be working fine. Is there a heat issue involved? Will it continue to function?

Update 5-28-2007: So far, it has continued to operate correctly. One change I made (besides updating the firmware) was to place the cable modem next to the router, rather than on top of it. Heat issue?

Update 12-14-2007: The Netgear router has continued to operate without a problem. As I mentioned before, don’t put anything on top of it — make sure it can stay cool.

Update 3-26-2008: The router is acting up again.

I was scribbling a shopping list in my moleskine this morning with my favorite Pilot G-2 0.5. A bit later I went back to make an addition, and discovered that the pen wasn’t writing anymore. Closer examination revealed that the tiny ball had popped out of the tip, and a little spring-loaded wire was sticking out in its place. Strange! Alas, finding a ball that measures less than one millimeter in diameter in the carpet was utterly hopeless, not to mention the challenge of putting it back, so I gave up after about two seconds.

I grabbed another G-2, and was quite unsatisfied with how it wrote — scratchy with poor ink flow, which probably explains why that particular pen wound up in the drawer in the first place. (I have found that about one out of every four G-2s doesn’t write well.) So I was off to Staples to obtain another package of G-2s. I also grabbed a Dr. Grip while I was there.

I will be contacting Springfield to gripe, and will note their response in a followup post.