I was expecting to write a post about how I really ought to be less hardware-phobic, because there are so many American households that have computers now, and most of the products are designed to be used by people less tech-savvy then myself. And getting it all hooked up to talk to the desktop windows box and all that stuff was, in fact, quite painless.
But then I tried to get the laptop to talk to the wireless network.
It sees the network. It looks for the signal and is perefectly happy to connect to it and tell you the signal strength and all that kind of thing.
It just refuses to actually *use* the network in any way.
Have I mentioned recently how much I hate Windows XP? With the white-hot passion of a thousand suns, as they say; that's how much.