Once you've worked with computers for a while, you end up with a lot of them around. They don't seem to outgrow their usefulness as quickly as they used to and they manage to limp onward more reliably as well. That doesn't, however, mean that all is rainbows and ponies when using them with newer technologies. Exhibit A: wireless networking. As it stands, I'm in charge of IT support for four wireless devices: a 61/2-year--old iMac (scoop-of-white-rice edition) with OS X Tiger (Idun), a 4-year--old Mac Mini (old-school PowerPC) also with OS X Tiger (Ymir), a newer, white MacBook with OS X Leopard (Ostara) and a 4-year--old Acer laptop with Windows XP (Sten). The only one that behaves without quirk vis-à-vis wireless networking is Ostara, but she's kind of new around here; she might pick up some bad habits over time. The others all exhibit idiosyncracies that, though harmless, are a waste of time. Idun has the most harmless of problems, only occasionally connecting to the wrong network---meaning a neighbor's LAN. In the network preferences, there appears to be an area to set up preferred networks, so that's what I do, adding the home network "Valhalla" as the only one. Idun promptly logs out of Valhalla, but re-connects on request (by clicking the little icon in the menu bar). Strange. Return to the network preferences to see what happened and the pane has changed now, to show only a single preferred network rather than a list; under the name "Valhalla" is a slot to enter a password. Filling this out and selecting "Apply" once again disconnects Idun. Luckily, Idun also now refuses to reconnect to Valhalla when coming back from sleep-mode, so things are much worse now after mucking about. Unfortunately, there's no way back as the controls in the System Preferences have changed. Luckily, there is an assistant one can use from the Network Preferences to reset everything back to the <i>way it was</i>. It took a while but, with enough effort and cursing, we're right back where we started---and happy to be there. On to Ymir, who connects to Valhalla reliably enough, but only does so on command, needing to be reminded of the password every damned time. Luckily, this only happens on restarts or network reboots, so it's not so bad. Setting preferred networks on Ymir produces the same stellar results as for Idun, though Ymir does not require the assistant in order to be restored. I guess Ymir will continue to need a little password-coddling for the foreseeable future. So far, two attempts to fix nagging connection problems have resulted in two abject failures. OS X (Tiger) networking has defeated me. Windows XP networking on good old Sten is also interesting. Whether or not Sten connects to the network seems based on the phase of the moon. When coming back from hibernation, the wireless card is sometimes turned off at the hardware level and sometimes just disconnected and sometimes, it works but only at about 1/10 speed. Very rarely, it works as expected. A search of local wireless networks happily shows Valhalla as available and connected, but not delivering data. In all cases, the wrong thing to do is to double-click the inviting entry in this list to reconnect; in that case, it <i>always</i> asks for the password even though it knows it. To avoid typing the password ever again, just right-click the icon in the taskbar tray and select <c>Repair...</c>, which re-establishes the connection without asking for the password. Be patient, as you will sometimes need to repair the connection up to three times before it connects. If you break off the attempts, Windows shows the connection as open, but unlikely to be able to deliver data, which is helpful. Updating drivers didn't help and there aren't that many settings to tweak here, so I'm just grateful it works at all. But that's modern wireless networking for you, regardless of operating system.<fn> If it ain't <i>too</i> broke, don't waste your time trying to fix it. Just live with its crippled, idiosyncratic self and be happy it works at all. <hr> <ft>I can't imagine what it's like with Linux, which is notorious for its shaky hardware support. I'm sure a quick <c>netstat</c> and some <c>iptables</c> manipulation and you're right as rain. And, no, I am not interested at all in being regaled with tales of Ubuntu's wireless networking awesomeness.</ft>