Razzin' frazzin' technology

I've been playing at technical support this evening, helping my brother install a wireless router/firewall and trying to connect it to a network media player. I recommended the firewall after discovering that he had his pc connected via broadband without one. Don't try that at home kids. I think I proved my point when the firewall logged about 40 intrusion attempts after only a few minutes. The internet can be a scary place sometimes.

The latter half of the mission to get his network media player to discover files from his hard disk proved less successful. I've never had any affinity for Windows networking at the best of times, and even less when it comes to file sharing between two pc's. Truly a case a plug and pray if ever there was, and I've often thrown down my ethernet cables in disgust and resorted to copying files by cd instead. Sadly that isn't an option in this case. I got the media player to register the presence of the pc on the network, which was something, but it staunchly refused to discover any shared directories. Bah. I'm going to give it another shot on Thursday, taking my laptop along with me this time which will lessen the amount of running up and down stairs required (the media player/and television combination being somewhat displaced from the pc).

It wasn't the most productive time I've spent, but it certainly wasn't a wasted evening. I realised I've now spent more time in my brothers home in the last month than I have in the past decade, a fact I find both heartening and slightly embarrassing.