Thank God I Don't Do This For A Living:

mess with electronics and computers.

As regular readers know, I spent my weekend playing with a new TV and satellite service.
TV hookup and the resulting experience have been a dream.

If you’re looking for a flat panel, I highly recommend a Samsung 4071F LCD. Even if you aren’t watching HD, the picture is amazing, if anything, better than the display in the store where everything is set up to wow you.

But, after the fact I found out that I’m an early adopter of a system that the provider doesn’t know how to hook up: my DishTv receiver can be hooked up to a phone line or a high speed computer. I got rid of my phone line a couple of years back. As an aside, I’m a bit strange when it comes to phones. I don’t have much use for just talking on one. In person, talking is fine. On a phone, say what needs to be said and move along. Even before I dumped the phone, I had it forwarded to my office so as to not get calls. I now turn my cell phone off when I get home.

Anyway, when I ordered the service I confirmed with the sales rep that it would work hooked through my laptop which connects by “air/express card” to the Internet. I also have a friend that is an engineer for Dish and confirmed it with him. He said I needed an Ethernet cable and needed to allow “internet sharing” on the laptop.

The installer got there and started to hook up the box to the phone jack. I explained that he needed to make the connection to the laptop, pointing to it. “Does the installation package have an Ethernet cable?” He had a puzzled look on his face. I looked through the box, nope. I told him to forget it, I’d get a cable and do it later.

Later was the next morning. I got a cable and hooked it up. No connection. I called my friend and we spent the day back and forth on the phone and by Email. We established that a cable would not be enough, we needed to establish a gateway that would allow the box to top to the laptop and thus reach the Internet.

As I had a wireless router that I’d bought about a year ago but hadn’t used, I got it and realized I didn’t have the installation CD. So I went online and downloaded the software from Netgear’s support section. No connection. Further back and forth with my friend, and I learned that I could use the wireless router as a wired router and provide the needed gateway. It worked.

Then I found out that the Netgear software had insinuated its way into my browser, part of the time. I’d click on a site in my Favorites and instead of taking me there, it would send me to a Netgear registration site or to a Netgear page that told me that the URL was not one supported by the “Netgear support server.”

I’ve uninstalled the software, but that hasn’t solved the problem. I’m now exchanging Emails with Syed on the Subcontinent.

When that’s resolved I’ll move on to figuring out why the home theater will send audio to the box but not video.