For the year we have been living in our flat we have been going through a mini-port to connect to the internet. This has, apart from the fact that we shouldn’t have to, been of no real concern. Everything we need to do gets done, and with no loss of bandwidth. Until yesterday.

I’ve been considering the best way to connect Jo’s Nintendo DS for online play of Animal Crossing: Wild World. The first option is to purchase a wi-fi router, which will also allow us to connect the unowned Nintendo Wii and X-Box 360, as well as securing us for the wi-fi future.

Ideally we’d like to get the router that our IP provides free of charge, but despite their claims on the website we cannot have one. It appears that the station which we are connected to has compatibility issues with our IP’s modems. This is a ridiculous set of circumstances, and the only thing for us to do is await some kind of executive decision to manufacture new modems that do not suffer this problem.

Another option is to buy a wi-fi router ourselves, and simply place it between our current modem and the computer. This would hopefully work (mental note: contact Jack to make sure), but I decided on a cheaper and easier solution: a wifi USB dongle.

All I have to do is run the software, attach the dongle, turn on the DS, and let the hardware do the maths. I’ve done this, and it doesn’t work (the DS connection to the computer works, but not to the server), so I search the internet for a solution. One idea is to run an updated version of the software, after going through several steps to remove all trace of the original. After fiddling about for a while I am rid of the offending software and reinstall the new, improved upgrade. This time I can’t even laod the software, getting a “Internet sharing error (6)” message. So, I uninstall the new version, using the same method as I went through the first time, and installed the old version. Same message appears.

Jo rings up our IP server, gets the miniport taken away, we realise we can’t connect at all to the internet, and go back to to the miniport (this part of the story is condensed, but involves both a minor success and complete failure of connecting to the internet).

After all this, we are back to a regular connection (no miniport), whilst being unable to connect to the Animal Crossing server. All in all, a waste of time time very well spent.

Now, I love technology, and am constantly amazed just how well .exe files work, considering the infinite amount of hardware set-ups available. When working on their own, hardware does a sterling job, but it’s when it comes to interacting that things really go arse up.

I shall be in contact with Jack to talk about the wi-fi router.