Bear with me, non-geeks, as tonight I'm posting a review of a computery toy. I shall return to my regular debauchery and filth later this week. I'm typing this post while connected from my laptop via my new Actiontec 54Mbps (aka 802.11g) Wireless Ethernet Adapter. So it must be pretty good, huh? Sure if you ignore the fact that I only got it working after tearing my hair out for 4 hours. And to be perfectly honest, I am not completely certain I know just what I did to finally get it going.

Adapters like this one are designed to let you connect wired devices to your wireless network via an existing ethernet port. This comes in handy when a device only comes with an ethernet jack and has no USB ports or PC Card or PCI openings. Game consoles and ethernet-only NAS enclosures are examples of such devices, the latter of which being my purpose in purchasing this gadget.

I ordered the Actiontec from newegg.com for about $70 last Wednesday. This is more than I wanted to pay, but unless I was willing to wait for a rare deal to fall out of the sky on gotapex.com or techbargains.com, I decided this was the way to go. I knew I wouldn't be getting top of the line equipment, but I will likely upgrade my network to 802.11n later this year and may end up replacing this in as little as 6 months.

The setup for this device can be summed up in one word: nightmare. The configuration software that comes with the setup CD will only really automatically connect the adapter to your network if the router has an SSID of "Actiontec", is unencrypted, and uses channel 6. The software also comes with a configuration utility that can be installed on a PC, but its user interface is cumbersome, and at times it would allow me to enter the changes to channel, SSID, and encryption settings, but would not let me click the Apply button to save them to the adapter. It was only after countless and random sequences of unplugging the adapter power, the ethernet cable, ipconfig /release and /renew and rebooting the computer, that I finally managed to get the settings saved and connect to my network. The adapter also comes with its own web-based administration interface, which supposedly has more robust network discovery/config tools, but I have yet to successfully connect to it.

So the good news is that theoretically my adapter is configured and ready to go when my NAS enclosure gets here Wednesday. The bad news is that if I ever want to change any settings on my router, I may be in for another tug of war with Actiontec's poorly designed configuration software.