I'll start off with admitting I don't know all the right terms and I'll probably sound pretty stupid...which is why I haven't just called them yet. I keep thinking I'll figure out the solution. You all are used to me sounding stupid.
I can't connect to the interwebz at home. I lost electric and didn't realize it because the loss wasn't whole house: it was just the power strip that goes to the two devices that hook into the wall/outlets for my wireless.
Since I didn't realize it, I started messing around with the netgear settings on the screen.
I can't make it connect now. A long long long time ago tw suggested I screen shot the way it looks when it's working: I did that but that was for the iffy old school crap the first guy who set up my wireless used. When time-warner came they updated everything and I didn't think to screen shot it all.
One thing I've noticed is that on the "about" tab my IP address is all zeroes. However, this is not correctable. On the tab that shows 'what I have' as far as my connection and MAC (what is that?) address...I don't have a Mac...everything is there.
I've read there is a reset button on the router (?) but it says I will lose all my settings and I don't know if that means any new settings I may have made (which I didn't because I certainly don't know enough to change anything) and I don't know if that will make it worse. The literature that suggested this, however, also thinks I can get online to go to wwwDOTrouterDOTnet or org or put in some numbers: but that doesn't work since I can't get online. For the security there is NOTHING in either the password or key spots, not even sure which one I'm supposed to use. I don't know what the password is or was or even which line it goes into. I snaked a picture of the screen from the web (don't know whose numbers these are, just a googled picture) and there used to be something under WEP under "passphrase" or "key" but I don't know what.
So the netgear window is there, but it keeps cycling through some channels looking for a connection and it never connects.
I have checked all the connections. The lights blink, perhaps like they're supposed to.
Yeah, I know this is why tech support gets frustrated with people like me: what the hell did I just say? I was hoping maybe a techie would have an idea.
Thanks.