Technical Techno

Wireless network difficulties can make it seriously difficult to get your groove on.

Or so I learned this weekend.

It was Friday night and my reading of The Art of Unix Programming was starting to get pretty juicy. But I promised my friends I would hit up the local "rave party," so around 11 I tore myself away from the chapter on remote procedure calls and headed out.

Now, when I think of a rave, I usually picture a huge, shady warehouse filled with flashing glow sticks, European girls and hallucinogenic drugs. At this party, the latter two were non-existent, and the glow sticks were tiny. Mine didn't even come with the handy attachment to hook it around my wrist.

But at least Napster was doing a decent job pumping out the techno music. That is, until the wireless network went down.

Just as I was finishing up an impassioned accompaniment to J. Lo's Waiting for Tonight and getting psyched for an excellent robot dance to Like a Virgin, Napster shut down, leaving the room in an eerie silence punctuated only by the occasional drunken scream.

Immediately my geek instincts activated and I tried to squeeze my way over the computer. Unfortunately, the self-appointed "DJ girls" and the party's host had already seized control of the keyboard. And try as they might, they couldn't get the network to reactivate.

I considered explaining that it was probably an issue with the Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol, but I didn't think that was going to help much.

Eventually, the girls gave up and switched to iTunes music. The music started playing again, but now that fickle people had to control the selections instead of the almighty Napster radio, it was difficult to stay in one genre for more than half a song.

After 15 minutes of musical argument between '90s pop and '80s rock and roll, I decided it was time to go.

My advice for future party hosts: spend the extra money for an ethernet cable if you can afford it. Nothing beats a physical connection.