[Hidden-tech] Please help--any network geeks out there? (X-Post)

[Shel Horowitz]

It's been a few days of multiple yucky Internet problems and I am 
hoping somebody out there can help me understand why this is 
happening.

My configuration:

Main computer: iMac G4 running OS X 10.2.8, about four years old
Secondary computer: low-end HP PC running Windows XP Home, about two years old
Laptop: brand new Mac iBook running OS X 10.4 (Tiger), and prior to 
that a five-year Mac laptop

The two desktop computers connect via Ethernet cables to a DLink DI 
524 wireless router (about six months old) that is in turn cabled to 
a Surfboard SB4100 cable modem, I think about four years old. The Mac 
has a short cable because it's right next to the modem and router; 
the PC is on the second floor and uses a cable maybe 20 feet long.

There are two major and one minor problems we've been having:

1. Internet access:
The router is refusing to provide access to the Internet. I can get 
the Internet on the desktop Mac by unplugging it from the router and 
plugging it into the cable modem directly--*most* of the time. But 
it's having more and more frequent outages even that way, sometimes 
requiring restarting not only the modem but the computer.

For the first time that I can remember (we've had similar problems 
with routers and hubs before, have burned out several of them over 
the years), we cannot get Internet access upstairs even by plugging 
that cable directly into the modem.

The laptop can recognize the wireless network but cannot access the 
Internet over it. I have not tried cabling it in directly or taking 
it to an Internet cafe.

2. Spam deluge
Until the other day, I was getting 200-300 spams in my spamfilter 
(Spamfire 1.0) per day, and rescuing about 10 percent. Not all were 
spam, but many were messages I didn't need from certain groups I 
belong to (e.g., the programmer list for the community radio station 
where I have a show). This week, it's been 600-800 a day, and I'm 
still rescuing about 20 out of all that. It is high enough volume 
that after every 100-200 that I delete, I quit the program and load 
it again so that if it crashes, all the junk I got rid of doesn't 
come back.

The only thing that's changed in my setup is that I've stopped 
aliasing and forwarding all my email to my ISP address (charter.net) 
and am using the bluehost server on the Frugalfun account, inbound 
and outbound, and I set up my wife's email to alias through the 
Charter account here she has her own screen name. PrincipledProfit 
email has for some time been using its own server for inbound and the 
charter server for outbound.

3. Shopping cart confirmation messages and order info are disappearing.

I use two different copies of the no-cost verison of mal's shopping 
cart. When I get a cc order, it goes through one cart, and generates 
an email message to me. When I get a paypal order (or a cc order for 
an ebook), it goes to a different cart, that is supposed to send me 
both the shopping cart confirmation and another confirmation from 
paypal. But all of a sudden, the cart confirmation is not arriving, 
and several of the paypal confirmations have a total that is not 
represented by the product shown (invariably, AFAIC remember, they 
have been for my forthcoming Grassroots Marketing for Authors and 
Publishers, which has its own order page--so maybe that's where the 
problem is). When i contact the customer, I discover that they have 
ordered other prducts that aren't showing in the confirmation but do 
show in the total.

Also, a minor thing: the filter I ahve to mark these orders as 
prioirty so I don't miss them still shows up in Eudora but hasn't 
been working for a while.

I don't know if these problems have anything to do with each other, 
but I'd be very grateful for any guidance.