E.J. Sexton

There does not seem to be a shortage of stress these days, especially after our move to Turkey. Friends have advised us that the move to Turkey is tough, that things go wrong, and the only way to cope and not go crazy is to treat the move as an adventure. I have tried to do that, and it has worked, helping me view things that do go wrong in a positive, or even humorous light.

I have a bad habit of taking things personally, though, and then they stress me out. Back in Arkansas, I read about a coping technique called Mindfulness, which I have been using a lot lately. There are various interpretations and definitions of what it means to be Mindful, but the one I use is: to step back from your thoughts, and observe them in a non-judgmental, objective way. When I am stressed out, and I do this, I usually feel better, but I never quite understood why.

Today, I was reading about Mindfulness Techniques for dealing with stress when I came across one called R.A.I.N.: Recognize a strong emotion, Acknowledge the emotion, Investigate how the emotion is affecting you, and Non-Identify with the emotion. That is, realize that the emotion is a reaction to stimulus, and that the emotion does not define you.

That last one, I think, is why I feel better when I separate myself from my thoughts and emotions. I realize that they are not really a part of me. They are temporary reactions, and do not define me as a person.

Linksys AE2500 Wireless-N Adapter

I purchased this device for my Desktop PC when we moved to Turkey. Our apartment only has one working internet connection (which does not happen to be in my office) and my Desktop PC does not have a wireless network card. So the Linksys AE2500 Wireless-N USB Adapter was an easy solution to providing internet to Desktop PC.

I tested the AE2500 out on my Laptop, and it worked like a charm. However, when I tried to use the device on my Desktop, it took me something like 5 hours to get it working. My laptop is running Windows 7 Professional 32-bit, whereas my Desktop is running Windows 7 Professional 64-bit.

I ran the setup software from the AE2500 Installation CD, and a window would pop up asking me to select a Wireless Network. Now on my laptop, I saw my Linksys E4200 as well as several other wireless networks nearby, but on my desktop, the list was empty. I tried connecting to my Linksys E4200 manually by typing in the SSID as well as the AES Wireless Key, but that did not work either. I disabled the Windows Firewall, Microsoft Security Essentials, and the Microsoft User Account Control settings, and reinstalled the driver, but still did not have any luck.

Eventually, I tried using the Linksys Live Chat customer support. He told me to look at the AE2500 device under the Network Adapters control panel (Start > Control Panel > Network and Sharing Center > Change Adapter Settings). The device was showing up as “Disabled”. I was instructed to Right-Click on the device and select “Enable”. After I did this, a window popped up stating that the device was “Enabled”, but it still showed as “Disabled” in the Network Adapters control panel, and I was still unable to find any Wireless Networks.

The Linksys Customer Support Agent was obviously stumped. He told me that there was a conflict on my computer, such as my firewall (which was disabled), which was preventing the AE2500 from being enabled, and that I would need to connect my Desktop PC to the internet using a hardline so that another Customer Support Agent would be able to connect to my computer remotely and fix the problem.

Not wanting to drag all my equipment across my apartment to do this, I continued working with it for another two hours. Eventually, I was able to get the adapter to work, but I’m not entirely sure how I was able to do it. Here is the process that I followed:

1. Install the Linksys AE2500 driver
2. Restart the computer until it recognizes the Linksys AE2500 device (two or three tries)
3. Restart the computer in Safe Mode (Minimal)
   • The computer will not be able to find the Linksys AE2500 device, since networking is turned off
4. Restart the computer in Safe Mode (Networking)
   • At this point, the computer recognized the Linksys AE2500 device, and it was able to find and connect to Wireless Networks
5. Restart the computer normally

After I restarted my Desktop the final time, the AE2500 was still working properly, and has been working properly ever since.

I still do not know why the AE2500 started working after I booted into Safe Mode, but hopefully this article will help someone else who is having the same problem.