Okay, there’s got to be a Mac whiz out there somewhere:

I has issues. At home we have a Linksys Wireless-G Router, model WRT54G. Ed’s laptop (runs XP) connects to our mixed WPA network, no questions asked. My MacBook, when Boot Camp’d to XP, connects to the same network just fine. However, since day one, I’ve had to manually input an IP address into my Network settings in order for OS X to connect to the wireless. What gives? This sucks. My home network is the only network I’ve ever encountered this with and it is not good at all. Until now I’ve just been doing what I have to in order to get an internet connection at home, but I have officially Had It and I am Not Going To Take It Anymore.

You can tell I’m serious because I’m using Title Case.

Anyhoo. It appears this problem is present on ALL Macs in my humble abode; a friend’s MacBook Pro would not connect to the network and at the time we did not know this sneaky manual fix. I must fix it, and soon – my iPod Touch is having the same problem, and will not connect to my wireless network. Please help! Why do my Apple products hate me so much?

I know that once upon a time we had a very good reason to be running a WPA network instead of a WEP but I can’t remember that reason. If I switch, will everything be rainbows and lollipops again? Oh please help!