[Paul]

I’ve been trying to use the autoupdate feature for a couple of days, and nothing seemed to be happening. Finally, I dug out our old MacBook Pro and tried. It worked perfectly. There seems to be a bug when using a Chromebook, which is about all we use these days.

[Paul]

OK, I think I’ve got it. Creating a calendar with no sites listed – an everything calendar – will block everything during times that are not selected. I think I was not waiting long enough for the router settings to take effect when I was first working on it.

An entirely blank everything calendar would block all sites all the time.

It’s difficult because it is the opposite of what I would expect. I think of the calendar as an active blocking strategy. My impulse would be to create a social networking calendar, and then block off the times I did not want them on social networks, not the other way around.

Thanks for bearing with me.

[Paul]

The router arrived today, a day early! The calendar feature is the one thing that I just don’t get. I tried leaving it blank – to apply to all sites – and dragged the slider over the nighttime hours. That resulted in all sites being blocked in the day. I tried to reverse it, and slide the slider over the daytime hours – on the logic that maybe that spaces left blank were the time slots blocked – and all sites were still blocked.

I’ll keep at it. I love a good challenge, but I’d appreciate any advice.

[Paul]

Thank you. I saw the static settings on the setup demo on your website. I also found a static setup on Skydog and tried that, and that works with the new TP-Link modem. I look forward to working with the pcwrt when it arrives.

Since I do have a static IP address, I assume I do not have to mess around with the dynamic setting in regards to OpenDNS. I already have an OpenDNS Home account that I’ve had running for a while. I have their DNS updater running on my laptop, but I think that I’ve never really needed it. Since I have an IP address associated with my phone line, I assume that dynamic IP is completely out of the picture.

[Paul]

Hello,

I’m expecting my pcwrt router on Wednesday. I am trying to replace my old combination modem/wireless router and Skydog router, with a standalone TP-Link modem and the pcwrt router. (We’ve been having a lot of dropped connections lately for one thing, and the skydog’s days are limited for the other).

On the old modem/router, I had to go into the “advanced wan settings” to put in my static ip address, gateway, DNS servers, etc. Most of the instructions I see are for dynamic IP addresses. I already have the modem, but I cannot get it to work with Skydog because there seems to be no place to type in the static IP address on the modem. (While I can type all those things in on my Macbook under the “manual” option on the ethernet setup.) Is that something that I do through the pcwrt router when it arrives? My local ISP seems a little different when it comes to providing a static IP address tied in to my phone line.

(By the way, in my old modem/router’s setting, I have to choose “bridged” mode and then something like “encapsulated bridge” under the advanced WAN settings, and that gives me the spaces to type in the addresses I need. I know just enough about what I’m doing to get in trouble.)

[Author]

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