I had a nice laundry list of things that I needed to get done today. But, all that went down the tubes last night when our DSL modem (a Cisco 678) bit the dust after one particularly close lightning strike.

So, I called Qwest (QWORST?) DSL support and was told that I could pick up a replacement modem (not a Cisco, they've been discontinued) at Best Buy. So, this morning, I wandered off to Best Buy and bought a ActionTec GT704WG (DSL modem with 802.11g and 4-port switch). I get it home and start configuring it. I'm thinking, "Oh, this will be easy." Not to be. Can't get port forwarding to work on this piece of crap. It's configured in, and yet, I can't connect to my server from the outside.

I've literally spent almost 12 hours on this today and I'm basically at square one.

While I could probably live without this server, it hosts my wife's entire domain. So, I really want to, NEED to, get this working. I've used Google and BroadbandReports.com's forums to no avail. Worst case scenario is that I call ActionTec support (for a nice $30 charge) and see if I can get anywhere with them.

If not, then I hold onto this until I can get another Cisco 678 ordered from eBay, I guess.

Grrr.