Usable Fix: Auto-power-cycling modem...
Sometimes I love bad designs just for the ingenious hacks they can inspire - and this one, my friends, is a doozie. Many people (myself included) have cable or DSL internet where the modem sometimes just stops working and needs to be "power cycled" - that is, unplugged and plugged back in. This is inconvenient, especially when the cable is hard to reach - and of course, there's no power button on the damn thing. Well, the brilliant (and nameless?) guy at Stupid Hax has automated the power-cycling process: his router periodically checks for an internet signal from the modem. If it discovers a lack of internet, it flips a relay on the modem's power circuit off, then on again. Of course, this is exactly the kind of smarts that should have been designed into the modem in the first place - but the hack is so clever, I can't help but love it!
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