Well I learned something new today. Do not name your iPad after your website.

A few weeks ago, I purchased an iPad. Reasons were many, not the least of which was that it would help me with looking at photos on site, and the monthly internet access turns out to be much less than I was paying for the Crackberry. The Crackberry was costing $30/month. The iPad is $14/month for up to 250MB. If you get close to your alloted amount, the clever little iPad sends you a message asking you if you'd like to upgrade to the next level (2GB) for $24.95. So far, it's been 2.5 weeks, and I'm not going to get close to 250MB. But even if I do, I still come out paying less in the end.

I hated using my Crackberry browser. It's main function was to get email all day long. And when a photography order came through, I was unable to get to the site that has the order information (browser incompatibility of course). So it was only a glorified email alert system. The iPad that I bought has the 3G access. I started it up when I first needed it, and can cancel at any time. I have wireless at home, so it's not using up MB downloads while I'm at home, or at any other wireless location. Not bad. And there are tons of cool apps!

I decommissioned my Blackberry and activated my old phone. So far I'm thrilled with everything. I can not only pick up email all day long, wherever I may be, I can see my orders and contact agents while on the go.

Now for the name issue. Similar to turning on a new computer for the first time, you are asked to name your device. Are we ever prepared for this step? Don't we all want to come up with a cool, clever name for our new baby, even though nobody will ever know that we were so creative? No, we are never prepared. At the same time, we are too anxious to get the device up and running, so we use whatever pops into our head, and go with that. Well, when I started up the iPad (in the Apple Store, no less!), it asked me to name it, and for reasons beyond my comprehension, I named it lawelles.com. Oh, aren't I clever?

Um, no. Not clever and, as it turns out, not smart.

Recently I was unable to connect to this site. What could be the problem? It had been a while since I'd tried to log on, so I wasn't sure when it happened, but none of my browsers on my laptop could find it. Neither could the iMac find the site. Hmmmm. I called GoDaddy, who hosts the site (who are so very helpful any time that I have a question, by the way). They checked things out internally and all was well. He ran to the other side of the building and checked out other servers - external, local, even international! All was well on his end. He suggested I reboot my modem. OK, I said. I can do that. Thank you very much.

However, instead of simply unplugging my modem and then plugging it back in, I go to the modem website where I see an option to 'reset modem'. Cool! I'll just do that. Several dire warnings came up, imploring me to rethink my decision - your modem will be reset to factory defaults! Are you sure?! Oh yeah, I'm sure. I am so sure. Just do it.

Oops. Now I was unable to get on the internet on ANY of our myriad of computer-like devices. Guess I should have reconsidered that reset option.

I contacted our internet provider (also very nice and very helpful, by the way) who walked me through setting the modem up and getting things running smoothly once again. I checked and found my website (yea!), and I was happy.

But what's this? Today I can no longer get to the site! How can that be? At least I know to NOT reset the modem this time. I spend most of the morning thinking about it, trying to get to the bottom of the puzzle. In the end, I remembered that my iPad was named lawelles.com, and that the modem saw it as such. I wonder, I thought to myself, if the iPad name was somehow affecting access to the website? Crazy as that sounds - it was affecting things. I changed the iPad name to something normal, and everything was fine.

So - never name your computers/iPads/smart phones/netbooks after a website. That is, not if you ever hope to access that site.