Late in the day Saturday I decided to hook up my new linksys firewall and reconfigure it to be more secure than the default settings. I browsed to it using the IP address assigned at the factory, then changed the password, re-assigned the IP, etc. This makes it very difficult to hack into, as they not only have to LOCATE it, but without the default password it will likely become more trouble than it is worth to get access.

Then I made my fatal mistake... I changed the filters to block everything, incoming and outgoing, all protocols, all ports, intending to open just the ones I needed to have open. After I set it to block everything, and before I opened anything up, I lost my mind and clicked 'Apply'.

Oh dear.

The instructions on resetting the unit to factory defaults failed, and I was never again able to access it via the browser, and indeed it no longer functioned as a router or switch. I now have an $80 piece of modern art. I'll be returning it as 'non-functional' and getting a new one - hopefully I will have learned what NOT to do. :)

Actually, it IS defective, as the reset button did nothing - it was supposed to force a self-test, but the testing light never lit, so I do believe it is defective. I held it down for more than a minute, when 3 sec was supposed to reset it to factory defaults.