Wifi Update (Off-Topic)
Some of you may remember my super boring post about my terrible wifi.
The connection continued to have intermittent problems.
Doing troubleshooting, I was able to determine the issue was strictly local--connecting to the local router. I wrote a batch file that 'ping'd the local router and logged the results in a text file. I used task scheduler to run this batch every five minutes for a few days. The results were confusing; ping times were all over the place; connection uptime was only about 50% or less.
So just the other night I found out about this program that will scan wifi networks and give you basically all the information there is to know: WifiInfoView
So using that tool and perusing the information, it became clear that my router was set on the default channel, 1, along with almost all my neighbors. So there was tons of interference.
I was able to log in to the local router (thanks, admin/password default...) and change the channel to the least-used (in my case, 8).
Viola! Now I have seemingly flawless wifi.
I never had to deal with this type of problem before because 1) this is the first time I've ever lived in a crowded area and 2) I always used wired connections before.
TL;DR: If you're having wifi problems, try changing the channel on the router.