this is not a journal title

I was asked about iPad apps. If my iPad (and computer backup) were wiped today, these are the ones I'd be sure to get again. In the games category, I've only included the ones that seem to be standing the test of time. What apps do you feel are essential?

Workish:
- Neu.annotate (free) - PDF reader that lets you jot notes in the margins
- Wikipanion (free) - Wikipedia access in a prettier view, but can't edit and can only see one page at a time
- NASA (free) - lets you see the APOD, mission info, and lots more
- Exoplanet (free) - stats on each new exoplanet discovered
- Wolfram Alpha (paid)
- Show Me (free) - minimalist screen casting 
- Skype (free)
- PCalc Lite (free) - scientific calculator
- Dropbox (free) - lets you share documents across multiple computers

Social: 
- Twitter (free) or Tweetdeck (free) - Tweetdeck is better for multiple account support, but some installs are buggy

Games:
- Words with friends (free or paid) - scrabble, I'm Zandperl of course
- Enjoy Sudoku (paid) or :) sudoku (free) - (icon is the Thinker statue) - great interface for solving sudokus, and hints to help you improve

Other: 
- Accuweather (free)

Have I mentioned that I'm the statistical outlier when it comes to Macs and problems? I'm the one person that keeps their reliability record from being 100%. I've had enough problems to make up for everybody.

So the current problem: My airport (wireless card) is having issues. It will suddenly say there's no wireless signal - not from my router, nor any of the numerous other routers around. Other computers sitting right next to mine will have no problem at all. Turning the airport off and then on does not solve the problem, only a restart solves it, and only for the next 10-24 hours (this is happening up to twice a day). It's possible this's related to my past problems w/ my parents' router, but as I'm in a different state there's no way to confirm, and I did not see that particular behavior anywhere but there.

I tried looking through Apple's Support pages, but having difficulty finding anything specifically related to this - if you do find something, or have other ideas, let me know.

I'm looking for a open source or otherwise free webpage editing software for Macs. I don't need anything as fancy as Dreamweaver, something like Netscape Composer would be fine (if it still exists). I just don't want to keep having to use MS Word. It outputs the crappiest html code I've ever had the misfortune of laying eyes upon. Besides, it uses stupid symbols for bullet points and quotation marks that then don't display properly when I upload my syllabus to Blackboard.

Internets, help me!

Anyone know where I can find a MS Office 2007 Compatibility Pack for MS Office 2004 for Mac? I found one once, installed it, and turns out it's a trial version and it uninstalled itself a couple months later and I cannot find another one, leaving me unable to read .docx files, which are the default on my campus. And I'm taking an online course this summer and people keep stupidly posting more .docx files.

How do I create a .pdf "printer" (on a Mac) so that I can use it in Automator as the printer I wish to print to? I'm under the impression that "CUPS" is part of the process... Basically, I sitll can't find a way to use automator to take 20+ Word files and save/print them as .pdf files.

My Dad got me a new iPod - 160 GB Classic. Awesome. Now I want to know two things.

1) I use a Mac. I have a few .wmv videos that I watch in Quicktime using the free "flip4mac" or whatever it's called plug-in. How can I, for free, convert these into either .mp4 for uploading into the iPod, or into .mov so iTunes can convert them?

2) Anywhere to download a bunch of .mp4 music videos for my iPod?

Okay, maybe not entirely w/o LJ...

In our home network, we have a Linksys WRT54G wireless router named "Highlanders" plugged into the cable modem in the living room. On the entire opposite side of the house in the office we have a Linksys BEFW11S4 wireless router named "Bub". Highlanders' signal is intermittantly spotty in the office where Bub is located, so it would be nice to have Bub act as a repeater. What makes it even more important to be able to do is that my desktop in my office does not have wireless, and therefore has an ethernet cable physically connected to Bub, sitting next to it. It cannot get on the internet as of yet, since Bub is not connected to the internet. The final incentive is that also connected to Bub is a network printer (Brother, though it shouldn't make a difference); I can currently print to it from a laptop anywhere in the house by disconnecting from Highlanders and connecting to Bub and then printing.

What I want is for Bub to be some sort of clone or repeater for Highlanders. Ideally I do not want to see the name Bub at all, I just want to see Highlanders everywhere I am standing, and if the signal from the Highlanders connected to the cable modem is too weak, I want laptops to automatically switch over to Highlanders' in the office. Our laptops are all Macs (2 on OS X.4, two on OS X.3), but I also want PCs to be able to see it (since we have no clue what our upstairs neighbors have and they use it too), and the we want the network to remain wide open. I'm also willing to swap Bub and Highlanders, if that would be easier (since they're different models).

I am guessing there is some setting on Bub that will allow me to clone/repeat the Highlanders network, but I haven't found it yet. A halfway solution would tell me the keywords to look for in Bub's settings, a half-assed solution would tell me keywords to look for online - I've already googled it, and while this appears to be exactly the same question as mine, in exactly the same order, with exactly the same lack of an answer and/or confusion (I don't understand this linked page) that I currently have. A good solution would tell me step-by-step where to go in the menus of the two routers.