Linksys Range Extender Questions

I have a Linksys range extender WRE54G working with a Linksys wireless router WRT54G. Both are updated to the very latest firmware. I have a few questions / problems.

1. When I configure the extender per the instructions (use the same ssid, channel, password, etc.) my remote computer then shows two identical SSIDs (one is the extender and one is the router.) On the remote computer typically I have about 30-40% signal strengh showing for the router, and 80-90% for the extender. I can successfully connect to the extender, but somehow the computer will arbitrarily switch back to the weaker signal (the router.) How do I force the remote computer to only use the stronger signal?

2. To configure the extender you have to hardwire it into the network then use your browser to go to 192.168.1.240. While this works fine for the initial configuration, once it's configured and you want to change anything (or just look at the settings) when you plug it back in to the network you start getting IP conflice messages from all the computers connected to the network. How do you configure the extender after the initial configuration?

3. It appears in this range extender the only way to configure it is to exactly match the settings of the router (ssid, channel, password). Is this correct? If there was somehow I could have it hook up to the router but then broadcast a different SSID I could then specifiy exactly which SSID (and hence the device) that I wanted to connect to.

Thanks!

Steve