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Idea for a product:

Make a small network device - maybe only 2 megs of RAM and a 100mz processor and load linux+iptables to do this for non-technical users.

Something like the DSD-150 Internet Security Adapter. http://www.dlink.com/products/?sec=1&pid=486 It's just a few inches square.

Then Sandvine would be...useless.

I am not sure which of these (if any including the above listed Firebox) just roll-over to the second connection if the first goes down or if they truly load-balance all the time?
D-Link made a (now discontinued) 4-port router that load-balanced: http://support.dlink.com/products/view.asp?productid=DI-LB604
Edimax Technology currently makes a couple of lower-priced load-balancing routers: http://www.edimax.com/en/produce_list.php?pl1_id=3&pl2_id=18

It appears that software firewall solutions (mostly linix-based) have the best support and the most features, for example: http://www.smoothwall.com/products/advancedfirewall2008/?loadbalance

The cheapest route to go would be the DD-WRT firmware that other people have mentioned, although then you get into some issues that many people want to avoid.

Personally, I was very happy with the DGL-4300 router from D-Link. It will let you specify QoS settings, and it also lets you prioritize certain games and certain applications, and will also let you be computer specific.

I originally got the router because I was actually hogging my own bandwidth. Before the router, capping my bandwidth via an FTP download or torrent would lag everything else. Now, I prioritized my games and I can maintain a 60 ms ping in an online FPS game while capping out my download at several mbit per second. What really really impressed me was that D-Link has the ports and protocols preprogrammed in for a large variety of games and applications, including bittorent.

Screenshot of the interface

The same thing sounds like it can be done via the DD-WRT firmware, just possibly not quite as elegantly. D-Link also has a new 802.11n GameFuel router (the DGL-4300 I use is 802.11b/g only) but all of the prices I have found on the N router so far have been really, really ridiculously high.

http://games.dlink.com/products/?pid=370

Works well, but is rather expensive. Has an oversized NAT table to help with UDP server pings, so this will remedy and torrent problems you might have with your current setup.

QoS system is fairly flexible with an intuitive GUI and many preconfigured service options.

Has an option to pack the output frames completely (harms XBox Live possibly) as well as delay non-prio packets in favour of VOIP/gaming/as you configure.

Matt

Well, you've got to do a cost-benefit analysis similar to a business. In low light it is going to be difficult to get a high-quality images without extra light (obvious you are monitoring them) or a really, really expensive camera which is vulnerable to spray-painting or vandalism itself.

I was going to do something similar at a previous residence, but found that I would have to worry about people stealing the camera, or simply wearing a mask and gloves when they break in, which will really render the best camera useless. In the end, I used a hidden cheap Linksys webcam that was discreetly hidden inside my house, enough to alert me and catch a careless criminal.

I have also had good success with the D-Link products, which are very cheap.

http://www.dlink.com/products/category.asp?cid=60&sec=0

Also, keep in mind that making your house / area "different" may actually attract more attention. Numerous cameras outside a particular residence screams "important stuff here" if you can't hide them effectively.

What you want is called a "Load Balancer". I don't know of any software solutions off the top of my head, though you might look into Devil-Linux. However, I do know of a hardware solution, a load-balancing router like this one.

I've been contemplating this as well. I'm intrigued by the D-Link DNS-323 http://www.dlink.com/products/?pid=509

There's some hacks for it that allow you to add NFS and some other goodies: http://wiki.dns323.info/

If you're using powered speakers, why not just go digital (say, over fibre) to the speakers?

Three things.. 1.. cost. 2.. Rich Audiophiles think the descreet steps of the D/A conversion will degrade the audio. Selling a digital solution to the tube amp CD rejecting purists is not a way to make money. 3.. Compatibility. Analog RCA connectors is universal. Digital standards between manufactures is anything but. In the pro field, extra boxes add complexity and another point of failure which is often hard to troubleshoot. In broadcast, digital is the only way for long haul program distribution and remote broadcasts. It's noise free and either works or it doesn't. (same for cell phones)

And wires aren't the only option: with ECC and some good buffering/caching, you could probably just stream the digital over WiFi. I haven't tried it but don't see any significant obstacles.

Several manufactures are going this route with a package.
http://www.dlink.com/products/?pid=318
http://www.linksys.com/servlet/Satellite?c=L_Product_C2&childpagename=US%2FLayout&cid=1137028967848&pagename=Linksys%2FCommon%2FVisitorWrapper
http://www.laptopmag.com/Review/Linksys-Media-Extender-WMCE54AG.htm

But the physics of speakers is unforgiving. There are plenty of exotic solutions to those problems. If I were an audiophile instead of an engineer, that's the hole I'd probably throw my money into.

Absolutely true. As such this is the part of my system that was the most involved in selecting and is the single most expensive part of my system. I used my speakers to demo why speakers make a big deal in the system. When asked about speakers, I would send them over to my speakers and ask them to knock on the back, sides, and top of them while the system was off, and then have them do the same with any other speakers they find. A speaker box is a wodden drum which the speaker drivers thump. Number 1 rule is find speakers that don't add their own sound. Speakers that sound like knocking on an empty wodden box are to be rejected. Most speakers are made this way because it is cheap, lightweight to reduce shipping costs and easy to sell at lower price points. A good speaker will sound the same as knocking on the cement sidewalk outside.

If you ever run across an old pair of the early standard in quality speakers, the Accoustic Research 3a's, take the time to knock on the back of them.

After the cabinet is properly built, the next item on the list is quality drivers with proper magnets, voice coils, and loose suspension. You don't want the speaker cones themselves to be a cheap drum. Good drivers are rarely put in cheap cabinets and the reverse is true. The quickest way to find good speakers at the local stereo showroom is to shut everything off and start knocking on some cabinets. Quite a few years ago some the passing cabinets was from Yamaha, JBL, Accoustic Research, Polk, and some Kenwood and KLH. Failures included most of the Pioneer (Except the premium line) Optimus, Sony, and most other consumer grade speakers.

Personaly I have a pair of Yamaha NS1000's and a pair of AR 3a.
http://www.arsenal.net/speakers/ar/classic/ar-3a/ar3a.htm
http://www.audioreview.com/cat/speakers/floorstanding-speakers/yamaha/PRD_120821_1594crx.aspx

These are all much dated as I am.. but gook well built equipment doesn't need to be in next years landfill. If I threw these on Ebay, I am sure I could get my entire investmet back unlike the cheap stuff.
If you want to have fun,

Freedom, not a lack of it is the answer to the problems you think you see.

If you don't believe me, feel free to respond to this post and tell me what the best development environment / language to write Linux desktop apps in is. Okay, now what's the best distribution? While we're at it, what's the best text editor? With that as a context, now tell me about UI guidelines and keychain standards.

I don't believe you because every useful program has been made to work with every distribution without a lot of effort. Gnome, KDE, X, etc all works together in a way non free junk never will. It's about freedom, not marketshare or "standards". When you define real standards for interoperability, the rest takes care of itself.

Others have pointed to dlink and packet8 phones. Because free software has swept up the embedded market, they both probably use some form of gnu/linux. If they don't now, they will later. All that's really needed for these devices to thrive is well regulated public networks. Without that, we will probably waste another decade while "broadband" and IM providers battle it out with incompatible crap.

Looking at the D-Link videophone that was suggested I also found they have a stand-alone unit that connects to your TV to display the video and audio. It also has jacks for external audio input an external phone/answering machine to take voicemail messages even from video callers and comes in wired and 802.11b wireless models.

Control is through a TV-remote control device so it's close perfect. I would have to see how well it could be remotely controlled from outside but I'm sure some hacking possibilities are there.

Now to get Obaachan a broadband connection and we're in business.

Thanks all!

D-Link makes a video-phone type device that seems to fit your requirements, but does require a broadband connection.

It seems to me there's undo fascination with external drives. Yes people should do backups, and yes this is a gadget to easily get them there... but they're slower than internal drives and sometimes proprietary (how do you get at your data if the box dies?).

I can see using an external USB drive for backup if you intend to take it somewhere, often. If you leave it in house and have multiple PCs, use a consumer NAS solution (e.g., Buffalo, Infrant, D-Link). Otherwise, the best solution is to buy an internal drive and get backup software that you can schedule to run nightly (e.g., rsync). It's much cheaper, faster, more flexible from both a hardware and software perspective, and it sits safely in your case.. quiet, no blinking lights, and the cat can't knock it over.

Without going into business grade routers I've found one so far that seems well above any other solutions. I've tried many different brands and models but this is what I finally decided on and have running (and love).

http://games.dlink.com/products/?pid=370 DLink Wireless Gaming router
http://games.dlink.com/products/?pid=371 DLink Gaming router (same but no wireless)

I've never been a fan of DLink at all but these routers make up for it in spades. Firstly, the switch ports are gigabit and the WAN port is 10/100, not just 10. Also, with all the other "home grade" routers I never had enough port forwards (for hosting servers etc.). Those two DLink routers don't have that problem. So far I don't think there is a limit to the number of forwards you can have. My ping times have also been drastically reduced compared to other routers. It also has fairly robust QoS settings (for a home router anyway). The other big thing is that it can handle thousands of sessions at once. No more firing up Bittorrent and having to hard reset the router an hour lately because it's frozen and has stopped routing. The only things so far that I see that could even be improved would be better logging (so I could get bandwidth reports from it with Wallwatcher http://sonic.net/wallwatcher/). Currently it just does plain old syslog logging. My only other complaint is that the Dynamic DNS feature only will keep track and update one name for you. So if you have multiple domains pointing to your dynamic address you'll have to have another solution to update all but one.

I believe they do themselves a disservice by advertising this exclusively as a gaming router. This thing could handle most small (and even some not so small) business without any kinds of problems. It does cost more than the Linksys you can get at Walmart but, at least to me, it has been more than worth it. I personally use the wireless version since I prefer to keep my AP and router as 2 separate pieces of equipment (both for security and if my router breaks I don't wanna be out an AP or vice-versa.) I can tell you that I've put mine through the paces and it has not locked up or had to be reset once thus far.

The other option that I would have chosen would have been M0n0wall http://m0n0.ch/wall/ on a Soekris http://www.soekris.com/ board. In particular I was going to go with one of the bundles found at http://www.soekris.com/bundles.htm. I wanted the Net4801 with the Lan1641 4 port NIC expansion. That would have given a total of 7 ethernet ports. The only reason that I didn't end up going in that direction was because they offer no gigabit options. Otherwise that would have been an awesome setup.

My .02.

Without going into business grade routers I've found one so far that seems well above any other solutions. I've tried many different brands and models but this is what I finally decided on and have running (and love).

http://games.dlink.com/products/?pid=370 DLink Wireless Gaming router
http://games.dlink.com/products/?pid=371 DLink Gaming router (same but no wireless)

I've never been a fan of DLink at all but these routers make up for it in spades. Firstly, the switch ports are gigabit and the WAN port is 10/100, not just 10. Also, with all the other "home grade" routers I never had enough port forwards (for hosting servers etc.). Those two DLink routers don't have that problem. So far I don't think there is a limit to the number of forwards you can have. My ping times have also been drastically reduced compared to other routers. It also has fairly robust QoS settings (for a home router anyway). The other big thing is that it can handle thousands of sessions at once. No more firing up Bittorrent and having to hard reset the router an hour lately because it's frozen and has stopped routing. The only things so far that I see that could even be improved would be better logging (so I could get bandwidth reports from it with Wallwatcher http://sonic.net/wallwatcher/). Currently it just does plain old syslog logging. My only other complaint is that the Dynamic DNS feature only will keep track and update one name for you. So if you have multiple domains pointing to your dynamic address you'll have to have another solution to update all but one.

I believe they do themselves a disservice by advertising this exclusively as a gaming router. This thing could handle most small (and even some not so small) business without any kinds of problems. It does cost more than the Linksys you can get at Walmart but, at least to me, it has been more than worth it. I personally use the wireless version since I prefer to keep my AP and router as 2 separate pieces of equipment (both for security and if my router breaks I don't wanna be out an AP or vice-versa.) I can tell you that I've put mine through the paces and it has not locked up or had to be reset once thus far.

The other option that I would have chosen would have been M0n0wall http://m0n0.ch/wall/ on a Soekris http://www.soekris.com/ board. In particular I was going to go with one of the bundles found at http://www.soekris.com/bundles.htm. I wanted the Net4801 with the Lan1641 4 port NIC expansion. That would have given a total of 7 ethernet ports. The only reason that I didn't end up going in that direction was because they offer no gigabit options. Otherwise that would have been an awesome setup.

My .02.

Hah, I can handle 16 machines on one piece of hardware.

One more product 'advertised' on Slashdot - Unfortunately, I cannot say that this product is innovative, or new. I have had a D-Link DSM 520 for the last 1 year now. Used to play both Audio and Video from my computer on my TV thru the WiFi interface (also has Ethernet capability - but my living room is not wired up). I recently bought a home theatre. It now plays all that through the HDMI connection on my home theatre. It even has an USB port, and can play content directly from the USB. Catches internet radio too - the choice is limited to a couple of stations that the company appears to have tied up with. Does not handle DivX yet. But the box is cool. http://www.dlink.com/products/?sec=0&pid=438

I just picked up a D-Link DSM-520 a few days ago at Fry's for $190, and it does exactly the same thing: plays all the AVI/MPG videos (plus audio and image files) stored on the PC in my office, streaming over an 802.11g wireless link.

Sure, it doesn't play DRM-locked music downloaded from iTunes, but BFD. The only such files I have are the ones my wife insists on purchasing from Apple.

Best of all, it has multiple video output options, including composite RCA, S-video, component, and native HDMI.

These devices have been around for some time...I don't see why Sling's entry garners any special attention.

Dlink's DVC-1000 is what you need. I work with deaf people and they use these to communicate via ASL. It is good enough for them to read their sign's. They cost about $200 and work on residential broadband with a TV, no computer required. They also have a microphone.

My D-Link EBR-2310 has a page "log", "view log", it will tell the time of the connection to the router. The router control page is viewable through a tab in Firefox, use address of "http://192.168.0.1"
And if you have given your computer a name, then that will appear also.
  When I use Red Hat Linux 9, I don't get a name for the DHCP lease, but if I use Windows 98, I do get the name "DUALPRO". It's important to set the time correctly, or the log will show something out of whack like "2002" for the year, and a wrong month, day, etc.
You can set it to your computers time with a click, then save that.
Mine is a wired network, I crawled under the house to run the cat6 cable, and drilled 15/16" holes through the floor to bring the cable up to the computer(s).
Although the router is easy to set up and administer, the nic's in the boxes give problems on linux. I did have a DGE-530T Gibabit adapter in the RHL 9 box, and although D-Link provided a linux driver, I did not have the kernel source on this install for them to run the kernel recompile to install the driver. They really had a nice setup for that, and I did have RHL 7 and 6 boxes with the kernel source there, not this one.
So I had to swap for a D-Link DFE-530TX+, which was pickup easily by RHL 9. Not fully automatically, but almost.

Catching someone on the network if they use a named XP or '98 box would be easy to spot in the D-Link log, just have to figure out who goes with the name.

-- Rapidweather

My D-Link EBR-2310 has a page "log", "view log", it will tell the time of the connection to the router. The router control page is viewable through a tab in Firefox, use address of "http://192.168.0.1"
And if you have given your computer a name, then that will appear also.
  When I use Red Hat Linux 9, I don't get a name for the DHCP lease, but if I use Windows 98, I do get the name "DUALPRO". It's important to set the time correctly, or the log will show something out of whack like "2002" for the year, and a wrong month, day, etc.
You can set it to your computers time with a click, then save that.
Mine is a wired network, I crawled under the house to run the cat6 cable, and drilled 15/16" holes through the floor to bring the cable up to the computer(s).
Although the router is easy to set up and administer, the nic's in the boxes give problems on linux. I did have a DGE-530T Gibabit adapter in the RHL 9 box, and although D-Link provided a linux driver, I did not have the kernel source on this install for them to run the kernel recompile to install the driver. They really had a nice setup for that, and I did have RHL 7 and 6 boxes with the kernel source there, not this one.
So I had to swap for a D-Link DFE-530TX+, which was pickup easily by RHL 9. Not fully automatically, but almost.

Catching someone on the network if they use a named XP or '98 box would be easy to spot in the D-Link log, just have to figure out who goes with the name.

-- Rapidweather

My D-Link EBR-2310 has a page "log", "view log", it will tell the time of the connection to the router. The router control page is viewable through a tab in Firefox, use address of "http://192.168.0.1"
And if you have given your computer a name, then that will appear also.
  When I use Red Hat Linux 9, I don't get a name for the DHCP lease, but if I use Windows 98, I do get the name "DUALPRO". It's important to set the time correctly, or the log will show something out of whack like "2002" for the year, and a wrong month, day, etc.
You can set it to your computers time with a click, then save that.
Mine is a wired network, I crawled under the house to run the cat6 cable, and drilled 15/16" holes through the floor to bring the cable up to the computer(s).
Although the router is easy to set up and administer, the nic's in the boxes give problems on linux. I did have a DGE-530T Gibabit adapter in the RHL 9 box, and although D-Link provided a linux driver, I did not have the kernel source on this install for them to run the kernel recompile to install the driver. They really had a nice setup for that, and I did have RHL 7 and 6 boxes with the kernel source there, not this one.
So I had to swap for a D-Link DFE-530TX+, which was pickup easily by RHL 9. Not fully automatically, but almost.

Catching someone on the network if they use a named XP or '98 box would be easy to spot in the D-Link log, just have to figure out who goes with the name.

-- Rapidweather

Read the article, and it hardly has any further information, other than a picture (welcome) and dimensions (also welcome - and not too bad).

But a bit more info is in the actual Press Release from D-Link;
http://www.dlink.com/press/pr/?prid=299
--
Talk time - up to 5 hours GSM, 2 hours 802.11 wireless mode
Messages - up to 30 messages can be stored at 459 characters each
--
Can't say I'm impressed with that - but it explains why it's a bit lighter, smaller battery. The number of messages stored however is just pathetic.

Had to still google for Dual-Mode; it actually just means it has a phone radio and another form of wireless communications. Lame terminology comes to mind; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual-Mode_Mobile_Phon es

As for the rest of the info - not in the PR either.

But for those of you who have been whining about "I don't want a camera in my phone!" - there you go.. Linux, WiFi, no camera.

Also legally who's responsible to release the sources: the OEM (DLink), the design house (Redsonic), or the company who probably customized the kernel for the SI8210 (Sigma)?

I've called D-Link before myself trying to get that code and of course they'll refer you to RedSonic who of course will refer you to SigmaDesgins.

quick update--nothing new! go figure. I had a hard time getting in touch with dlink last week--waited on hold for about 40 minutes a day for 3 days straight. Got bounced around to a few departements and finally was told they don't release 'that information'. Not really surprised I guess. I'm a little disapointed they didn't at least respond to the letter though although they had absolutely no incentive to. I'll move on to Redsonic I suppose.

We expect people to agree to our Terms of Use but we don't have to obey those from others when we use their products.

How hypocritical!

Have you heard of any of these? Probably not. They're not exactly advertised on buses.

http://www.dlink.com/products/?pid=438&sec=0
http://www.digitrexusa.com/PFS.php
http://www.digion.com/en/pf/pro/dx_main.htm
http://www.rokulabs.com/

While none of these guys are really Microsoft, they all support Microsoft's PlaysForSure standard. The basic difference between these and iTV is iTV works (only) with iTunes. And Roku is audio-only (and less expensive), but follows the same concept.

And, of course, there is also XBox 360+PC.

The "Media PC" may not have arrived, but set-top boxes that allow you to access digital content in your living room are slowly making progress. I bought and abandoned the ViewSonic WMA100 after one too many crashes of its internal operating system, wtf that is, and reading on their website faq that no, they weren't planning on any updates -- way to kiss off future business, ViewSonic -- and replaced it with the D-Link DSM-520. Its internal software is also not perfect, but D-Link has been releasing updates. The vendor supplied server software may or may not be the most useful to you. ;-)

We have it here, from Verizon. The basic home deal is 5/2 Mbps for $35, which is what DSL cost a year ago. My only beef with it is that it uses PPPoE, instead of DHCP. They also block port 80, and you are not supposed to host any servers on it. Our install took about five hours, which included us convincing them to put some extra wires in. Granted, we are a family of computer geeks, so we all had a good time.

We recently changed over our church from a microwave link to the fiber business deal. For $100 a month, we get 15/2 Mbps, five static public IP addresses, and no blocked ports or other interference. What impressed me is that connection is truly static and doesn't have any sort of PPPoE nonsense. Sure beats paying the same price for a 256/256 connection, with one static IP.

Both packages include the D-Link DI-624 Wireless Router. For both setups, I have the router acting as a switch/access point instead of routing, due to the fact that IPCop does the job perfectly well for us.

Looking at the traffic graphs on our IPCop firewalls, we have yet to actually fully utilize the bandwidth available to us.

- How is bandwidth issues Vonage's fault, or even your ISPs? There are many, many gateway devices that are specifically designed to provide QoS for VoIP calls. Dlink makes a consumer-grade, idiot proof box that works pretty good. It simply plugs in between your modem and gateway.

- Lack of e911 features also can't be pinned on Vonage. Despite FCC mandates, many LECs *still* don't allow other companies access to PSAPs. VoIP companies have been fighting an uphill battle when it comes to this. Complain to your state representatives or public utilities commission, not Vonage.

Ah ha, found it.

I wonder why you feel the need to single out DLink as lousy. Sure, some of their stuff is, but so is the stuff any company puts out at the low end. I happen to be running a fairly long range wireless bridge between a couple of buildings, and it's been just fine.

For example, check out this outdoor AP. Combined with this antenna, I've been getting nearly full 54Mb @ 1km for the last 6 months. That includes surviving last hurricane season - during which we lost about an acre of roof. I'd have to say these little AP's don't suck too bad.

Yes, there was some interference issues before those directional antenna were installed. But really, what do you expect on open frequencies? If all you tried to use was the standard rubber ducky antenna, are you really surprised that it sucked? You may not need something that drops down to a 15 degree RF cone, but it sure helps deafen some of the surrounding noise. There are a wide variety of antenna designs available. Remember when you first heard about those Pringles cans? I'll bet the guy that came up with it has read a book like this.

Seriously, I'm no fan of DLink, but I don't think these large-scale operations have the same problems individuals do. The difference is that professionals don't blame the equipment - they find the real problem and fix it. Casual users bitch and moan, (then usually give up), because they don't understand how RF works.

I wonder why you feel the need to single out DLink as lousy. Sure, some of their stuff is, but so is the stuff any company puts out at the low end. I happen to be running a fairly long range wireless bridge between a couple of buildings, and it's been just fine.

For example, check out this outdoor AP. Combined with this antenna, I've been getting nearly full 54Mb @ 1km for the last 6 months. That includes surviving last hurricane season - during which we lost about an acre of roof. I'd have to say these little AP's don't suck too bad.

Yes, there was some interference issues before those directional antenna were installed. But really, what do you expect on open frequencies? If all you tried to use was the standard rubber ducky antenna, are you really surprised that it sucked? You may not need something that drops down to a 15 degree RF cone, but it sure helps deafen some of the surrounding noise. There are a wide variety of antenna designs available. Remember when you first heard about those Pringles cans? I'll bet the guy that came up with it has read a book like this.

Seriously, I'm no fan of DLink, but I don't think these large-scale operations have the same problems individuals do. The difference is that professionals don't blame the equipment - they find the real problem and fix it. Casual users bitch and moan, (then usually give up), because they don't understand how RF works.

who needs a $300 iPod to watch video or a $600 Mac Mini

When you can get the D-Link 520 for $210 and stream video over your home network to your TV.

http://www.dlink.com/products/?pid=438&sec=1

The disk as a media format will be dead by 2010 .

There are products on the market that can stream data from your PC to your TV without the need to burn a disk and they support Winodws DRM for all those video rental services like Vongo ,CinemaNow and MovieLink and many other video services that will be launched in the next 6 months .

The D-Link Wireless HD Media Player can stram data over your home network in HD from your PC ,Network storge device or Flash memory dveice to your TV so who seriouly needs a plastic disk anymore .The D Link media Player costs about $230 as opposed to a HD-DVD player which costs $500+

http://www.dlink.com/products/?sec=1&pid=438

Here's a couple of other ideas.

1. If you are researching the D-Link product line you could download and check the firmware patches for the offending DNS entry, for each of the products your interested in. If you find it then a polite note to tech support for the product selected, as found here http://support.dlink.com/contact/ asking when the update is coming would probably be appropriate.

2. If you own a listed product then a note to customer service here mailto://customerservice@dlink.com asking for the update would be a good thing (TM).

3. If you don't want to contact them via the internet then their number is 1-800-326-1688.

Here's a few places to send the disgruntledosity. If everyone who cared would just send one email a day... another example of how the mindless corporation is grinding intelligence right out of humanity.

Here's a few places to send the disgruntledosity. If everyone who cared would just send one email a day... another example of how the mindless corporation is grinding intelligence right out of humanity.

Here's a few places to send the disgruntledosity. If everyone who cared would just send one email a day... another example of how the mindless corporation is grinding intelligence right out of humanity.

Here's a few places to send the disgruntledosity. If everyone who cared would just send one email a day... another example of how the mindless corporation is grinding intelligence right out of humanity.

I just set the default server manually. Does that help? I can't find any comments to that effect. Also, the D-Link site doesn't show any firmware updates on their site. DI-604 rev E. Google isn't helping me find it either. Here's what I found on the D-Link site ftp://ftp.dlink.com/Gateway/di604_revE1/Firmware
Anybody have an alternative?

DI-604

Ugh. I use one of those at home. I'm glad now that I set a default NTP server when I first set it up, but I doubt this is something most users would do. Here are the instructions for doing this. I don't know if this applies to the other models listed above.

This might also be useful: List of NTP Pool Servers

I had heard a lot of complaints like this about D-Link hardware and had thus avoided them when purchasing network products. But a few months ago, I was in the market for a wireless router. I started off with a Netgear router because I had good success with one of the old purple metal boxes I bought a long time ago. I live in an apartment with a lot of nearby wireless networks, so perhaps the SNR was just too small, but I was constantly losing the connection. Even the wired ethernet connection would drop off momentarily on a regular basis. I fiddled with it for a long time to no avail, so I figured maybe they've gone downhill since moving to the pretty white boxes. When I lived with my parents for a year after college, they had a Linksys WRT54G that seemed really reliable and powerful (although their aluminum siding and roof probably didn't hurt) so I exchanged the Netgear for a Linksys. No problem with the wired connection, but again the wireless problems persisted.

I decided I'd get smart about it and look at reviews online and I saw a lot of good reviews for the D-Link DI-634M. I was a little wary because of what I'd heard before, but I went ahead and gave it a shot. Let me tell you- this thing is GREAT. Set up was a breeze, I didn't have to fiddle with anything, the signal is strong and steady from all over the apartment and in our courtyard downstairs -enough even the wired connection is noticably faster. Maybe the company has had a turnaround, or maybe this product is just an exception, or maybe it's due to fail on me at any minute, but so far I've been quite impressed with this product. YMMV.

I recently installed the new firmware for my 614+. It was released on 3/20/06 and had the revision info "Fixed NTP." Does anyone know how to find out which NTP server the router is using?

If there's one thing I hate more than incompetence, it's people who don't care that they are incompetent and carry on churning out crap regardless of the problems it causes others.

According to this page, D-Link have an office operating in Denmark. This makes them subject to Danish law whether they like it or not. I don't know whether Denmark's computer crime laws cover this, but it wouldn't surprise me.

It already has caught on in a big way for some. I use XBMC to stream audio and video from a media server, and there are other devices out there built to do the same, like MediaMVP, Avel LinkPlayer, D-link DSM-520, and many others. Heck, there's even an entire forum dedicated to such devices over at avsforum.

"That depends if you are a starving student living in a dorm room or cramped apartment, or if you are looking for the ultimate media system to hook into your 7.1 surround system and gigantic hi-def screen that you just had installed in the home theatre room of your upscale house. If it is the former then you probably don't have room to spare for the "heavy lifting" machine, nor the money to purchas the extra hardware. Even if you did find somewhere to put it, the big back-end box with all the whirring drives and fans would probably be audible from every part of your small pad. If it is the latter then I'm sure you have a large attic, basement utility room or spare closet you could wire up and soundproof, as well as the money to get scads of hard drive storage and computing power--so in that case your suggestion is the best one."

There's nothing in the client-server paradigm that implies loud, or expensive.

It can be expensive, but it doesn't have to be

"I don't think that there are really any problems solved by your suggestion personally--if you have a LAN based solution you probably have to do more work to get it to operate to your satisfaction. I suppose it depends on the problems you are trying to solve--if you have 100 movies and thousands of songs and want enough spare drive space to record another 100 hours of TV then you have problems that can only be solved by haveing a media server hidden away somewhere. If you are just looking for a TiVO-like PVR that is hack-friendly and doesn't require paying huge monthly fees for your cable company's "on-demand" digital package, then you have no problems to solve--just get a Mini-ITX board, fill the RAM slots and stuff it in a cute little box with a laptop hard drive of reasonable size and the bulk of your time will be software configuration."

The problem the home-brew crowd is trying to solve is creating an economical media manager using different commodity parts that really weren't ment for such a role (integration issues), and having heat, noise, and a smaller feature list than say a commercial purpose-built device.

My suggestion works based on the efficient division of labour principle. While there's still the integration issue (the nature of all home-brews). Heat and noise (if any) are moved elsewere, and what you have in your media center is only what absolutely needs to be there (basically I/O ports). You also gain the ability to easily expand your setup without either taking things apart, or rebuilding. Plus there's all that free space you gain.

Man, slashdotters can be so fucking annoying sometimes...

1. Another defunct one: Turtle Beach Audiotron
2. Yet Another: KiSS DP-500
3. This one's actually for sale on Amazon: Roku Soundbridge M1000
4. Also for sale: Slim Devices Squeezebox
5. On the high ($2000) end, Denon AVR-4036 Receiver has streaming (among many other things.)
6. And the winner of our "strangest item": sermonaudio.com internet radio. Though I suspect you'd have to hack it to get it to play anything other than their content :)
7. Oh, I guess you don't have to hack it, you can just buy the un-sermonized version as Penguin Radio.
8. D-Link has a DVD player with internet streaming radio called DSM-320RD Medialounge. It's even wireless. There's also a HD version, the DSM-520.
9. Even Philips has a series called Boombox.

I'm sorry my initial example was poor. I just grabbed the first link and didn't look at it much. Nonetheless, there are umpteen fucking examples of streaming internet radio devices. Many of them are available on the shelf, even at places like Circuit Shitty. And I've seen several at Fry's, come to think of it.

Man, slashdotters can be so fucking annoying sometimes...

1. Another defunct one: Turtle Beach Audiotron
2. Yet Another: KiSS DP-500
3. This one's actually for sale on Amazon: Roku Soundbridge M1000
4. Also for sale: Slim Devices Squeezebox
5. On the high ($2000) end, Denon AVR-4036 Receiver has streaming (among many other things.)
6. And the winner of our "strangest item": sermonaudio.com internet radio. Though I suspect you'd have to hack it to get it to play anything other than their content :)
7. Oh, I guess you don't have to hack it, you can just buy the un-sermonized version as Penguin Radio.
8. D-Link has a DVD player with internet streaming radio called DSM-320RD Medialounge. It's even wireless. There's also a HD version, the DSM-520.
9. Even Philips has a series called Boombox.

I'm sorry my initial example was poor. I just grabbed the first link and didn't look at it much. Nonetheless, there are umpteen fucking examples of streaming internet radio devices. Many of them are available on the shelf, even at places like Circuit Shitty. And I've seen several at Fry's, come to think of it.

There are wired and wireless appliances for the house. Philips have a load like this and you can pick that and this from Dlink up from your local PCWorld. At home I have an Airport Express plugged into my stereo and Airfoil feeding every kind of audio media into it. Even Sky have got into the act with their Skygnome (needs Java, isn't really worth it). The hardware is there, basically.

Here's the linkage...they basically list all their PCMCIA models and HW revisions, and link to a number of Linux driver projects, including Madwifi, Prism54, linux-wlan-ng, etc.

http://support.dlink.com/faq/view.asp?prod_id=357& question=General%20Wireless

Many of the mistakes made were basic design flaws, like the following:

Mistake #1: Overheating CPU or GPU

I've rarely bought PC systems that had serious overheating problems. The only system I can think of off the top of my head was a white box dual Opteron server (back when they were initially intoduced) that would overheat if crammed in the closet. Like the 360, this system was built with inadaquate cooling (the problem was more egregious on the server because it was in a HUGE case to accomodate a RAID array).

This problem is actually easily dealt with. As discussed in the article all that is really necessary is to increase the power of the fans substantially, that would increase the noise but cest la vie.

Mistake #2: No MSN Music

This is basically a crock. You can buy music on your PC and then play it on your 360, PC, or a portable player. And you can do it with iTunes, Rhapsody, etc. It strikes me that this is FAR more useful than having your music stuck on the 360. It's clear that MS is targeting people that either own PCs or have easy access to them. (which describes most people on /.)

Mistake #3: No HDMI support

While claim and claim is made about Microsoft offering HDMI or DVI support in the future "with a special cable," I find these rumors very hard to believe. If HDMI support was as trivial as making a cable, don't you think Monster Cable or any of the 3rd party manufacturers would have already made a cable

Pacific Cable has one http://www.pacificcable.com/Xbox-360-VGA-DVI-Conve rter.html. It's "only" $650 though. I'm assuming it contains an Analogue to Digital Converter at that price, which means that the "official" kit will probably have to do something similar. The PS3 will almost certainly have a HDMI port (or DVI port, they're very similar). Still, this is completely dropping to ball over at MS. More rush to market madness.

Mistake #4: 20GB is too small

The author is just high on this one. 20GB is plenty if you aren't hosting music, video, etc. on the 360 which is exactly what was intended. The author of the article does not apparently grasp the concept of Windows Media Extender. The idea is that you have a central "server" Media Centre PC and then you use Extender boxes as remote front-ends for the PC on your Home Theatre, etc. The 360 just has the same functionality as those $100 UPnP boxes you can get at Frys, like this thing http://www.dlink.com/products/?pid=318&sec=1 from D-Link. These things have NO hard drives.

Mistake #4: 20GB is too small

The big downside of the HD is that it's 2.5", so it's slow (probably faster than the XBOX HD though). The author seems to have forgotten the entire purpose of the HD was disk caching to make games load faster, making the internal HD USB2 is a terrible idea in this context.

Mistake #5: Microtransaction Security

Beyond nit-picking. In the U.S., you don't have any liablity if the 360 is stolen, etc. In Europe you DO, but you're probably already using a debit card for this reason. Hell, if you're in the US you're probably using a debit card too because of the lovely 30% interest rates we're seeing (rant, rant).

Mistake #6: No Web Browser

Yeah, this sucks ass. If you want to defend MS on this one, explain how the 360 doesn't have a web browser but the DREAMCAST did? It seems like this would be trivially easy to add (MS could even update through Live if they felt it necessary) and users would like it. The fact that MS even has a specialized product for this niche (MSNTV, formerly WebTV), and consequently had ready-made software, is even more mystifying.

Mistake #9: No System-Wide Video Calibration

This is a real complaint, but the author is making it in an obtuse way. The problem is that the 360 is "optomized" for