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I have to agree. I love the SlimServer, but I don't have a Sqeezebox and instead use it to stream my collection to my desk at work, and to plug my laptop into my stereo at home. Don't get me wrong, I think the Squeezebox is a beautiful piece of engineering, and I do covet the digital output. But I'm not enough of an audiophile to consider it mandatory, and for $300 what me and my family are looking for is something to fully bridge the content on our home computer network and home theater. I want a device that will play our digital music collection through the stereo but also play visual media from our computers, like slideshows of our photos and .AVI and .MPG files, plus do visualizations like those found in WMP/iTunes/Winamp. PrismQ and DLink products and Hauppauge have products that do some or all of that stuff.

How about a "headless" Squeezebox, one without the flourescent display that instead did all the display through a video output? Losing the display would lower the price, too. Maybe even better, keep the same price-point AND keep the high-end pedigree of the SqueezeBox line offering not only composite and SVideo output but by including COMPONENT video output with Faroudja upconversion. THAT'S what I want to buy, from SlimDevices, rather than the DLink and such mentioned above. When can I place my order?

I spent a lot of time working with SveaSoft's images. In general, if you have a old linksys floating around, it's a pretty good way to go. The time requirements for setting things up is non-trivial. This is especially true if you want to do anything sophisticated, ie, bridging, WDS or strange NAT tricks.

I am surprised CISCO doesn't do their own Linux adaptation for these boxes. I had no idea they were so popular that they actually would consider a different model for them.

Strangly QoS does not work very well with the latest versions from SveaSoft, as well as SveaSoft now locking downloads to a particular MAC address. I also had trouble getting the newer firmware (Talisman) to work cleanly with my box. I ended up buying a D-Link Gamer Wireless router and things just worked well. Having built in 1GBPS ethernet, QoS without the configuration headaches of OpenWRT and Linksys was cool. As with all opensource, it's only free if your time is worthless.

The Cisco 506E is plenty powerful enough to handle just a t1 worth of traffic. Most likely the quality issues are caused by voice packets having to wait their turn when data packets are going through. I don't know all the particulars of the 506E but if it supports traffic prioritization you will want to make sure that's turned on for the VOIP port(s) to start. If that's not an option, try using the multiple VLAN capability of the 506E and put VOIP traffic on it's own VLAN. If the 506E supports it, give the VOIP traffic some dedicated bandwith by configuring the VLAN s for that.

If the 506E doesn't have the options to do the trick you might consider switching to VPN router hardware that does support traffic prioritization.

If switching hardware isn't an option, maybe adding hardware is... You can try using a separate device to prioritize the VOIP traffic. I know Dlink makes a basic device for the task... http://www.dlink.com/products/?sec=1&pid=426

Perhaps you are looking for a solution like this?
DSA-5100http://www.dlink.com/products/?sec= 0&pid=349/

Product Features: Creates Multiple Public Networks with Five Different

Authentication Policies

Supports up to 400 Concurrent Online Users
Advanced User Management with Traffic Monitoring and Policy Enforcement Product Description:

D-Link®, the industry leader in innovative networking solutions, introduces another breakthrough in the Airspot family of service gateway products. As the need for on-demand Internet connectivity continues to grow, the D-Link Airspot DSA-5100 Public/Private Hot Spot Gateway provides large establishments a solid solution for adding multiple public access networks while still maintaining the integrity of an existing private network. The DSA-5100 Hot Spot Gateway is a business-class service gateway designed to segment public and private network infrastructures. By adding a managed switch to the integrated public port, network administrators can deploy several public networks over a large-scale establishment such as a university campus or resort. Through the private port on the DSA-5100, the backend private network such as the campus operation centers or central office, can remain completely separate and secure.

To optimize and maintain network up time and performance, the DSA-5100 Hot Spot Gateway has two built-in WAN ports that support link fail-over in order to provide Internet connection redundancy. In the case that the first ISP's connection fails, the second link (if configured and conencted to a second ISP) will take over to ensure that Hot Spot customers with maintain uninterrrupted Internet access. The DSA-5100 supports virtually all WAN connection types including static, dynamic, and PPPoE Client.

The DSA-5100 Hot Spot Gateway also offers several advanced features to help manage and support up to 400 public users online at any time. Additional user management controls include bandwidth control, network policy enforcement, customizable user timer, login/logout web-page, online traffic monitoring, and URL redirection.

To ensure authorized network access, the DSA-5100 supports multiple authentication methods such as POP3, RADIUS, LDAP, internal user database, and external Web (HTTP or HTTPS) authentication. With support for 802.1q VLAN tagging, different authentication policies can be used per administrator-assigned VLAN networks for maximum security. In addition, VLAN tagging helps to segment and prioritize incoming traffic. For the private network, the integrated DHCP server and firewall with Denial of Service (DoS) Protection safeguards the network from malicious attacks and hackers.

Network administrators can manage the DSA-5100 Hot Spot Gateway and all of its features via the Web-based, CLI, SSH, or SNMP v2 management interfaces. With a wide array of convenient management utilities, the D-Link Airspot DSA-5100 Public/Private Service Gateway is an efficient and powerful hotspot solution.

Many of the wireless products out there allow you to use two different frequencies to double pump the wireless connection.

Here is one of Dlink's offering called AirPlusXtremeG

I recently bought a DLINK DGL-4300, and while it is definitely not as cool as this, it does work well. For someone who gets to the 'burn the ISO' part of the article and starts to get nervous, this would be a safer bet. Starting price is around $140

Why do you need a company to set it up?
D-Link has out of the box wireless access by fee/free/timer/whatever complete with a little printer that gives out a code to put in the gateway web page. A shop owner can give out a ticket for x minutes with a drink purchase or a few extra bucks or whatever scheme you think up. Just hook it up to a business DSL or cable and away you go.

Get one of these
http://www.dlink.com/products/?sec=0&pid=402

and one of these
http://www.dlink.com/products/?model=DSA-3100P

Everytime someone orders a coffee, your print a ticket (30min of free wifi time), beyond that 30min you charge, maybe the price of a coffee for every 30min or something.

Lots of little features built in, simple interface for rapid turnover (press a button and it generates and prints the login id/password for you). Its the best solution I know of for Cafe's.

Get one of these
http://www.dlink.com/products/?sec=0&pid=402

and one of these
http://www.dlink.com/products/?model=DSA-3100P

Everytime someone orders a coffee, your print a ticket (30min of free wifi time), beyond that 30min you charge, maybe the price of a coffee for every 30min or something.

Lots of little features built in, simple interface for rapid turnover (press a button and it generates and prints the login id/password for you). Its the best solution I know of for Cafe's.

Hotspot in a box
AirSpot
Last but not least

While I like the idea of it being a small device I still prefer 'always' having Wireless Broadband if the hotel does not have it. There is usually another hotel in the same vacinity that does have a wireless network which can usually be hijacked. The basic set up I use is my 17" powerbook, an Apple Airport Extreme base station (just because I have one, you can get much cheaper base stations from other manufacturers), a can antenna(yes I am too lazy to build my own), and a Dlink Bridge.

Basically you set up the base station to DHCP from the bridge (via ethernet). Now the Dlink Bridge has a pretty lame antenna attatched to it. So what I do is use the Cantenna (yes, see lazy comment above) and point it in the direction that I want it to. If the network is encrypted I use the wireless card that came in my original airport base station (an Orinoco silver card), since the Airport Extreme one has closed source drivers (that have not been reversed yet), too sniff and collect packets. Kismac is an excellent wireless tool for the Mac. It supports several different cards and supports Wordlist, Brute Force, and Scheduling Attacks (which I find usually get me into most networks). The Dlink Bridge has a pretty simple web interface that allows you to set it up to join a specific network. It also supports scanning for networks, though I find that it doesn't seem to pick up everything that maybe out there. I set this up on top of those ridiculously tall TV cabinets and I can kick back on the bed without those pesky ethernet cables. This can also be useful if you have a large house (or a small house with interferance) to connect up in rooms that were previously spotty.

The pre-made Can Antenna can be purchased for $49.99 (via CompUSA or the web), the Dlink Bridge is $109 from Fry's, Airport Express for $199 (various vendors).

I have found that some hotels have pretty crappy coverage in the outer rooms, so they let you 'barrow' (for a deposit) one of the Dlink Bridges, preconfigured to join their networks. Pretty handy. So if you happen to be in a hotel toward the outside and the coverage is spotty, you may want to check with the front desk to see if they have one. It could make your life much easier. =)

Blocking every port from 1024-65555 is unrealistic...
In fact, if you use passive FTP to download anything from the internet, if you use MSN Messenger to transfer files or view webcams, if you transfer files by DCC via an IRC client... or use any other application which is not port range specific.
This means that anytime you need to do such thing you have to manually open wide 1024-65535 ports and go back to normal mode after.

You're forgetting that a lot of these firewalls have stateful connections... meaning, if you originate a connection out (such as with passive FTP... you're told which port to connect to), it automatically is allowed back in in response.

And for services that require that you have ports open and back to the particular computer (active ftp, eMule, the webcam stuff, etc), a lot of the modern firewalls also include support for Port Triggering. Basically, if you specify the ports you'll want to use in the firewall, it can automatically forward that range of ports to whichever internal computer "triggers the port forwarding." This means, you can use eMule... then your roomate can use it after just by hitting the firewall trigger. An example of how this might look on a somewhat typical home firewall is here: D-Link firewall.

And if that sounds complicated, it is no more complicated then having to tell the Windows firewall to allow those same connections into the computer.

The home hardware firewall is very easy to use... and the parent stated, there's no reason for everyone to have one. Heck, even my 60 year-old mom uses one. 8)

You can do it with these:

"HotSpot" Gateways
http://www.dlink.com/products/?sec=0&pid=349
http://www.dlink.com/products/?sec=0&pid=173
http://www.dlink.com/products/?sec=0&pid=402

"HotSpot" Ticket Printer
http://www.dlink.com/products/?sec=0&pid=282

All they have to do, if they have the printer, is hit a button and it dynamically creates a user account/password and prints it up.

---
telnet://sinep.gotdns.com -- It's a BBS -- Read my journal.

You can do it with these:

"HotSpot" Gateways
http://www.dlink.com/products/?sec=0&pid=349
http://www.dlink.com/products/?sec=0&pid=173
http://www.dlink.com/products/?sec=0&pid=402

"HotSpot" Ticket Printer
http://www.dlink.com/products/?sec=0&pid=282

All they have to do, if they have the printer, is hit a button and it dynamically creates a user account/password and prints it up.

---
telnet://sinep.gotdns.com -- It's a BBS -- Read my journal.

You can do it with these:

"HotSpot" Gateways
http://www.dlink.com/products/?sec=0&pid=349
http://www.dlink.com/products/?sec=0&pid=173
http://www.dlink.com/products/?sec=0&pid=402

"HotSpot" Ticket Printer
http://www.dlink.com/products/?sec=0&pid=282

All they have to do, if they have the printer, is hit a button and it dynamically creates a user account/password and prints it up.

---
telnet://sinep.gotdns.com -- It's a BBS -- Read my journal.

You can do it with these:

"HotSpot" Gateways
http://www.dlink.com/products/?sec=0&pid=349
http://www.dlink.com/products/?sec=0&pid=173
http://www.dlink.com/products/?sec=0&pid=402

"HotSpot" Ticket Printer
http://www.dlink.com/products/?sec=0&pid=282

All they have to do, if they have the printer, is hit a button and it dynamically creates a user account/password and prints it up.

---
telnet://sinep.gotdns.com -- It's a BBS -- Read my journal.

Check out Proxim AP-700 It support 802.11abg, 802.11i AES, etc.
Proxim also has has other AP's that support 802.11i. I think the D-Link 7200AP also suport 802.11i, but I may be wrong. Oh yeah, and you can get 'em "right now."

I don't deny they exist. Here, now I can say I've seen one. Couldn't find the anything PCIe but vid cards on ATI's site, though.

Reviews
http://gamesfirst.com/v4/index.php?m=l&i=372
http://www.gamingillustrated.com/dgl4300.php
http://firingsquad.com/hardware/d-link_dgl-4300/

Competition
http://www.dlink.com/giveaway/monthlyGiveaway.asp

1. Pay the $30 fee for your in-flight connection.
2. Connect your own pocket wireless AP to your laptop.
3. Offer the rest of the plane access to your AP for $10.
4. Profit! (?)

• Important Stuff

I am aware that the testing releases have some type of support for bluetooth. I am using D-Link Bluetooth DBT-120 on my WIndows to Sync to my Palm for the last ~2 years. It was not easy to make it work on the Debian side. Although I consider it the fault of D-Link for not providing "open specs" or a Linux driver for their product, as a user, and at the time I bought it, it did not work. I have been having trouble finding which hardware is expected to work seamlessly with Linux.

D-Link makes one that supports multiple formats and has high end output for stereos (optical) and high end output for televisions (component) http://support.dlink.com/products/view.asp?product id=DSM-320 Not by any means portable though.

Don't talk such rubbish. I can buy a D-Link DI-804HV for CAD$77 (probably about 60 or 65 USD$). There's got to be other reasonably priced ones out there too.

Wireless antennas that extend range significantly (directional and omnidirectional): http://dlink.com/products/category.asp?cid=1&sec=0 #cid_59

You've got several options.

Keyspan makes two models, one of which also works with the Airport Express, if you want remote control of Airtunes.

If you have a bluetooth phone and you buy a mini with the bluetooth option, you can use Salling Clicker which is a pretty cool bit of software for controlling your mac with your phone. I use it for iTunes, but it's usable to control the DVD player. Actually you can use it to control pretty much anything that is scriptable on your mac.

If you didn't get the Bluetooth BTO option on you mini, you can always add a USB Bluetooth adapter

There might be other solutions as well. These are just the ones I know about.

I would suggest this http://www.dlink.com/products/?sec=0&pid=363 instead, Macs being USB only and all.

This will open a brand new market share for Apple, since a simple KVM switch can make that mac very tempting, for me at least.

The power of Mac OS X, suddenly very affordable. (also, expect that box to have the same clean pure white design lines of other current models)

DLink makes some wireless cameras. Page is here: http://www.dlink.com/products/category.asp?cid=60& sec=0

Here is one from Linksys: http://www.linksys.com/products/product.asp?grid=3 3&scid=38&prid=650

It's shaped like a case of Coke... Not the ideal for stacking with the rest of my equipment.

How about the D-Link Media Player instead? It's about an inch and a half tall, and plays all my media to the TV (wirelessly) and without a hard drive either.

In fact, there are other devices that could make this even easier. I saw that Linksys will be comming out with what may be the perfect product for you.

Now you should know that there are other (albiet more interesting) options. If you want to go for pure coolness and geekocity, I have just the thing. My brother managed to get a laser link for connecting networks between two buildings a few years ago. With think it's not functional (never tried, think parts might be missing), but it's a cool thing. We have two large units (look like outdoor security camera casings) that each have laser units in them. You point them at eachother, wire everything up, and voila! the networks are supposed to be connected. They were used at a local school years and years ago. Ours are probably slow, and we know they are tolken ring (that's about all we know) but they exist. You could probably find something similiar if you looked enough.

As for your current problems, I don't know. I assume you are running Windows? If you were running Linux you could find out WHY the network is going down (watch for errors from the USB subsystem) but I don't know how (or if) you can do that in Windows. My guess is your 20' USB cable is part of the problem (just a hunch). Also, are you using directional antennas? Not just directional (in that they are not omni-directional) but HIGHLY directional antennas (like Yagis or the pringles WiFi antenna)? That might help too.

Also, now that I think of it, I think many accesspoints have an option to bridge networks built in. A quick check says that my Netgear WG602v2 supports it. But it looks like both ends have to be operating in "bridge mode" (although you can still serve clients in bridge mode, it looks like). So that's a 3rd option.

In fact, there are other devices that could make this even easier. I saw that Linksys will be comming out with what may be the perfect product for you.

Now you should know that there are other (albiet more interesting) options. If you want to go for pure coolness and geekocity, I have just the thing. My brother managed to get a laser link for connecting networks between two buildings a few years ago. With think it's not functional (never tried, think parts might be missing), but it's a cool thing. We have two large units (look like outdoor security camera casings) that each have laser units in them. You point them at eachother, wire everything up, and voila! the networks are supposed to be connected. They were used at a local school years and years ago. Ours are probably slow, and we know they are tolken ring (that's about all we know) but they exist. You could probably find something similiar if you looked enough.

As for your current problems, I don't know. I assume you are running Windows? If you were running Linux you could find out WHY the network is going down (watch for errors from the USB subsystem) but I don't know how (or if) you can do that in Windows. My guess is your 20' USB cable is part of the problem (just a hunch). Also, are you using directional antennas? Not just directional (in that they are not omni-directional) but HIGHLY directional antennas (like Yagis or the pringles WiFi antenna)? That might help too.

Also, now that I think of it, I think many accesspoints have an option to bridge networks built in. A quick check says that my Netgear WG602v2 supports it. But it looks like both ends have to be operating in "bridge mode" (although you can still serve clients in bridge mode, it looks like). So that's a 3rd option.

D-Link Makes one that'll play XVid (and divx) files. Unsure if they support an AC3 audio codec, but still really cool, and feature rich.

I built a media center PC once. They rock because they can always have the codecs upgraded to the current fad, and play whatever you can throw at it. I tried XP MCE, and MythTV and Freevo. MythTV by far has the most features, and XP MCE is the easiest to setup and config.

The bad is that they tie up a computer that could be doing something more productive. A wireless appliance is cheap as hell, and accomplish much of the same tasks, and frees up your computers to do real stuff.

There's some nice cases for $500 that can make your living room media pc look like a stereo component, or for $120 on ebay you can get the d-link that also fits in, and does much of the same stuff.

Maybe the D-Link MediaLounge is more what you're looking for.

Yes. The D-Link MediaLounge is pretty much exactly that. It's got wireless, and can pick up files from watever machines in your network are running the server software. It's doing pretty much everything I ask of it except playing my divx files. (mp3, jpg, avi, mpeg, etc no problem but not divx). Luckily my divx have most all been encoded to mpeg long ago....

I just picked up a D-Link Media Server for $150 yesterday.

It's got wired and wireless network. Audio outputs Optical/Coax/Composite. Video Outputs S-Video/Composite/Component (anything I could imagine hooking to my stereo or tv)...

I've got my MP3s, MPEGs, and JPGs on a server downstairs, and can play most everything in my living room. Handy remote control blends in with the rest on the cofffee table, and the unit itself is the smallest thing in the AV console. (It's only about an inch and a half high).

It's about what I've been looking for, and for a lot less money than any I've seen the last few years. It won't rip/burn CD's like this guy wants to, but that's really not something I need to do in my living room anyways.

$150, and about 10 minutes to get it to talk to my wireless network, and it's done...

Looking at the tutorial for the camera, it doesn't appear that there's anything to stop anyone in wifi range from intercepting the video stream. Seems to be an odd oversight in something intended to provide security.

I guess that might be acceptable if the cameras only looked outside, but your neighbors might have other ideas...

I bought one of these Dlink internet cameras at Fry's, and it works pretty darn good checking in on my little newborn girl. She is 9 days old. :)

D-Link has some cameras with integrated webservers with a self loading java interface viewable from most browsers. You can even tell it to send you an email or upload shots to an ftp server. cost ~$130.

Goddamn. The things people do to run Windows... It makes me glad I use Linux.

I've been doing (most of) this for a couple of years with the D-Link DSB-R100 and free software available on the web - recording, scripting, scheduling, pre-sets, just not the "instant pause" a la TIVO. Check it out at http://presslink.dlink.com/pr/?prid=95

D-Link's USB FM radio I bought one of these 5 or 6 years ago. It worked OK, but the software was pretty bad.

I've been using a similar D-Link router (DI-704p) for about 4 yrs. Very easy to use, very dependable. It's excellent web interface makes DHCP setup and port-forwarding a breeze. And no, it doesn't discriminate against Linux.

http://www.dlink.com/products/category.asp?cid=2

I most certainly like how slashdot provides links in its articles

I am more likely than not to come home with a completely incompatable device, made by a company that is vehemently anti-linux.

A written admission by the vendor, taking the responsibility that the product is defective if it will not work under Linux.

Sample product.

Compare:
SMC TigerSwitch 8624T
Dell PowerConnect 5224
NetGear GSM7324
DLink DGS-3324SR
Well, that's all of them, except for Linksys, which is just rebranded Cisco equipment.
And of course, they all use COMPLETELY DIFFERENT firmware. Lovely.

As far as drivers and D-Link compatibility, I just googled for "d-link drivers linux" - the first result was D-Link's own "unsupported community drivers" page. As far as distro ... look, if you're going to end up with a server, you can probably scratch gentoo off the list; if you're not doing serious optimization, it's got no advantages over (and some disadvantages to) Debian. Don't go with Mandrake; it's just a wimped-down version of Fedora. Fedora or RHEL would be my vote, but Debian is also a good choice. SuSE is there, and it demonstrates the stereotypical good German engineering, but it's harder to get the FTP site to cooperate, and there's less community support.

Don't go with Knoppix, as some have suggested - if you have a few hundred and an afternoon, build the box, or for a bit more, buy a cheapo TV-special from Dell or whoever. You won't need as much of a computer, since Linux tends not to be as resource-hungry. Installing the distro rather than using a CD will erase that many more hassles. Also, USE A DIFFERENT COMPUTER! Do NOT try dual-booting; if something goes south, that extra connection to the web will be a troubleshooting $DIETY{}send. Plus, then you can share stuff more easily between the two computers (Samba, SFTP, etc). Dual-booting is nothing more than a PITA. Especially since your company might foot some of the bill.

Mono can be your IDE for C# stuff.

Whatever you do, find a good IRC channel, and maybe a forum or two, dedicated to the distro. If you go with Fedora, try forward.freenode.net, #fedora

Why waste any more time on it at all?

Why go to the moon and never go back?, Why improve on ideas when the old ideas are great?, Why fix it if it ain't broke?

I can't honestly comment on the technical aspect of how big a problem everyone using this tech might cause but someone ought to let D-Link know.

It's like the ringtone industry that is starting to develop, you pay them and let everyone else hear it, if it truly is bad for comms in general, the world should know how bad it is, and what it's going to cost to fix it so we can all use the wires already within the walls for what they are possibly capable of.

You mean powerline ethernet? Sure...

• D-Link
• Netgear
• Linksys