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What would Canada really be losing if it couldn't buy Cisco technology? Canadians can just as easily buy a switch or router from Juniper, Nortel, or D-Link (instead of Linksys, which Cisco bought). Do you forget (or neglect, or not know) that Nortel is a *Canadian* company and a leader in optical, wireless, and VoIP technology? And Wi-LAN was a leader in OFDM networking long before wireless LANs became so popular.

I bought a D-Link AP and I remember seeing the admin tool that same feature. Unfortunately I don't have two of these, but officially they support that.

Linksys

Cisco

I know many WAPs can also serve as a bridge.

Here is a link to a neat resource that can be used to find this info: Google

You replaced a wireless router with an airport? I think that's in a slightly different class given it's just an access point. I've never configured an airport, but I've enjoyed the reliability of it from a laptop. Does it have a web-based interface or anything where you can configure WEP and/or limit MAC addresses, or does Apple provide some sort of configuration software instead?

That is pretty poor about the Netgear router. My router had some minor but annoying flaws out of the box, but two firmware upgrades made it flawless. Still inexcusable, but in the end it runs better than the routers I owned from Linksys or D-Link. I remember buying the damn thing and thinking, "All I want is a decent, reliable router that works out of the box and doesn't die after a year!" Apparently that's too much to ask in an industry where everyone is rushing to be first to market...

I was still VERY impressed with the print server on the D-Link 714P+ router I owner. Worked with every OS I threw at it flawlessly, so I bought one of these since the Netgear didn't have a print server. I figure it was a good buy because now I'm not tied to replacing my router with only printer server-enabled ones. The thing has ports for both USB and parallel printers!

You ask what the best way to network a neighborhood. Why ask without telling us about the arrangement of the houses. Density is everything for determining the best answers. Needless to say this is complex question. Technologies change. Spend your money on reusable parts and skimp on expensive technically sensitive parts.

If the houses can be clustered around (100 Meters from) a neighborhood switch in a coms locker, use cat5e or better for IP and voice services. TV is cheaper on coax. This way the neighborhood can use whatever is cheapest for the BaseT IP connection. If the density of houses is lower, use Cablemodems or fiber to each house from one central coms locker. Fiber and CMTS/Cable Modems are expensive for the bandwidth.

My recommendation:
Build a coms locker for each 100Meter radius cluster of houses. Connect the lockers with a backbone of fiber and coax for TV. Connect the houses with Cat5e and coax for TV to the lockers. Lockers will need electrical power for Gigabit switches and coax-TV signal boosters. At the lockers, use IP switches to avoid sniffers, no firewalls or wifi because someone will have to maintain it. Put these burdens on the home owners. The lockers should require no maintenance and recover gracefully from power outages.

Today 100baseTX (100Mb) hardware is cheapest. Tomorrow Gigabit 1000baseT (1000Mb) hardware could be much better with future lower price. With $5 10/100Mb nics or $30 Gigabit nics on PriceWatch.com, I would go Gigabit, but all the gigabit hubs and switches are more expensive too. Gigabit switches at $75 vs. 10/100 switches at $40. Cat5e is $54 per 1000 feet (304Meters) of riser jacket. Labor is expensive, and replacing 100Mb hardware later is somewhat expensive, so go gigabit now.

Digging conduits is expensive and dangerious but much more secure and much bigger bandwidth than the alternatives. Conduit is adaptable and has long 30+ year life span. Make sure all utilites (gas, electric, telephone, cableTV, water, sewer) are documented before trenching. Use a walk-behind trencher to place conduit. Use conduit because you can add and replace low voltage wire, fibre, coax, without re-digging trenches. Running 3 Cat5e drops to each house will allow 1 cable for 4 telephone lines, 1 IP network connection, and 1 extra cable (backup, more bandwidth or telephone lines). Since the labor is the expensive part, put the spair/extra/unassigned cable in and conduit from each house to the locker.

Hanging wires from telephone poles is cheaper, but lightning, storms, political aprroval and ugliness are very big problems. Consider power over Ethernet for any 100Mb remote hubs and repeaters. I don't believe PoE will work with Gigabit, because Gigabit uses all 8 conductors where 10/100Mb uses only 4 conductors.

These conduits need to arrive in each house at a demarcation point, typically a coms panel. This coms panel is where all the homes coax and cat5 drops connect. Here is where the hubs switches and routers should be placed. Place the tv coax splitter here as well. Leviton sells a very expensive ($100) home coms panel. It is quick it that is what you want. I would rather take the time and crimp rj45 plugs on the wires so that they go straight into the home network switches. If you have the money and less time, buy a 110 punch down block and buy your patch cables for connecting blocks to the home network switch.

Home network security is very important. Use a firewall appliance to connect your conduit datapipe to your home network at your coms panel. Unfortunately there is not a gigabit version of the D-link Di-604 10/100 broadband router/firewall. This makes it more difficult to secure each homes gigabit data network economically. Centralized neighborhood security is expensive and t

Mini-itx Motherboard (Fanless, Very Small) ~$115
80GB HardDrive $70
Gigabit NIC* $25
Pretty Case $100
Linux Free*
Total ~280-305
*Optional
^Requires Initial Work (Maybe there is a handy Distro for this type of thing I don't know?)
BTW Newegg.com says they will carry mini-itx soon so prices may get much better in the US.

Actually, 802.11g can transfer up to 54Mbps (unless you don't have strong signal strength). But according to D-Link website 108Mbps wireless networks may be on the way in. I want...

Check out the DVC-1000, or its wireless sibling DVC-1100.

I think Best Buy has the "wired" version for roughly $200, and Newegg has it for a bit less.

Check out the DVC-1000, or its wireless sibling DVC-1100.

I think Best Buy has the "wired" version for roughly $200, and Newegg has it for a bit less.

You said _easy_, didn't you?
Dlink makes something like that

Too expensive or me (just a couple hundred dollars, but I live in Uruguay, South America), but you said you were willing to pay good money.

i have a deaf friend who just had this service set up at his house using his cable modem connection. in fact, he was on a dial-up previously, but had the cable modem installed just for this.

it's very nice. they are using a modified dlink videophone unit and the quality is superb. he usually uses it later in the evening when the wan traffic has died down some and his framerates are consistently very high. very usable for asl.

not to mention, it is very cool that now i can call him on my regular pots phone and he can "talk" to me through the operator.

all in all, a very cool use of technology to improve someone's life.

I want to hack my D-Link DI-604 Router, but I cant find a How-to that will help me learn.
Can any point out a "how-to hack an appliance router"?
I spent a ton of time tweeking the settings with the nice but slow HTML interface, so I want to be able to upload ip and domain block rules as text files.
I want to tweak the from and subject strings on the logs emailed to me.
I want to learn if PoE works with my router.
I want consider changes and tweeks to the kernal. Or changes to the HTML interface.
Any one know where to start reading?

MacOS refugee, paper MCSE, Linux wanna-ba

The enterprise grade Orinoco APs have the ability to authorize in a number of different ways. Even via Radius Server for packet shaping, MAC based authorization, maintenance, more. That's how they do it at Higley's Coffee in La Canada. (Los Angeles foothills area. Google.)

Heck, you could even use a consumer grade AP like the perfectly reliable and functional D-Link 614+. I use this AP at home and it's insanely reliable, quite secure, and feature-filled. (Just make sure you reset the passwords, turn remote admin off if you're not going to use it, etc...) I have yet to see that box freeze, crash, or allow spurious packets to my LAN. Amazing box. (The new firmware might suck. I don't know about that. Mine's a tank.)

Free WiFi with a reliable connection and bandwidth is one of the metrics by which I judge a coffee shop these days. (Tolerable or better coffee is still on the list.) I'm willing to travel farther for a shop with WiFi.

Yeah. Free. Not as in beer. As in free. I would figure in this day and age a coffee house is going to have some sort of broadband for business use anyway. APs aren't that expensive, and you can usually find trustworthy geeks at a coffeeshop more than willing to set it up for you. (To protect your internal network from inside, to protect it from outside, etc.)

That and good placement of power outlets, including outside for us smokers.

For a quick, kind of dirty solution the Beamer product looks to be adequate but, again, it's not going to feel like face to face.

If you're looking for something with higher quality, there are standalone units that work over IP. The obvious advantage is broadband speed allowing much nicer frame rates (as several people have described with the Mac iChat system) and they don't require a PC (though some ISPs require PCs to set up broadband service). The disadvantages are setup (might be tough to talk a non-techie through it) and broadband cost (of course, this is cancelled out with frequent use because of long-distance savings).

D-Link has two TV-connecting IP videophone models, both wireless and wireful (the latter goes for $149.95 after $50 mail-in rebate at Amazon).

For a quick, kind of dirty solution the Beamer product looks to be adequate but, again, it's not going to feel like face to face.

If you're looking for something with higher quality, there are standalone units that work over IP. The obvious advantage is broadband speed allowing much nicer frame rates (as several people have described with the Mac iChat system) and they don't require a PC (though some ISPs require PCs to set up broadband service). The disadvantages are setup (might be tough to talk a non-techie through it) and broadband cost (of course, this is cancelled out with frequent use because of long-distance savings).

D-Link has two TV-connecting IP videophone models, both wireless and wireful (the latter goes for $149.95 after $50 mail-in rebate at Amazon).

I just ordered a new laptop and I'll need a new Wi-Fi card for it. Guess what brand I'm not going to pick? Unfortunately, between Linksys violating the GPL and Belkin hijacking URLs, D-Link is about the only remaining choice. Unfortunate not becuase there's anything wrong with D-Link, but because choice is good.

Sheesh, why don't we just rename "AskSlashdot" to "AskGoogle" and be done with it? These things are common as muck; single port D-Link's can be had from as little as #30 in the UK if you shop around, and they even do wireless models. Intel's Netport range is also very good (I even have one at home), they are more expensive than the D-Links, but have much broader protocol support. Since you need to talk to non-Windows systems, you'll need to ensure that your device supports a standard like LPD that you can actually talk too (unless you want to install Samba).

D-Link has some nice units that are OS independant.

And as I pointed out the queue name is not the core question.
He's already said he looked on D-Link's site (although not that hard because the answer to the queue name question is right here).
Yes, the attitude is one thing, but y'know what? This isn't a site for newbies! It's "News for NERDS etc.
But it's a slow news day, so what can ya do? :)

I am greatly tired of such over-used cliches.

My girlfriend has a PowerBook, and I have an IBM T30. There is no way on earth I would ever choose a flimsy PowerBook over my ThinkPad (which by the way, has the best keyboard-on-a-laptop ever)

My girlfriend has an Apple mouse, you know, the overpriced oval shaped single button mouse. Are you going to tell me that hunk of junk is supposed to beat the far more elegant Microsoft Mouse?

Would you really want one of apples overpriced/underfeatured Airport products over something with far more features, far less the cost, and the same ease of use from d-link?

Let us put an end to this "Apple is automagically better" garbage. Sure Apple's products/projects are great, but it is an unneeded slap in the face to everyone else to assume there are inferior by default.

Sunny Dubey

I did a similar setup recently for my father's bicycle stores and here is a photo gallery of the results. I have an aversion to Linksys (their tech support is horrible) and so I became a D-Link convert a few months back. We bought eight DWL-2000AP access points/bridges (you can select the mode via the web interface) and eight of their DWL-P100 Power-over-Ethernet kits. We linked our warehouses to our stores via 24dBi grids (from hyperlinktech.com) and, like you, placed our APs on the mast underneath the antennae. For our enclosures, I chose some inexpensive but very well-made Davis Instruments enclosures. They are NEMA-4 rated and are sealed against the elements. We're a dealer for Davis so we got them really cheap. Being in South Texas, I was concerned about heat in the boxes so I built custom heat shields, which fit around the NEMA enclosures. I built these from R-Matte (which looks like foam plywood) and foil tape. I also used the foil tape to turn cheap-o indoor grade CAT5e into psuedo-outdoor grade cable.

Chris

I did a similar setup recently for my father's bicycle stores and here is a photo gallery of the results. I have an aversion to Linksys (their tech support is horrible) and so I became a D-Link convert a few months back. We bought eight DWL-2000AP access points/bridges (you can select the mode via the web interface) and eight of their DWL-P100 Power-over-Ethernet kits. We linked our warehouses to our stores via 24dBi grids (from hyperlinktech.com) and, like you, placed our APs on the mast underneath the antennae. For our enclosures, I chose some inexpensive but very well-made Davis Instruments enclosures. They are NEMA-4 rated and are sealed against the elements. We're a dealer for Davis so we got them really cheap. Being in South Texas, I was concerned about heat in the boxes so I built custom heat shields, which fit around the NEMA enclosures. I built these from R-Matte (which looks like foam plywood) and foil tape. I also used the foil tape to turn cheap-o indoor grade CAT5e into psuedo-outdoor grade cable.

Chris

Dlink also makes a model that streams audio in addition to video, the DCS-2100+

Dlink also makes a model that streams audio in addition to video, the DCS-2100+

I've got a D-link bluetooth adapter for my iBook and a mate bought one for his IBM laptop at the same time, seems to work fine for both systems. He can link up to his mobile phone fine, and we set up networking between the two computers using them to see how easy it was - no problem.

Was about the cheapest from a known brand I'd seen as well.

NB: I'm nothing to do with the company, etc. etc.

Linksys 802.11g cards (and the new version of their 802.11b PCI card) don't work in linux. The chipset manufaturer, Broadcom, is holding back specifications on the card. If you want 802.11g in linux, the best solution is the D-Link card, or the Netgear one. Both use the Intersil Prism GT chipset. Intersil is very open about their design, and supports the development of open source drivers for Linux and other operating systems. Even if Broadcom were to open up, Intersil is more likely the company you would be wanting to give money to.

Still, drivers for the Broadcom chipset would be nice, so take a minute to sign the petition.

Anyone care to recommend a good firewall or perhaps firewall/router box for a home/small business network.

Not personal/single machine jobs, but standalone units.

If you want a dedicated appliance, check out the various routers from Linksys and D-Link; they provide a nice, easy-to-use solution in one little box. While I haven't used any personally, I've helped many friends set up connection sharing and firewalling with them; both brands make good products. Also, they have features you might find useful: integrated switches, wireless access points, etc. They don't tend to be as featureful or customizable as Linux-based solutions like SmoothWall, but if you're willing to sacrifice those qualities for convenience, ease of use, and a support hotline, they can be good deals.

You're asking an for an awful lot to include the disclaimer 'don't break the bank'. A good money-saving tip if you like ethernet are D-Link pocket print servers that change the printer's parallel port to an ethernet port. You simply telnet to the print server's IP address to configure it, so it's OS neutral. I was pricing printers for work and this solution was MUCH cheaper than printers with built-in ethernet.

There is a repeater that retransmits the wifi signal of a base station. I found it for $71 with a $10 rebate at BestBuy. Unfortunately it wouldn't work with my Ambicom base station. Take a look at:
http://www.dlink.com/products/wireless/dwl800ap+/

Has anyone had luck with this product?
A base station and 2 or 4 of these should cover the Hamptons mansion.

Most important, it's the only home consumer base that flaunts its support for the Wireless Distribution System, which knits multiple access points together to act as a single network.

Not true. D-Link sells a wireless access point that can act as a repeater. I think other vendors do, too. And their access points are web configurable.

There's only one major caveat on the AirPort: You'll need a Mac to configure it.

Not true either. There are third party utilities for configuring the AirPort from other operating systems, e.g., here.

MSN author Paul Boutin hired a Wi-Fi engineer to help him bathe his property in 802.11 waves,

Ah, MSN author. Never mind, that explains everything.

The Airport is still overpriced and requires a Mac to configure. For a single vendor and multi-platform solution, I would have gone with the D-Link DWL-800AP+ which can be set to access point or repeater mode. At $75 each, populating the house with them should be affordable.

Hmm... the D-Link 900 does wireless repeating too and costs about $70 (according to pricewatch.com). I would bet that at least one of LinkSys, Netgear, SMC and Siemens has one too.

I'd disagree, the solution's already there with very popular off-the-shelf hardware. All you need is:

• One of these phones
  
• Something running This OS
  
• A Bluetooth Adapter
  
• Some software like this and this

Or like this one :

Dlink DWL-AG650

(you even got the APs if you want)

They'll never release source, too avant garde for an old school company.

However there is a good chance they'll have driver support for Linux in the September-December timeframe.

Whether the OEMs like DLink and SMC will buy the Linux Driver Developer Kit is another question.

Either way, Write to DLink strongly explaining to them that you'd like to see Linux drivers!

BTW, You might be able to find a better link on the contact page. I didn't see a better entry other than their Business Deveopment team.

They'll never release source, too avant garde for an old school company.

However there is a good chance they'll have driver support for Linux in the September-December timeframe.

Whether the OEMs like DLink and SMC will buy the Linux Driver Developer Kit is another question.

Either way, Write to DLink strongly explaining to them that you'd like to see Linux drivers!

BTW, You might be able to find a better link on the contact page. I didn't see a better entry other than their Business Deveopment team.

I was just looking at this item from Dlink for doing just that sort of thing. A quick search shows it's only around $50 on the 'net.

Did you know that the "q" in qmail stands for "queer"??? That's SO cool!!!

Top results for one-letter google searches as of Sat May 17
a : Apple
b : B'Tselem, The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the ...
c : CNET.com
d : D-Link Systems, Inc.
e : Welcome to E! Online
f : Welcome to F-Secure, Securing the Mobile Enterprise
g : G*Loomis
h : H-Net, Humanities & Social Sciences Online
i : Yahoo!
j : J-???
k : KDE Homepage - Conquer your Desktop!
l : LEXPRESS.fr : l'info au quotidien. L'actualité économique, ...
m : 3M Worldwide
n : SBC Pacific Bell Knowledge Network Explorer : Online Learning : ...
o : www.oreilly.com -- Welcome to O'Reilly & Associates -- computer ...
p : Alfred P. Sloan Foundation
q : Q4music.com - The World's Greatest Music Magazine Online
s : GNU's Not Unix! - the GNU Project and the Free Software ...
t : AT&T
u : The whatUseek Network
v : Welcome to Bobby WorldWide
w : Welcome to the White House
x : Netscape.com
y : Yahoo!
z : HealthAtoZ - Your Family Health Site

I've been doing something like this with Linux for a while now. I use a D-Link DSB-R100 (unfortunately discontinued), sox, lame, and crontab. I used to burn the resulting MP3s on a CD-R and take them with me to work, but now I've got an iPod, so I use that instead.

I originally used this setup to record NPR talk shows that I couldn't get on the radio while at work (because of lousy radio reception), but now I also use it to record a local radio station's electronic music show (which starts at 10pm on Saturday and runs for six hours!).

Damn. You beat me to the punch. I was just looking at one of their video conference the other day.

According to the sales literature it is a self contained unit with no need to connect to a computer (So sales guys might be able to set one up.) and costs about $270 per unit

Let the buyer beware...

I bought most of my home networking equipment from TigerDirect. They're wonderful, they ship fast and the items arrived in wonderful condition. However, the Belkin products which I ordered had a rebate. I sent in the rebate, 2 months later I recieved an email saying I had not enclosed the UPC. IT WAS STAPLED TO THE REBATE FORM. I attempted to explain this to the support rep, but she wouldn't have it. Obviously, stupid me forgot to photocopy the UPCs. I attempted to ask TigerDirect to clear it up, no such luck.

Needless to say, I don't buy Belkin products from TigerDirect anymore. My girlfriend's home network, which I implemented, is all D-Link now.

Looks great, works great, detects almost everything, and it was even easy to get printing with my Linux-not-supported print server!

Only drawback - I couldn't get my integrated Promise RAID to work. Software RAID worked fine, though.

Only the default community network offers Community Wireless access at speeds up to 44Mbps without messing with unratified 802.11g, our hax0red access points don't corrupt valuable RF spectrum, we sell antennas, and our FAQ doesn't suck.

True story:

I had an Aironet 340 access point that was missing its antennae and required a damn serial cable and terminal to be configured by command line. I got sick of it, and decided to sell it on eBay. It went for $200 with multiple bids.

After that, I went and bought a D-Link 714P+ router, which had a built in switch, built in print server (works with Linux, although not supported), SPI, higher encryption (256 bit WEP), twice the speed if you use their hardware, anteannae, and Web Based administration (no shitty serial cable for me) for $170.

I actually made money by switching to a better product!

I can't imagine why anyone would buy Cisco equipment on the low end or the high end anymore, except for consistency among equipment maybe.

True story:

I had an Aironet 340 access point that was missing its antennae and required a damn serial cable and terminal to be configured by command line. I got sick of it, and decided to sell it on eBay. It went for $200 with multiple bids.

After that, I went and bought a D-Link 714P+ router, which had a built in switch, built in print server (works with Linux, although not supported), SPI, higher encryption (256 bit WEP), twice the speed if you use their hardware, anteannae, and Web Based administration (no shitty serial cable for me) for $170.

I actually made money by switching to a better product!

I can't imagine why anyone would buy Cisco equipment on the low end or the high end anymore, except for consistency among equipment maybe.

> I guess Cisco is getting scared of the competition, and decided to crush them...

Yeah, because LinkSys is the only that makes consumer networking equipment. Net Gear? D-Link? Siemens?

D-Link has been making higher quality routers than Linksys with more features but same price for years...

I have a Streamium MC-i200 in my garage (yeah, I spend a lot of time there). Here's the environment: Connected to the Ethernet port is a D-Link DWL-810 Ethernet-to-wireless bridge, which talks to a Netgear MR314 in my upstairs office. Also in the office is a media server, which is simply an old PC with a big hard drive. Finally, I have an old notebook that sits on my A/V tower downstairs, with a Y-cable from the stereo minijack out to an unused set of audio ins (MiniDisc, I believe). The notebook is perfect for playing Rhapsody through my main receiver.

With that out of the way, here's a quick review of the Streamium:
Good
- Ability to play MP3s from media server anywhere on your network.
- Limited Internet streaming capability. Rhapsody or something similar is needed.
- Really good sound, with decent bass thump.
- Remote control is handy when I'm working underneath the car and want to change tracks.

Bad
- Requires a special version of MusicMatch Jukebox on the "server" PC, even though I had already paid (yes, I paid) for the full version of MusicMatch. Now I have two versions on my music server. This server app must be running for the Streamium to find it and play music from the hard drive.
- Horrid navigation. My music is stored in folders, with an artist at the top level, and album folders underneath. It's a chore to page down through the alphabetized list of artists. So I play more Geoff Achison than I would like, and less of the Zombies.

Bottom Line
- While this is a good first step, $500 is far too much to pay (I evaluate this gear for my job). For that jack I'd buy a two-year-old notebook, PC speakers, and slap in a wireless card.
- Keep an eye out for a Digital Media Adapter from Linksys, which should be released soon. It, too, sits on your A/V tower, hooks into your receiver, and should have an out to the TV, so you can navigate playlists and such on the big screen.

BTW, the Wall Street Journal reviewed the Streamium last month. Yup, you gotta have a subscription.

Hope this helps.

-Ray

This will do the trick.

Pringles Can Antennas !!

or maybe these much nicer looking clones from DLink.

ELiTeUI Out.

What I plan on implementing is a wireless 802.11b camera/camcorder hooked up to a kite.

here is a link to one vendor who currently supports offers the 802.11b camera
http://www.dlink.com/products/DigitalHome/DigitalV ideo/dcs1000w/