• Microsoft Vista Home Networking Setup and Options
The most daunting part of upgrading to Windows Vista may be trying to figure out where in the layers of menus the networking and file-sharing options are hidden.
• Tips for Securing Your Home Router
Seemingly minor and easily overlooked settings can still have profound security implications. Here are some steps you can take to make sure your wired or wireless home router — and by extension, your network — is as secure as possible.
Most Popular Reviews
• Microsoft Windows Home Server
If you have a home network, you'll welcome the easy file sharing, remote access and the image-based backup features of Windows Home Server.
• Iomega StorCenter Network Hard Drive
Iomega's fourth generation StorCenter Network Hard Drive brings many of the features found in higher-end storage devices down to an attractive price.
• MikroTik's The Dude
This free tool delivers many of the same capabilities that you'd find in pricey network monitoring tools. As long as you don't mind tinkering, The Dude is a decent network utility that should be worth the download.
Thursday, 26 October 2000 - Search is finally back! Give it a try
and let us know what you think!
- MacSense has released new firmware for their
XRouter Pro, including a Special Applications feature that adds
triggered port range forwarding. Go
here to check out the ReadMe.
- Review Opinions are back up. Thanks for your
patience!
Monday, 23 October 2000 - UPDATE! Mail is back up, but
posting new review Opinions is out of order. Should
be back up Tuesday morning. Sorry for the problem.
Missing mail and
feedback! - Due to server problems, any feedback you sent either
by using the form or directly probably bounced back to you over the weekend.
We're still working on the problem and hope to have it fixed before noon
today. Please bear with us!
Thursday, 19 October 2000 - Multitech has confirmed that their
RF500S
RouteFinder router will support dial-in RAS and auto-failover
to a dialup WAN connection, but not simultaneously (only one
modem port!). This will be a first for low-cost routers! We
won't be getting our eval unit until mid-November, though, and the product
probably won't be generally available until then either.
- Looking for a review of Linksys'
new WAP11 Wireless Access Point? You'll have to wait
awhile longer. Word from Linksys is that the product is still getting
some final tweaking and isn't available yet. Hope to have a better
idea next week of when we'll be getting our box.
Wednesday, 18 October 2000
Blinkin' confusion! - Well, we're confused again. Yesterday we reported
that the SMC Barricade and Asante FriendlyNet
routers changed with the 1.88 firmware upgrade so that their M1/Status
light no longer blinks. Turns out we were partially right...sorta.
The SMC is unchanged, i.e. no matter what the firmware,
the M1 light will blink if everything is ok.
The Asante is what changed, but it's a hardware, not a firmware
change. Early routers ("a couple of hundred" according
to Asante) had the blinking Status light, but a small hardware change
was made on most of the routers shipped so that the Status light shines
steadily to indicate proper operation. So if your newly upgraded Barricade is still
blinking, then you're ok! Sorry for our confusion!
Tuesday, 17 October 2000 - We received a call from D-Link and the communications
lines are open, so thanks for those of you who wrote to D-Link on our
behalf.
- If you're having trouble keeping a connection with your Netgear RT311/314
(or ZyXEL Prestige 310 or 314) router, give Edward
Cheung's GearMinder a try. It'll even email you your new
WAN IP address!
- Those of you who have upgraded your SMC Barricade or Asante
FriendlyNET to the 1.88 firmware may have noticed
that your Status light has stopped blinking. No, your router isn't
broken. They just changed the annoying "feature" of the
blinking light so that normal operation is indicated by a non-blinking
light.
Monday, 16 October 2000 -We're getting many requests for reviews of the new D-Link
DI-704 router and 802.11b 11Mbps wireless products. We'd
love to review them, but D-Link has not responded to our requests for
evaluation units.
[10/17 Update: Situation resolved, see 10/17 news item above].
- By the way, we've confirmed that the DI-704 router
is not sourced from AMIT (as the SMC Barricade and Asante
FriendlyNET are.
- Having a tough time getting on-line gaming to work over your shared
connection. The new Gaming
Help section may be just what you need. If you've got a
tip or fix to contribute, send it in!
Thursday, 12 October 2000 -With all the buzz about the StarBand/Gilat2Home
two-way satellite service rollout, we're going to see if we can get a
unit for review. From the threads on the StarBand
Delphi Forum, it sounds like the product that's being rolled out
will include a USB modem. As those of you with
USB 'DSL modems, know, that pretty much kills the possibility
of using a hardware router with StarBand if it's true.
(Thanks to Scott
Finnie's BroadBand report for some of this info.)
- Linksys has posted their 1.36 firmware
for the 1 and 4 port routers. Go
here for the info.
Wednesday, 11 October 2000 -The Linksys BEFSR81 8 port EtherFast router review is up.
This one may get them into some trouble! Read
the review for the details.
Tuesday, 10 October 2000 - Asante
let us know that they've posted the version 1.88 firmware for
their FriendlyNet router, so it also now supports IPsec.
Go to the Asante
FTP site and download file FR3004v1_88b.zip for Windows
and file FR3004v1_88b.hqx for the MacOS updaters.
-Nexland
will bundle AXENT's RaptorMobile VPN with a 10-user
license and will include it in all its firewall products starting October
15, 2000. The retail price of the Nexland/Axent bundle is $299 for a 4-port
ISB2LAN-H4 and it will beavailable online directly from Nexland.
- Guess we had bad info, 'cuz Netgear's new Web site
is not up yet. Sorry!
Monday, 9 October 2000 - SonicWall
put up a redesigned Website last week, and check out the new packaging
for their products. No word, though, of any new products to go along
with the new package.
- Speaking of new Web sites, NetGear's
new site is supposed to to live today.
"Wappy"
debuts! - Looks like Linksys has put up info
on their site about their new 802.11b 11Mbps Wireless products.
They include the WAP11
Access Point (Bridge) ($236),
WDT11
PCI Wireless Adapter ($40),
and WPC11
PC Card Wireless Adapter ($118)
(prices are from Pricegrabber), with the usual aggressive Linksys pricing!
You can't buy 'em yet, and no word from Linksys on when you can.
We're waiting for our eval units to come in, too!
Don't get too excited about that $40 price above, since you need to buy
the PC Card to go along with it if you want to connect a desktop into
your wireless LAN.
Friday, 6 October 2000 - The IPsec firmware for the SMC Barricade
is now posted at the SMC
support site.
Asante has not posted their version for the FriendlyNet
yet, but the SMC firmware should work.
Thursday, 5 October 2000 - The ZyXEL Prestige 312 review is finally
up. There's a lot packed into this sucker, but you may have a devil
of a time getting to it! Go here
for the story.
- An informed source tells us the the new MultiTech
RouteFinder isn't sourced from AMIT. So maybe its Dial-up
RAS capabilities are real! We'll soon find out because
one's on the way in.
- Received word that the SMC Barricade / Asante FriendlyNET
routers now support IPsec. The firmware isn't posted
on the SMC or Asante sites yet, but you can get it direct
from AMIT.
Wednesday, 4 October 2000 Practically Networked
joins Internet.com - As you may have heard, we're now part of Internet.com,
a leading provider of global real-time news and information resources
for Internet industry and Internet technology professionals, Web developers
and experienced Internet users.
This is a pretty big deal and we couldn't have done it without you, our
faithful readers. So a huge THANK YOU to you all!
We'll be adding links to other parts of the Internet.com network, so excuse
us if parts of the site look a little strange as we get the kinks worked
out. Let us know
if you find a dead or wrong link, please!
Tuesday, 3 October 2000
- Linksys has not reverted back to the 1.30 version
of their router firmware. They accidently have reverted back to
an earlier version of their site and they're scrambling to get it fixed.
Get the 1.35 file (befsr135.zip) direct from their FTP
site if you need it.
Monday,
2 October 2000
From the Dept of Shameless Self-promotion
- We received word this morning that
TechTV (formerly ZDTV) has named us
Site of the Week this week on their Screen
Savers and Call
for Help programs and Web sites. We even get an on-air
mention!
So, of course, we have to display our nice reward icon!
Your feedback
could be lost
- If you sent us feedback via the site feedback form last week, we
may have not received your message. Seems that we accidently
disconnected the feedback form from the email system and although it looked
like your messages were going somewhere, they actually went to that great
bit-bucket in the sky. Sorry for the problem!
