Ugh. Monday’s here, and I’m still feeling pretty bleah. On the bright side, it doesn’t feel like my sinuses are 1.5 times bigger than my head anymore, but I’m still dealing with a bit of runny nose. The coughing seems to have abated somewhat, which is good. I figure in a couple of days I should be back to normal and ready for the next cold, which is sure to hit by the end of the week. Oy.
Not a terribly exciting weekend, really. I woke up very late Friday night with chills and a fever, so all of the plans we had for Saturday were put on hold while takaza and I relaxed around the house. We did finally motivate later in the afternoon and got some cleaning done, which was good. On Sunday, it was more of the same. I’m not complaining, mind you – it was a nice, laid-back weekend break that I needed. Heck, I slept until 9:30 on Saturday morning, which is usually unthinkably late for me! We did a bit more cleaning on Sunday, and made a trip out to Best Buy. They had a good sale on digital cameras and we splurged a bit and got a new one: a Canon Powershot A620. I’m really happy with this camera – it’s extremely easy to use and gives demonstrably better results than our old digital camera (which, granted, is four years old now). I see us using the camera a lot more now that it’s so much easier to deal with.
We also picked up a new wireless access point in hopes of fixing some of the issues Dan was having losing connectivity with his laptop (and Nintendo DS). I’m not particularly impressed so far, though when it connects, it’s fast! I’m debating on messing around with directional antennas (now that we have a WAP that can handle different antenna inputs – the old Netgear did not). We’ll see what I can come up with.
Not too much else going on this week. Tonight I have my first appointment at the gym where they size up my current physical condition (I’m holding out for “ramshackle”), which will provide a basis for a workout program to be determined at a later appointment with the trainers there. I’m annoyed that the only time available was 8:30 PM (when we usually go to bed at 10 PM), but I can tough it out. More interesting is the fact that I’m not supposed to have a heavy meal in the 3.5 hours before the appointment, so dinner will be either early or small-ish (or both, given that I had a sizeable lunch).
OK, back to more calculations and surface areas, oh my!
EDIT: BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
[I’m debating on messing around with directional antennas ]
Put a firmware on there that doesn’t suck so you can crank up the transmit power. That’s what I did with mine and it really has worked wonders — it also saved me from having to dick around with antenna shapes and sizes and aiming.
I’ll be damned. That’s a whole approach I hadn’t even thought of. And it looks like there’s quite a variety to choose from. Any thoughts on which to pursue? (If not, I can slog through their forums, it looks like)
Wow, welcome to the Linksys Router Club and the Canon Powershot A620 club (that’s the camera I just got too).
I’m using Sveasoft’s Alchemy software (which was current when I installed it a year or more ago), but they want their $20 a year, and there is a lot of debate over whether they’re handling the GNU business correctly.
It’s working so I won’t touch it, but if I wanted to try another one, I’d use HyperWRT, because like Sveasoft, it keeps the original Linksys web interface and only modifies it.
Some of the firmware can only be configured by command line. I don’t think you want that.
Also, there are long dipoles available for those models, which will help with the effective range. Another thing that helps is getting away from Channel 6, which is the default and likely to be the one in use by everybody else nearby. Use channel 1 or 11 (1, 6, and 11 are actually the only non-overlapping channels).
On the transmit power
Check around before you change it and be careful. I’ve heard reports you can fry the radio chip by setting the power to the max.
Changing the transmit power won’t do anything to help the receive sensitivity, but the longer antennas will. Remember, it’s two-way, if the router can’t hear your laptop, that doesn’t work either.
First, before upgrading anything, confirm again the model (WRT-54G or WRT-54GS) as well as the version.
I started off with Sveasoft‘s “Alchemy” firmware and upgraded about a month ago to the “Talisman” firmware (basic featureset). I’m pretty happy with it, but as Rusty has already pointed out, there’s the caveat of the yearly subscription fee and a hotly contested business model. It’s also a pretty geeky firmware that adds in things like VLAN tagging and QoS features, which are probably not anything you’ll ever need to worry about.
DD-WRT is an offshoot from the Alchemy firmware and seems to be popular.
HyperWRT is another popular one that I’m aware of and boasts both stability and ease of installation.
My adviuce is to AVOID OpenWRT if anybody pitches it to you becase it’s a compile-from-scratch DIY Linuxgeekstravaganza and is way more hassle than you’re looking for.
Oh yeah, Wikipedia has information, including a good table of the specs of the various hardware revisions, and of course, lots more links to get into.
All Linux, except for the WRT54G v5.0.
The latest GS has only 4 Mb of Flash, but that should be fine, since I’m using the G model, which only ever had 4 Mb. Some folks liked the added space in the GS.
Usually the hardware revision is on the model/serial sticker on the bottom of the unit.
I’ll check the Wikipedia info. We have a v.4.0, so that shouldn’t be too much of a problem.