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When I started my new full-time job, my employer had two DSL lines. Most of the PCs where going to one DSL line, unless you specified the other one. This still under utilized the DSL lines. I needed a router with two or more WAN ports.

I bought the Linksys (Cisco) RV042 Dual WAN Router. It does use both lines at once when configured correctly. I did a speed test using Speakeasy before and after the RV042 was installed.  The test showed an almost double downstream speed and a double in upstream speed.  Hey great!  Now the trouble.
The trouble is I needed a VPN connection to the office.  RV042 comes with Linksys’s QuickVPN client.  Only thing QuickVPN does well is install and uninstall.  Nothing in between.  No connections; just failures.  Apparently I’m not alone in this sentiment.  What to do now?

After some searching, I cam across Shrew Soft.

VPN Client is free for WIndows, Linux & BSD.  It supports many routers, especially the RV042.  Shrew Soft provides detailed (I mean detailed) instructions for configuring the router and client.  It even explains why the choices are made.  Wow! (not to be confused with an online game).  I was hesitant through the whole process.  I went home and sure enough the connection was made the first time.  It was so fast, I thought the program wasn’t working.

My thanks goes to Shrew Soft’s team!

My kids got the ZONE gaming system (read Wii knock off) for Christmas. It comes with two wireless Wii-like nunchuck controllers. These seem to only sense jerky movement not actual orientation or shifts of the sort.

The ZONE claims to have 16-bit graphics which look like 8-bit on the screen. A lot of money for just 7 sports games. Get one of those game systems in a controller instead.

Hurricane Ike, or what was left of it, trashed Western Kentucky yesterday.  The winds were constant for half a day.  If it had only lasted a couple of hours, I believe there would have been no damage.

Central City is without power, Muhlon had to get two backup generators to establish internet service, and now the Water company has cut service.  The February toranado distrupted less.

I finally unclinched my fist holding my wallet.  This site is being hosted by 2mhost.com.  I’ll let you know how it turns out.

I received two broken Tranzeo WLAN antennas last week. One has water inside; you can hear it slosh around. The other had no noticeable outside damage. After removing the cover and dissabling the case, I removed the board. You can see the noticeable overload damage to the National Semiconductor LM2599S.

Mini PC card mounted onto motherboard.

Other side of Tranzeo motherboard.

Burned LM2599S.

A friend of mine alerted to me to a warning about our local newspaper’s website. McAfee Site Advisor gives the following response: When we tested this site we found links to atomakayan.biz, which we found breaches browser security on our test PC.

When Leader News was emailed with the response, they responsed by saying “… I had no right “bad mouthing” their site.”

Even Google gives the following: This site may harm your computer.

The content in Leader News’ website is bad in the begin with; everything is centered justified.  You would think journalists would know better.

There has been a lot of coverage about wirless lan (WLAN) technology.  Such as greater speeds, and that the enterprise lans are being switched over.

Hold it.

The reasoning behined WLAN has been forgotten.  One reason is mobility.  Not the kind in the movies where the hero is driving a car at 80mph while hacking into the police station (National Treasure 2).  I’m talking about the kind where the typical user takes their laptop or PDA on trips.  Mobility is not mobile.  What?   Check any coffee shop or airport.  The user is not moving; just sitting.  And with typical battery life not reaching a full days work.  You are going to need to plug into the outlet soon.

Another reason for WLAN is easy connections.  Yeah right.  I’ve seen two antenna 1 foot apart and still not make a connection.  Why is it WLAN is more art than science?  As far as easy connections go, you don’t have to run cable.  Only on the smallest of WLANs.

Now for the twist.  My local ISP is Muhlenberg Online and they use a giant form of WLAN to connect their clients.  Here at work we have an antenna pointed at the courthouse.  The courthouse then uses a backhaul antenna to transmit to the next city where Muhlenberg Online is located.  That’s right, completly stationary buildings using wireless transmission.  While inside the building, the users are connected by CAT5e cable.

Now it would have been finacially prohibitive to run cable from one city to the next.   So wireless worked out great.

Wireless inside a builing is a big if.  If the building as an open layout (large open areas).  If you don’t want to connect between floors.  Wireless specifications are very overrated.  That’s why Earthlink pulled out building a huge city wide WLAN.

WXPNews has an article about the Digital Divide of broadband. The editor always asks for comments so I responed with this.

It must be silly for a consultant to be using dial-up; it is how I control my costs.

I bought this Philips active noise canceling headphones today at Wal-Mart. The information on the back says no R03/AAA battery included.

Back of packaging

Back when I was a kid, batteries were never included; just a fact of life. As an adult, its uncommon to find any product that does not include some cheap batteries. This is not a deciding factor in my purchases though.

When I opended the box, lo and behold, a Philips AAA battery. YES! The battery is a LR03 AAA. Apparently somebody was getting technical with the grammar.

Battery included with headset

Well after using a large diesel mower I can truthfully say the headphones work! The noise cancellation is not complete, but I’m able to hear low as well as high end sounds.

My old UMAX PowerLook 1000 flatbed scanner’s power supply was damaged by when the Feburary tornando hit. I got a replacement last week from Digi Key. Now the scans show a bright yellow tint to every image. It’s not the power supply’s fault. I tried another one from another PowerLook 1000.

If you own a UMAX flatbed scanner, then you know how lousy support is. UMAX’s website looks like it was pieced together with different philosophies on design. If I ever find out how to fix this, then I’ll post it.