How I got on.
2007-08-04
When I asked him which wireless gear he recommended, one of my more knowledgeable friends said he'd had good experiences with Buffalo, and only bad ones with Belkin. So the other day, when I mentioned I was getting a Belkin access point on a lowest-bid-tender basis (since the Buffalo one I'd had my eye on turned out to be a wire/wireless converter rather than a true access point) he asked me to tell him how I get on.
In a word, it's shit. Pardon my language, but the whole reason I don't normally swear is so that I can save it for days like this.
Don't get me wrong, I'm sure the 'one touch' setup for wireless repeaters works fine, some or more of the time. Which is good, because if that doesn't work, you may as well try and get your wireless network up using IPoAC.
It has a web control panel, as such things ought to. That way I don't need any particular software, I just point my trusty web browser (which ever that might be) at the IP and a stripped down HTTP server lets me configure the device. That's the theory, at least. In practice, since the manual doesn't tell you the default IP address you've got to use the shoddy software on their CD. That move alone adds MS Windows to the system requirements, which was a stupid decision on the manufacturer's part.
It's not over yet, though. I find the device using the tool from the CD, and use it to change the IP. The app then loses it and needs restarting, but that's no problem compared to the fact that the first few times I tried I could only access the web server for a few requests until it died until the unit was restarted. It's particularly frustrating when the control panel falls over each time you ask it to apply security to the huge whole in your network.
If did eventually get both my laptop and my handheld connected to the AP, but that was while testing it on the wrong side of my router. In order to fix that I had to change the IP into another subnet (an operation from which I never saw any feedback, of course) but since I moved it to the right physical network it doesn't appear at that address. So now I have to do some serious rearranging in order to get a computer into the same subnet so I can run the poxy tool again.
In other news, my latest wireless network card is the right chipset for hostapd, except that there seems to be a current hostapd bug that breaks that support. But that's good: software problems will be fixed sooner or later.
In a word, it's shit. Pardon my language, but the whole reason I don't normally swear is so that I can save it for days like this.
Don't get me wrong, I'm sure the 'one touch' setup for wireless repeaters works fine, some or more of the time. Which is good, because if that doesn't work, you may as well try and get your wireless network up using IPoAC.
It has a web control panel, as such things ought to. That way I don't need any particular software, I just point my trusty web browser (which ever that might be) at the IP and a stripped down HTTP server lets me configure the device. That's the theory, at least. In practice, since the manual doesn't tell you the default IP address you've got to use the shoddy software on their CD. That move alone adds MS Windows to the system requirements, which was a stupid decision on the manufacturer's part.
It's not over yet, though. I find the device using the tool from the CD, and use it to change the IP. The app then loses it and needs restarting, but that's no problem compared to the fact that the first few times I tried I could only access the web server for a few requests until it died until the unit was restarted. It's particularly frustrating when the control panel falls over each time you ask it to apply security to the huge whole in your network.
If did eventually get both my laptop and my handheld connected to the AP, but that was while testing it on the wrong side of my router. In order to fix that I had to change the IP into another subnet (an operation from which I never saw any feedback, of course) but since I moved it to the right physical network it doesn't appear at that address. So now I have to do some serious rearranging in order to get a computer into the same subnet so I can run the poxy tool again.
In other news, my latest wireless network card is the right chipset for hostapd, except that there seems to be a current hostapd bug that breaks that support. But that's good: software problems will be fixed sooner or later.
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