SMC’s ‘high powered’ 802.11g router has a lot to offer and differentiates itself from the pack by including a USB print server. But though the easy things were easy, some of the advanced features may require a little work to figure out.
Our quest to find SOHO routers with built-in bandwidth management lead us to examine OvisLink’s multi-functional router. We found that it does provide bandwidth management – along with a host of other interesting features – but that it isn’t all we’d hoped for.
Most 802.11g routers battle to differentiate themselves by touting high speeds that most users will never achieve in real-life use. ZyXEL’s G-2000 802.11g router takes a different approach by including a built-in user authentication feature that can add real value to home and small business users.
There’s a lot of multimedia locked in many computers, yearning to be viewed and listened to in the comfort of the family couch potato patch. icube’s Play@TV is capable of doing the trick, but we found it to be undistinguished in an increasingly crowded field.
We tend to get pretty jaded with all the over-hyped me-too products that we see. But once in a while a product comes along that restores our faith in the networking industry’s ability to innovate and deliver real value. Linksys’ Network Storage Link for USB 2.0 Disk Drives may have an unassuming name, but once you see what this product can do, we think you’ll agree that a new networking product category has been born!
Do you want to try out all the lastest network security tools without blowing up your computer? Do you want automatic detection and configuration of all of your network and wireless cards? Then the Auditor Security Collection CD is for you! The price is right too, because it’s free!
GIGABYTE Technology has decided to join the ranks of companies trying to eke out a decent business pursuing the rapidly decreasing margins in consumer Networking products. Their GN-A17GU 11g Access Point turned in decent performance, but left us wondering how GIGABYTE plans to gain market share with me-too, hard-to-find networking products.
It took eight months, and two backpedals on schedule and supported OSes, but SanDisk finally has added PalmOS support to its SD 802.11b card. The good news is that it works. The bad…well, you’d best read our Quick View to find out the whole story.
Up until now, being tapped to perform a wireless LAN survey might make you wonder what you did to get onto your boss’ “favorites” list. But no more. Though AirMagnet’s Surveyor site survey product can’t eliminate all the walking around, it streamlines data gathering and produces reports that even your Mom could understand.
Sure off-the-shelf router / firewalls are cheap and easy to set up, but sometimes they just don’t get the job done, especially for more sophisticated requirements. And “big iron” products will put too big a dent in most small business budgets. Fortunately there are Open Source alternatives. Jim Hubbard takes a detailed look at one that can do just about anything you’d want it to do, while leaving your wallet alone.
Maybe it’s just that the novelty has worn off, but we weren’t as impressed with the 11g version of ASUS’ miniature Access Point. Read our QuickView review of the WL-330G and find out why.
Discontinued Jan 2004Signal amplifier for 2.4GHz wireless products. Handles two antennas. FCC certified and compatible with the Linksys Wireless Access Point (WAP11) and Wireless Access Point Router (BEFW11S4) only.