Welcome to MageLair Systems. We're glad you stopped by for a visit. On your left you'll find the links to the various sections of the site, as well as a few links to other sites.
Got a LinkSys WRT55AGv2?
In mid-April of 2005 (it's now mid-November), I had a drive failure in my home router, a Linux server. Rather than buy a new drive and spend hours installing the OS and configuring iptables (Linux firewall), I made the mistake of buying a LinkSys broadband router. As I had a WAP11 on loan from a friend, I figured I might as well just get a wireless router and return the borrowed product. Since I had no issues with the WAP11, I decided that LinkSys would be a good choice (I now wish I'd gone with a Netgear unit). I decided on the WRT55AG because it listed the best wireless support. Little did I know that I would end up with a v2 unit, the newer series that also happens to not be Linux based. The result is that I had a router that, when it wasn't locking up, worked for everything except the manual port forwarding I was defining. After an email exchange with LinkSys tech support, I get sent the 1.40 beta firmware. Well now, port forwarding was working and I experienced far fewer lock up conditions (few enough that I didn't mind). At the end of October, barely over 6 months after the initial purchase, the router stopped getting an IP from my ISP. I emailed tech support and was told that a new 1.60 beta firmware was available to address certain cable service provider conflicts. Now, up until this point, the router had been working fine with both Comcast and Charter cable providers, with the initial 2-3 lock ups a week on the 1.10 release firmware down to 1 lock up in 1-2 weeks on the 1.40 beta firmware. As soon as I flash in the 1.60 beta firmware, my lock ups appear to all be gone, however I get full router resets (all the lights do their initial power-up deal) at least once a day (generally 3 or more times a day). Contacting tech support leads me to making a voice call to LinkSys. That call leads to another call, and suddenly they think that it's defective hardware and simply needs to be replaced. When asked if they could justify replacing the unit because of required beta firmware causing this issue, they merely fell back to "well, it must be defective hardware." I asked if they could guaranty 100% operation of the new unit, with the same required beta firmware, only to have that question go unanswered.
The moral of my story? Caveat Emptor seems to fit the best when dealing with LinkSys.
Update: It's a couple days until December and I've still not received official "yes, we can guaranty 100% operation of a new router" or "here's a new beta firmware that we'd like you to try." Perhaps LinkSys is unaware of the fact that this page is found when WRT55AGv2 is plugged into Google's search engine.
Can you help?
A while back, I had a Micropolis 4345NS drive in one of my systems. The drive failed before I was able to get all the data backed up. Basically, all I lost was all my old DOS programming source code. I am currently in a situation where I would like to have that data recovered (and I finally have a reliable backup device, a CD-RW drive). If there's anyone with one of these drives collecting dust, please contact me. MageLink is one of the programs I lost the current source for, and anyone that helps me recover this data will get a copy of that source (and any other source on the drive, if they like).
Dangerous Intelligence?
Recently (it's October 20th, 2005), something was said on the radio. It was regarding the term "computer" being antiquated, to which many had sent in letters explaining why it is still valid. This morning, another letter was read which claimed, albeit indirectly, superior knowledge on the subject. This letter was written by someone only claiming to be a PC technician, not a programmer. Perhaps that is why the author doesn't realize that while email is just information to be read, so are trajectories that are calculated on a calculator. The use of the result, and it's format, does not negate the fact that a computer is still computing to perform every task it's assigned to do. People use calculators for balancing their checkbooks. Should we stop calling them calculators and start calling them "money tracking systems"?
Math is used for so much, these days. Just because we may not think of it as a calculation doesn't mean it isn't. Maybe it's just that I have been a PC technician for 12+ years, but a programmer for 24+, which gives me a different perspective on the subject.
Looking to get or have a Netgear Router?
After the fiasco with the LinkSys router and tech support, I made the misguided decision that Netgear would be a much better choice. This came from the fact that I had previous not had ANY trouble with Netgear products. I started using Netgear when I was using ISDN for internet, and their ISDN router was an excellent product. I later had great results when using Netgear network adapters, too. So, I bought the Netgear WNR834B. It had all the features I was needing, according to the box. The only issue I initially noticed was the complete lack of ability for my iBook to even authenticate on the wireless network. Now, that was annoying, but my first thought was an Apple issue on that, and so I've never even bothered to mention it to Netgear "support". However, I soon discovered another problem that I KNEW was the router. This router does not always recover from a connection reset. I am, at the time of this writing, a Charter Communications customer for both TV and internet (though they're trying to get me to use their phone service, too). As a result of this, and this is now verified to be a Charter issue and not me as this has happened with 2 routers at 2 completely different locations for me, as well a friend of mine that's about 30 miles away. The Netgear router does, at least, handle this connection reset smoother than LinkSys. The only part in this router that doesn't like all of this is the DNS process. Not all the time, but still almost every day, I have to reboot the router (unplug and plug it back in) to be able to turn domain names into addresses and, thus, be able to use the internet. Already established connections will remain operational, which is a small step above the LinkSys, at least. For anyone interested, you can read the "support" thread by clocking here.