Tuesday, February 28, 2006
Dirt-Cheap Belkin Access Point
My hardcore Mac friends don't appreciate it, but my network infrastructure is all non-Apple. I have a Linksys router and a Linksys switch, out of some loyalty to my favorite client, Cisco Systems. When my Graphite Airport Base Station died many moons ago, I decided I didn't need wireless that badly.
But a couple of weekends ago, a $29 Belkin Wireless Router F5D7230-4 at Circuit City (with no rebate required) caught my eye. For that little money, even if the thing was a total bust I wouldn't be out much. I bought it, brought it home, fired it up, and tried (and tried, and tried) to configure it using its web interface. No luck. I set it aside for another day.
This evening I tried again to configure it, and experienced the same problem: I would send it commands, and it would ignore them. After about an hour, I had an idea: I wonder if my browser, Safari, was the problem. I cranked up Microsoft Internet Explorer, and sure enough: commands took. I configured the router as an access point (no sense having two routers on the network), set its IP address to match my network scheme, and set and obscured its SSID. It worked, though configuration still has one annoying habit: when I log in (with my very complicated administrator password, natch), the login doesn't seem to take; I get a black-and-white beachball. However, if I wait 15 seconds or so, all the configuration options are available.
Maybe the moral of the story here is that a proper Apple Airport Base Station would have its elegant administration tool, which would have made all this fiddling unnecessary. Then again, I could buy four of these Belkin units for the price of one ABS. It's a good tradeoff for me.
If you've got one of these routers and want to compare notes, please drop me a line.
But a couple of weekends ago, a $29 Belkin Wireless Router F5D7230-4 at Circuit City (with no rebate required) caught my eye. For that little money, even if the thing was a total bust I wouldn't be out much. I bought it, brought it home, fired it up, and tried (and tried, and tried) to configure it using its web interface. No luck. I set it aside for another day.
This evening I tried again to configure it, and experienced the same problem: I would send it commands, and it would ignore them. After about an hour, I had an idea: I wonder if my browser, Safari, was the problem. I cranked up Microsoft Internet Explorer, and sure enough: commands took. I configured the router as an access point (no sense having two routers on the network), set its IP address to match my network scheme, and set and obscured its SSID. It worked, though configuration still has one annoying habit: when I log in (with my very complicated administrator password, natch), the login doesn't seem to take; I get a black-and-white beachball. However, if I wait 15 seconds or so, all the configuration options are available.
Maybe the moral of the story here is that a proper Apple Airport Base Station would have its elegant administration tool, which would have made all this fiddling unnecessary. Then again, I could buy four of these Belkin units for the price of one ABS. It's a good tradeoff for me.
If you've got one of these routers and want to compare notes, please drop me a line.
