Networking Reviews

This is a nice little wireless card for a notebook computer. It installs quickly and easily, and worked perfectly the first time. It hooked up with my 802.11b home network beautifully, and I've used it successfully at several (b) wi-fi hotspots.

The drawbacks are all in the software. I thought the software interface was kind of clunky, and I had a lot of trouble getting it to successfully use WEP encryption on my home network, although my Linksys wireless (USB) unit worked perfectly with the encryption.

Overall, though, delivering wireless this quickly and easily (and portably) is a great effort. I'm very pleased. Plus, the 54g is lightning fast if you can find a 54g hotspot to connect to. But I'm guessing it won't be long until that's the norm, so this card is a choice that offers a lot of versatility going forward. Four stars for the ease and reliability...only wish the software was a little better.

This Card is recognized by Apple Macintosh computers as being an Airport card, meaning no drivers are necessary!. Definately a good alternative to the $80 apple product!<br />

if you want to get on board with wifi, this is a great way to do it. as another reviewer mentioned, it doesn't come w/ an external antenna (btw, it also doesn't say that it does, go back and read the description) but has a jack for an external antenna if you wish to purchase one separately (in case you want to connect to networks that are very far away). the card works great, very reliable. word of advice, like any piece of hardware you install, check the manufacturers website for updated drivers and client manager software as the version in the box tends to be a little old (though fully functional).

I bought this so that I could attach several USB devices without fishing around in back of my PC or laptop. I does do what is says in that it provides four USB ports as if they were a part of your computer and it is easy to use. Unfortunately the design has the ports a little too crowded together.

My problem comes in that one of my devices is a thumb drive. When I plug it in, it partially block the three other ports. To avoid that, I have to put an extension on the drive thus making for a lot of extra cable lying around.

If you already have extension cables, you should not run into overcrowding. If you don't, you might want to buy a slightly more expensive port hub for the same price (this hub price plus extension cable price).

This 4 port mini-hub does exactly what it says it will do. My computer came equipped with only 2 usb ports and as I have five items that require usb connection I was constantly switching back and forth. I had tried another brand (Belkin) that simply did not work for my purposes. Now with the Hawking mini-hub, I have my printer, mouse, and pedesign (embroidery) plugged into it and all work great. Another plus is the price that I paid was very reasonable....less than half what I paid for the Belkin that would not work for me. I would recommend this hub to anyone with requirements similar to mine.

My office machine is 2 years old, with USB ports in the back - rather inconvenient to plug in my USB Zip drive or a digital camera (old 1.3 MP!) This worked out very well for me, I fixed it to the CPU tower using a piece of velcro. The discounted price made it a real steal.

The router has not worked since the day I bought it. Technical support sucks! Don't waste your money.

I have to say, I was a little concerned about this product after reading about some of the difficulties other buyers have experienced. I was also a bit nervous about installing it myself, since I am not what you would call a computer expert.

From Day One after installing it, though, I have been impressed. It gets fantastic range throughout my entire house, even through walls and heavy, metal objects. Signal strength on my computers is almost always between 90-100%, and has NEVER dipped below 73%.

As for the network installation itself, it was easy and took a total of about an hour (and that includes installation and configuration of wireless cards on 2 computers).

And you can't beat the price on this thing. I highly recommend this and other Netgear wireless network products.

Easy to set up. Works perfect for me.

After installing the antenna and connecting the power I was thrown into the abyss known as "tech support." After the first call waiting time of 15 minutes, and a support tech that ignored the printed directions that came with the product, it seemed that I was out of the woods. It appeared that both the printer and PC were talking. Unfortunately the tech was not permitted to stay on the line while I tested the printer and after rebooting my system I was plummetted back into the abyss. This time it was a 30 minute wait to speak to a "trained" professional. This time all of my current network settings were reset and I was left unable to either print or connect to the internet on my current wireless network. Next stop - "Level 2" support! This call included a 1 hour wait and even less help than the Level 1 tech support was able to provide. It seems that the 2nd tech's solution left the DP311P permanently disabled and requiring reconfiguration at the factory. The supervisor that I spoke to wouldn't even provide a mailing address so I could write a letter to customer service! What did I get for my 4 hours of time? A trip back to Best-Buy and a refund receipt!

Now that the DP311-P is configured to work with my Linksys AP my entire family thinks wireless printing is almost better than wireless access. The product is working with an old NEC 860 laser and two laptops - one XP Home and one Windows 2000. One has Linksys card the other Orinoco. The real issue is that the documentation to work with a non D-Link Access Point is terrible. I have to believe that if D-Link did decent documentation their support costs would fall dramatically.

Played with this for 2 hours, got it to print in config mode but never in normal mode. Used both laptops. Linksys card makes set-up virtually impossible as provides no info on what network you are on. Finally called D-Link; on hold for 2 minutes, technician solved network issue in about 4 minutes - was not on Linksys AP's IP address. Worked with XP perfectly. Tried to print with w2000. Kept printing same document over and over. Called D-Link after numerous permutations of setting up printer config. No help. Kept at it. Turns out W2k wants you to use the D-LINK printer settings that do not exist in XP for printer set-up. Seems logical but nowhere is this mentioned in D-Link documentation. In fact they have no W2k documentation.

Summary - product A+, tech support B, Documentation F

If you ignore the instructions for seting up the print server, setup is a snap. just turn off your printer, hook up the device in normal mode, power the device, power the printer. then follow the quick setup guide for your individual computer settings and it works in 10 min. flat.

i just got DSL with statis IPs and a 6 meg connection. im flying! but anyways, this hub is very reliable. ive had it about a week and data packets flow thru it as smooth as butter. i networked mine and my roommatte's PCs and ive had no problems whatsoever. one of the ports is designated for the uplink, then u can fill the other ports with CPUs. netgear offers good performance for a great price. the hub is good quality and its perfect for networking PCs at home. its made of metal, not cheap plastic, and is sturdy. buy this hub if you have a home or small office network.

I've never had Netgear equipment fail. Small and compact, reliable but not pricey, and in a 6-port size. Most hubs come in 4 or 8+. Durable metal also, instead of cheap plastic like other brands.

I have bought two of these for home and office use. They work flawlessy and for the price you cannot beat the functionality. I was running at least Windows 98 on all computers I hooked up to the ethernet hub. Windows makes it easy to set up file and printer sharing.

After you are hooked up to a network you will not need to swap disks all the time in order to exchange information or to move files for printing. You can transfer a hundred megabytes in a minute or two depending on the kinds of files.

Setup is a breeze if you have ethernet cards installed already. Even if you do not have cards installed already there are instructions to walk you through step by step. By the way, if you are just using this for a home network, pick out the Netgear hub combo that gives you the most stuff for the cheapest. I have bought at least 3 different ones and the all provide the same functionality as far as I can tell. It is just that sometimes they come with one more port, or an extra cable, or multiple speed compatibilities.

It's not to say that it won't work, and that it won't work for you, but I think it was a poor product release by 3com, who makes many of the best networking devices out there. The 10Mbps only limits your connectivity option wether or not you NEED the speed or not. For instance, you might have a 100Mbps only hub, or a 10Mbps device might make your 100Mbps segment less efficient. Also, this device is not Windows 2000 compliant which makes it useless in my organization. If you run Windows 98, and are a home user, it will likely work for you, but I think the 10/100 Linksys product is superior and is less expensive.

I received my 3COM USB NIC from Amazon.... and attempted to install it on a Compaq Pentium III running Win2000 and realized that on the 3Com package, it clearly states that the device is "USB for Win98" (a fact not specified on Amazon.com). 3Com's website does not contain drivers to download for W2K, so I am having to return the item. If you are running Windows 2000, be careful. I called 3COM for tech support (a long distance call) but hung up after 5 minutes of hold time.

We have an older Packard Bell which I was able to upgrade to its maximum of 64 MB of memory and Windows 98. It works well in a small office for word processing, etc but without a network card it couldn't share files with the newer machines. This Packard Bell has no PCI or ISA slots, so there was no way to add a regular network card. Fortunately, it has one USB port, so a USB-Ethernet adapter is the perfect solution. This 3Com USB NIC is easy to install: Run the driver software and plug in the NIC. Then, check the usual network settings, and you're in business. Now the computer is networked to the other machines through a LinkSys router, and has high speed internet access, too.

I have used the AmbiCom CF card modem with 2 PDAs so far (HP Jornada 525 and Dell Axim x5) and both devices were plug-and-play without any problems. I specifically like the AmbiCom card for its slim design. The AmbiCom features a flip-out phone connector which means there is no added bulk on the end that sticks out of the PDA (compare to the Socket CF card modem). Since I normally use this modem card when traveling, this is an important detail for me. The price is also better than the Socket card. As soon as the modem makes a connection, a green control light comes on so you always know when you're connected (PDAs do not have modem sounds enabled, so this is a good thing to have).

There is, however, one thing I like better about the Socket card, and that is Socket's Whereareyou? software which allows its user to program the modem for use in other countries. A definite plus in my opinion, since I do occasionally travel abroad. But I have not used the Socket card, so I don't know how well this software works. As it is, I am perfectly happy with my AmbiCom, even if that means having to get a little more information off the Internet before I travel to a foreign country.

Anyone looking for a reliable, slim-design card at a good price will not be disappointed with the AmbiCom.

I bought this for my Dell Axim X5. I've noticed pretty good peformance, but the documentation and software leave a bit to be desired.

The documentation was one sheet of paper folded in half, with no usage instructions at all.

The UI for the driver is fairly slow, and the usage is a bit weird. My biggest issue is that it doesn't seem to remember AP names and only allows one WEP setting, so switching between networks is tedious.

I just ordered this product a few weeks ago and it works great! I get to surf the internet, send email and download music, movies, and software all on my Pocket PC! The Ambicom CompactFlash Modem gives me good speed for surfing, too! Highly recommended by me!

Initially I purchased the D-Link DWL-G120 because it has an exceptionally nice design. Sleek, compact, slick. Afterall, I thought, all these 802.11 wireless adapters are pretty much the same internally, right? Wrong.

I spent over three hours trying to get the DWL-G120 to work on my Dell 4600C system with Windows XP Professional. Despite the fact that the adapter was reporting a wireless signal in the 30-40% strength range, and the 95-100% quality range, I still couldn't get a stable internet connection with it. Pinging Yahoo.com always resulted in 50-100% packet loss.

My other equipment with built-in 802.11g works just fine on my network, so I knew something was wrong with the D-Link product. To test my theory, I purchased the NetGear WG121 for roughly the same price as the D-Link box, and my Dell was on the web in less than 30 minutes. I rest my case. Caveat emptor.

Background of my set-up: I have an HP computer with a cable modem internet connection with Comcast. I purchased a Dell computer for an office downstairs. I bought the DI-624 router and purchased the DWL-120 to connect the HP computer to the internet connection as the Dell is connected to the DI-624 router by an ethernet cable.
My conclusion: The router works great. I would highly recommend it. The DWL-120? My wife uses the HP for just occasional surfing and light internet use. It works great for that. If you are a heavy-duty internet user you will experience occasional delays as the signal constantly fades from good to poor. I believe another review stated the same. It may not bother you. All in all it's a great device with super easy set-up. I just can't say to the frequent, impatient internet user that you'll be totally happy with it. I have not tried any other wireless products so I cannot compare my impression with others.
Bottomline: This product was super easy to set-up and it's getting the job done and best of all, my wife doesn't complain.

I bought the G120 and a DI-620 rev C router to connect a new machine running XP. I had to reinstall the driver more than once after XP could not find the G120 USB hardware. I downloaded and installed a newer driver version (1.12) from the D-link site to correct "connectivity problems" acknowledged by D-link. I am not sure if everything is fixed yet, but it works. The reported signal surges to excellent then can drop to poor. The ExtremeG protocol uses multichannels, with a forced use of channel 6, to get the high bandwidth. I suspect cross talk from somewhere in the neighborhood is impacting reported performance, independent of hardware. The main bandwidth limit is the cable connection anyway. The router sofware control is powerful. The security features alone redeem any hiccups with the G120.

I purchased an Ultra Hub 4 from Circuit City, connected it to my PII and it worked for about 3 min. After the first three minutes the four green "hub" lights (indicating the hubs were working) did not remain lit on a continuous basis. I tried unplugging all cables sequentially but the hub never performed to my expectations. I wrote ADS Tech customer support and they never repsonded. I will return the Ultra Hub 4 and exchange for a better brand. I guess you get what you pay for . . .

I'm a first time computer owner but very particular about electronic "Gear"(i'm an audiophile).I happen to be very happy with this Hub so far(one month old).It does the job it is intended to,I have a printer,scanner and my keyboard connected to it and it works just fine.Now I have 3 extra usb ports open for business. It is a bit light in weight but then most others are too.I'm an iMac user(running OSX) and if you are too then I would suggest you give this one a try.

For the price you can't go wrong. Plus a USB cable is included.

Most new dedicated fax machines will direct a call to itself or to the phone/answering machine. EVERY answering machine will let you plug the phone into it to take a call. A waste of money for anyone who doesn't have an ancient fax machine they don't want to upgrade.

This device works perfectly! It has many features and modes of operation but here is how I set mine up for basic use: I connect my incoming phone line to the input port, my answering maching w/phone to the TAD port, and my fax machine to the fax port. When a call comes in the Comswitch "picks up" the call on the first ring and listens momentarily for a fax tone. If there is a tone it immediately switches the call to the fax machine and then transmission begins, if it is a voice call it immediately switches to my anwering maching which then begins ringing, working as it usually does with any incoming call. For my answering machine connection, the only difference from before the Comswitch is that there is one addtional ring before the call actually starts to ring on the anwering machine. However, all of this is invisible to the caller. It also is supposed to work with voice mail systems too.

I've got a Canon D680 Fax/Printer on a dedicated phone line. I wanted to utilize this underused phone number as an "info line" for my business with an out-going message on an answering machine. Even though the Canon has some setting for a tel/fax, I was unable to get the answering machine to work with the Canon by direcly connecting the two. Furthermore the Canon instructions said something about you needing to make your outgoing message very short, which I don't want to do.

Enter the ComSwitch 5500.

Plug your hot phone line into the back of the 5500, plug in your answering machine, plug in your fax machine, plug the power into the wall and presto --- it worked perfectly immediately without any tweeking!

Every call routes automatically & correctly to either my fax machine OR to my phone answering machine. The caller can't really discern any switching going on. It's very impressive, and quick.

It comes preprogrammed. If you need to make some changes to it the instructions talk about this but since I didn't need to I didn't even bother reading the instructions.

I recommend the ComSwitch 5500.