Networking Reviews

I'm actually writing about the EZNET-8SW, which appears to be slightly different than the EZ-8SW. I purchased 12 of these switches to expand networks in our building. 6 of the 12 units have a horrible heat problem. They all get hot to touch, but 6 of them lock up regularly. Cycling the power helps for a couple hours, but then it locks up all over again. This has been an ongoing problem and unless they changed the EZ-8SW a whole lot, I can't see it being much different with the heat problem.

SMC hasn't wanted to swap out the units. Each time I get on the phone with tech support, they pretty say, "well, is it working now?" to which I say, yeah, but in a couple hours, it won't. "Well, if it's working now, I can't really issue an RMA." Give me a break!

I got a D-Link DSS-8+ and it never even gets hot and never locks up.

The SMC EZ-8SW is a non-managed 10/100 switch. You give it power and plug ethernet cable into the RJ45 jacks, and it sends stuff to the right places, at up to 100 Bps each way, on each port. Mine's been doing that, reliably, for several months. Before that, I was using a 5-port SMC EZ switch, and it likewise delivered 2x100 Bps per port with no trouble for about a year, but I ran out of ports, so I got the 8-port version. This model uses normal AC -- no transformer block to try to fit, awkwardly, somewhere; it has a grounded plug, so you'll need a three-prong outlet within 4 feet of the switch location.

The switch looks and feels solid, largely because of the all-metal case. As for speed ... within the local network, files under a megabyte seem to move instantaneously, larger files move at about 10Mb/sec. In ordinary home or small office use, this switch won't be a bottleneck.

About the only thing I don't like is that the cable jacks are on the front of the unit, so with my setup the status lights are partly obscured by cables.

Good unit, dead simple to use, completely reliable so far.

Not much to say about the functionality - plug it in and it goes to work BUT, the thing that made me happy was it has a real, metal case AND a conventional computer style, three prong plug! A little switch with the quality of a big one.

I have been working with computers for thirty years and have three computers at home so I know what a keyboard should feel like. I bought two of these keyboards because: 1. USB connectivity 2. two USB ports and 3. it is square and not too huge or round or otherwise in a weird shape. Why anyone would buy (or want to make and sell) any other type of keyboard is beyond me. I see lots of moron keyboard manufacturers making green, round, PS/2-plug keyboards with buttons everywhere and I wonder how they stay in business. Anyways, I can't use either of these keyboards for the dumb reason that the cord is too short. One would think that three or four feet is long enough but if you have the keyboard on the desk and the computer on the floor then that doesn't work. Apparently one of those morons works at keytronic. How much does two feet of cord cost? The feeling is a bit mushy but I assume one would get used to it. The USB ports are upside down. For a company specialised in keyboards I am unimpressed with Keytronic - I'm going to have to buy another two Microsoft Internet keyboards, like the one I have already.

This keyboard is a USB keyboard that worked immediately with my Dell Inspiron 5100 that runs Windows XP without installing any software. I don't use the internet keys so I don't know how great those are. Other wise this keyboard has taken a lot of pounding since I bought 6 months ago. I am a college student and all my friends use this keyboard when in my dorm room. The BEST THING about this keyboard is that it has two USB ports on the back of the actual keyboard, so it acts as a USB hub as well. It takes up one USB port on your computer but then gives you two extra USB ports! This is great for me because I have my optical mouse and my webcam hooked up to the keyboard and they all work perfectly fine. Everything about this keyboard is reliable, the keys may not be the quitest but I've had louder. Definitely a best buy unless you want a wireless keyboard. Why would you buy a regular keyboard when you can get a relatively cheap reliable keyboard that gives you two extra USB ports? Buy this and you will be satisfied.

Can't believe Amazon increase 5% on every electronics right after the good news from IRAQ. Guess they want to bank on the good news. Anyway, good converter, buy it but not here....

IT WORKS! Now I can convert any big IDE drive to SCSI. There is still some limitations tho, such as it did not support Tagged Queues & Domain validation(unless drive set to asyn). So it's good for Raid 0 or non Raid setup and of couse not a good idea for server.

This keyboard is the best compromise that I've found, but it's not perfect.

Pros: ALL keys are in the correct position (I had a Datadesk Smartboard, and the '=/+' key is on the left hand on that unit). Even the Insert/Delete/etc. keys are in the correct position.

Cons: The spacebar is a little "clacky" as another reviewer said. The split could be angled a little more -- it's almost like they took a keyboard and pulled it apart in the middle. My unit is wobbly, so I put a penny under one of the feet.

Overall it's a good value, but Belkin needs to do a little more work on the design.

Overall this is a pretty good natural keyboard and the additional USB ports for other peripherals makes it a good bargain. I've used it so far with a Microsoft Optical (wired) Mouse but exceeded the USB hub's power capacity when I tried using a smartcard reader (Viking Intelliflash 6-in-1).

Pros:

* The keys aren't as clacky (noisy on the keystrokes) as other keyboards I've used, although they couldn't be called "quiet" either.

* One nice touch is the addition of markings on those keys which become shortcut keys when used in conjunction with the CTRL key. The reference text indicates which letters can be used for Cut (Ctrl-X), Copy (Ctrl-C), Paste (Ctrl-V) and other shortcuts (Select All, Save, Find, Bold, Underline, Italics, Redo, Open, Print, New).

Cons:

* The unit as a whole feels big, almost TOO big. This is probably due to a) the wrist rest being completely integrated into the keyboard rather than being an flexible or hinged attachment and b) the extra girth on the underside to accomodate the USB ports. If you're looking for a keyboard with a lean profile this probably isn't your best choice.

* The USB ports in the back aren't well seated into their sockets so they flex a bit *too* much when adding or removing a USB peripheral. That leads me to believe those ports may wear out rather quickly if peripherals are attached and detached on a regular basis.

* There are no adjustable feet to raise or lower the angle of the unit, so you're pretty much stuck with the slant that came built into the keyboard.

All in all, though, it works exactly as advertised and so far I've had no problems with its quality or functionality.

Well, you need to buy this antenna only if you absolutely cannot move or rotate your desktop.

While waiting for my Belkin antenna to arrive, I rotated my desktop to bring the existing antenna in line with the router on the other end of the house. I immediately got an improvement in signal from - low to very good.

When my Belkin antenna arrived, I was surprised to see that it was of the same size as the original antenna supplied with the PCI card! The only advantage is that it is now connected with a cable. So now you can place it anywhere close to the desktop. But the reception remained approximately the same. See description from Belkin below:
http://catalog.belkin.com/IWCatProductPage.process?Merchant_Id=1&Product_Id=126498

Here is how you should evaluate if you need this product:

a) Draw an imaginary line between the fixed antenna and the router. Now remove as many obstructions as possible on this line. The CPU itself maybe an obstruction. If possible rotate the CPU.If this helps then the desktop antenna will probably help.

b) Another test to determine if the desktop antenna will help or not is to place a wireless laptop close to the desktop and compare its reception with the desktop. If the two are significantly different then the desktop antenna would help.

Overall, donot expect a miraculous improvement in signal strength. The antenna only helps you to place itself in a better location. You could do the same by moving or relocating your desktop. Good Luck!

I have a wireless network, with two laptops and two desktop systems. I get 100% signal strength throughout my house on the laptops, but when I moved a desktop system to the basement to attach to a MIDI keyboard, I got dismal signal strength (about 20%). A laptop right next to the system showed 100%.

Enter the Belkin antenna. After removing the network card's antenna and attaching the Belkin, signal strength more than quadrupled, to 85%. That makes the internet connection usable again.

I would have rated it a five if it would have given me 100% signal. What's the problem? The card? Planetary alignment? Who knows... But the Belkin was worth it!

I purchased this because I'm getting a computer with only 1 USB port, unfortunately by not reading enough into it, they LITERALLY mean that it is a printer port, it does not work with CD drivers or other parallel equipment, the Serial port DID NOT work with my Wacom Graphics Tablet, the device was useless to me, and returned.

I couldn't install any more USB so this one not only did the trick but it also allowed me to use a com port without an additional IRQ thus those hated IRQ conflicts since it creates a virtual com port through the USB port! PLUS you can get a virtual printer LPT port also.... EXCELLENT for my laptop. Thank you guys....!!!

Plus you can update drivers for FREE!

Background: I have 13 years as a network engineer. I bought this box with the anticipation that I could use it as a VPN endpoint, allowing me access to my home network from my WinXP laptop when I'm away from home. Before buying it, I verified with D-link that I could do it. So far, though, I have been unable to get it to work. (VPNs are not *that* hard to set up....)

On the bright side, the web-based interface is very easy to use and gives you a finer degree of control than many similarly priced routers. For example, it allows me to enable/disable responding to PING requests from the WAN side, allows FTP'ing to ports other than port 21 and so on.... Heck, if I didn't need the VPN capability, I'd buy it again. As it is, I'll probably end up returning it.

Unlike the last reviewer, I was able to establish IKE-based VPN between the DI-804HV and a Netscreen 25. This is a great router for telecommuters who need IPSEC VPN capability back to a main office. I have measured throughput up to 1.8Mbps for both VPN and non-VPN traffic (1.8Mbps was the line rate, not the limit of this device)- this is plenty for the average home DSL line. The price point sure beats existing VPN telecommuting solutions like the Netscreen 5 or SonicWall SOHO.

I recently upgraded from the WGR614 to this. From a router and wireless standpoint, this unit is MUCH better than the previous Netgear routers I had. The pretty silver units are nice for consumers, but I needed more options and more range. This unit does it all.

However, and it is a BIG however, the Print Server (which was the main reason to spring for the total upgrade) does not support my HP PSC 2410 nor my EPSON Stylus CX5200. Those two things in themselves make it impossible for me to recommend the router overall. None of the Netgear products support this, and it makes no sense, since most people buy small multifunctions for their homes now.

I've applied the new flash upgrade, and performance is still quite good. Most of my comments from January still apply. Setup is quick, Citrix & terminal services work without modification, and I can connect to my main office via Cisco VPN client. Games are still working too.

As with most vendors, I suspect you'll have better compatibility if you use a Netgear WiFi NIC with this unit. I can get it to work with a Cisco Aironet NIC, but I cannot get WPA encryption to work. WEP (for what it's worth) works, but I'll probably have to spring for the corresponding Netgear NIC if I want to move to WPA.

The print server took a hit with the flash upgrade, however. Now it will only work as long as the PCs using it never reboot. If they do, you lose the connection to the print server until the firewall is rebooted. Tech support has been, um, less than helpful in resolving the issue. For that reason, my rating still stands at 4 stars. I strongly recommend you check the printer compatibility list on Netgear's site before you count on this as a print server.

A couple of other notes:
- The firewall is solid. I'm a networking guy, and I've tried to hack my way in a couple of times. Nothing's perfect, but this is a good solution in the home or very small business market. The worst I've been able to do against this unit is a denial of service, which disabled the Internet connection to my home network until I rebooted the unit.
- If you plan to use MSN Messenger 6.2 and/or Windows XP's Remote Assistance, you'll need to enable UPnP on this unit, which is a bit annoying, but more of a Microsoft issue.
- The e-mail logging is VASTLY improved over that of the previous flash. My logs are much more manageable, and the number of false-positive security alert messages is minimal.
- You can now create up to two remote access VPN tunnels with the new flash. I tried it and it works, although as a home user I can't imagine ever needing that feature. Difficult to set up, though, so unless you have a solid understanding of IPSEC VPN protocols, good luck.

Still, I believe this is a good unit for a home office. For me, combining the functions of print server, wireless access point, and hardware firewall into a single device make it worth the price.

Back in November, I tried version 1 of this product. And I wrote a review saying that many of its features just did not work.

In addition I wrote that Netgear tech support never responded to any of my email requests for support, and that was six months ago. Their website said allow one day.

Anyway, they have now released a firmware update. And all the problems I previously complained about are gone now. For example, it now works with Citrix and the error messages are now in "better" English

Product seems to work fine out of the box. No complaints. I give it 4 stars and not 5 because the print server part of this product is pretty useless unless you happen one of the few printers it supports. And because of their continued horrible tech support.

I have used and been a fan of the Orinoco wireless network cards since they were first introduced by Lucent. I needed a wireless card for a new notebook and thought this would be a great opportuity to upgrade from my old B Gold Classic to a newer A/B/G Gold Combo card. However, after installing the Combo card, I have been constantly frustrated by dropped signals and dramatically reduced range of the card compared to my old B Gold Classic. Rarely can I maintain a wireless connection between my AP and the Combo card over 30ft.(through 1/2 drywall and wood stud walls). My Gold Classic was rock solid to at least 150ft. Further, the new Combo card's management and diagnostic utilities aren't nearly as useful for identifying and solving problems -- particularly signal strength and competing APs -- as the Client Manager utility available for the Gold Glassic. I have been a fan of Orinoco products but Proxim seems to be letting quality control slip. The Combo is going back and I just ordered another B Gold Classic.

Well when I got the card I was disappointed to see no external antenna port. I will see if there is a restocking fee. The documentation that I read stated that it did have it. The only ones good for war driving is the old Gold classic i think its an 8421 or something in that range. Also it doesnt work too good on a Mac. This is meant to be the creme-de-la creme of cards. hmm more like cream of a filet-o-fish.

Orinoco combocard gold is the only card that combines both the 5GHz and the 2.4GHz wireless network
(11a of the 5GHz and the 11g of the 2.4GHz which is backword compatible with the 11b network).
The gold version lets you to set unlimited profiles of the places you connect while on the way.
It is very stable and lets you to turbo you 11a signal to 108Mbps which is faster than the Ethernet 100 wired standard.

If you in the market for a wireless cardbus, buy the Orinoco 8480 version (the Gold version) for all your wireless needs.

I have been unable to connect my USR 2216 network card in 22 Mbps / 256-bit WEP mode to my USR 8022 router - which negates a major reason why I purchased a USR 2216 card in the first place. But the USR 2216 does work in 11 Mbps / no WEP key mode.

Using this device is just like training a dog. It did have troubles detecting 2.4G signal for the first 2-3 days (it did not pick up signal everytime computer reboots at the beginning.) But as time goes on it works perfectly fine without a problem. i am using it on P4-winXP machine. I recommend this model.

Great product! Never fails me... and it's fast at 22mbps.