« Vyduna Wedding Picture: Our Current Favorite | Main | Most Recent Book: The Search »
January 10, 2006
Big Monitor, Little Hacked Router
First urge was to apologize - I've never been so blog lazy that I am missing a month on my index - but then I realized, "Who are you kidding, you self-important crack? Was it the hundreds of people emailing you, complaining about the wake left by your erudite mind's absence from the web, that finally convinced you to post for everyone? To satiate that hunger?"
Anyway, I've come to share some geekl0ve. Pause - remember way back in the day? (PS - did you know that whenever you talk about "back in the day", it was actually a Wednesday? Yea. That's just a fun fact. Chew on it. It's Delicious.*) Back in the day, Rebecca used to post on "our" blog. Those days are over, and the blog needs a new title. Problem is, there's no theme besides me being jacked about being a bigger nerd than my friends. Let's begin.
For our wedding, my parents' gift was something that I had been soiling myself about quite regularly - a 37" flat panel computer monitor, the Westinghouse LVM-37w1. 1920x1080, works nights as a TV. Lots of inputs, and THE PRICE! I mean, I didn't buy it for myself, but if you're into this stuff, you know that this is absolutely the best size*features/price for any LCD available - around $1600. Sometimes I just get really close and count the pixels until I reach 2 million. Does the highest HDTV spec: 1080p. It is NOT the best for pure TV-philes, but it is a flawless computer monitor. Sorry for being so braggy, but I get so excited I want to kick myself in the face.
My other tip to share is my experience with hacked open-source firmware for the common Linksys WRT54G router. It's Geekilicious - it runs linux and can be reprogrammed to do things that usually require networking equipment many times the price.
- Want to run a captive portal? (When people associate with the wireless, it redirects client web browser to a page you specify)
- Want to play with some sophisticated wireless security scams?
- Wish you had bought a wireless bridge instead for much more $$$?
While this all sounds fascinating, I needed to do the last one. We recently received a HP OfficeJet 7310 all-in-one Printer/Copier/Fax/Scanner with automatic document feeder (!). It has a built in ethernet port, similar to a HP JetDirect embedded print server. How would you get this device on your wireless network? Well you could use a USB wireless print server, but that would force you to use the HP's USB interface. What you need is something called a wireless bridge - there are several flavors, but think of it as a way to connect two wired networks, in this case, my all-in-one plugged into the back of the WRT54G and my cable modem/D-Link router/wireless access point. Works great.
Since Linksys released the original firmware under the GPL, there have been many feature-rich firmware replacements out there. I'm using DD-WRT, and if you don't mind the politics, you could also consider the non-free ones from Sveasoft. Lesson learned: If you want to do these hacks, you cannot use the newest common model, the WRT54G v5 (runs VmWare. Get the WRT54GL if buying new).
*Dane Cook material. Stolen. I saw him live - great stuff.
Posted by Jeff at January 10, 2006 11:22 AM
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.jeffvyduna.com/mt/mt-tb.cgi/31