Current Network

I have been doing a lot of networking of late... I had four different routers in four weeks trying to get the functionality I was looking for. I finally settled on the wrt600n router to meet all my needs. I wanted something that would give me Ndraft wireless, dual channel real time, and a gigabit switch. (I got burned by the box of a Netgear that stated dual channel, but it meant one or the other, not both) and rock solid reliability. (Don't get started on whose routers are better, I happen to like Linksys). My previous router was a WRT54G which is an industry standard router pretty much. That little tank was ALWAYS up, so much so that I forgot all the settings, etc. So my current configuration is:

WRT600N
Wired:
Windows Home Server direct wired
Xbox 360 direct wired
XP Desktop

5Ghz N Draft
WGN600N
Belkin USB Hub direct wired
Hooked up to the Belkin is an Epson R1800

2.4Ghz G
XP Laptop
Vista Premium Laptop

One of my recent lessons was in security. I can say that I saw a 100% increase in G network speed by switching to WPA2 and AES over WPA with TKIP. When transferring 32GB of music from a laptop over to the Home Server, that is a HUGE difference. So if you have AES capability on your machines I highly recommend making the switch!

Haxorz II

I still haven't finished this project. As it got darker in the room, the camera appeared to get grainier, so I did a bit more research and it turns out that I need to filter out normal light so that I am only getting infra-red light coming on to the CMOS sensor. The easiest way to do this is to place a piece of black negative from color film over the lens. When was the last time you saw film from a camera? Can't remember? Me either. I guess I could go take pictures of a dark room and get the developed so I can get the negatives... but that is starting to turn in to a more expensive project than I would like. And I still haven't worked out a cheap way to get the camera wireless. So for now, I have put the project on hold. While I could kludge together frankencam to prove the point, the idea was cheap, easy to use webcam functionality that gave me the ability to monitor my daughter while she sleeps. Since that isn't working out to be so cheap, I may as well look at commercial solutions.