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Well this is interesting. I was considering becoming a reseller for Suddenlink Cable since I’ve been very pleased with their internet service. However, if you “rent” the SMC8014WN Wireless Modem/Router/AP from them – BEWARE!

Suddenlink has locked down the firmware in the SMC8014WN so that most of the typical features from any $60 router/access point from BestBuy or OfficeDepot or NewEgg – are simply not available. That’s insane.

WEP as a security measure is so broken that your (and everyone else’s) kid sister can easily circumvent it,” said computer security researcher Ralf-Philipp Weinmann, co-author of the aircrack-ptw tool that can crack WEP in minutes.

This unit is running a locked down firmware that doesn’t allow you to use anything but WEP encryption. As I’ve mentioned before, never use WEP encryption. This encryption algorithm was broken more than 10 years ago. The only exception would be legacy hardware that you simply cannot replace. In that case, you should put your legacy device on it’s own subnet separate from everything else.

You should ALWAYS USE WPA (or WPA2) encryption with a sufficiently strong passphrase. WPA + AES is currently unbroken and susceptible only to brute-force dictionary attacks, which all encryption schemes are. In other words, you can only break it by slamming a zillion password combinations at it and hoping for sheer luck.

You also can’t change the SSID. While changing or hiding the SSID does not increase security, it can make things more convenient.

Here is the best part. I called Suddenlink tech support just to make sure my findings were correct. A decent and knowledgeable tech support guy got on the phone and confirmed my findings.

Suddenlink Support: Suddenlink ships those modems with WEP to support the xBox which is WEP only. We lockdown the systems to make it easier for us to support users.

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So I asked him simply: “Just to be clear, Suddenlink has shipped locked down devices with a broken security algorithm just to support the old xBox?”

Suddenlink guy: “Yes, that is correct.”

Hmm – maybe they haven’t heard of the DLink DGL-3420 which allows you to run WPA on the old xBox? If one of the Principal Tech Specialists at Microsoft thinks WEP is trivially crackable, maybe Suddenlink should listen?

Hmm – maybe Suddenlink should rethink their corporate policy on their users’ security? Maybe they shouldn’t send installers out who are morons and know nothing about networks nor security?

By the way, Suddenlink rapes you for $10/month until the end of your service for this piece of junk.

Solution: Purchase a Motorola Surfboard Modem and a Linksys Wireless Router. Simple. Effective. Cheaper. Safer.

Ok – I ran into an odd issue while migrating my entire smartergeek.com site over to MediaTemple hosting – running WordPress and Thesis.

Why did I move my site? I ran into a performance issue with GoDaddy’s hosting of WordPress and mySQL. My page times were taking between 3-49 seconds!.That’s crazy even for shared servers. There are lots of posts about it with no good resolution – so I decided to test MT hosting.

*If you want to see how many sites are running on your shared server – then enter your domain name here.

So far – so good. Page times under 1 second.

Disclaimer: I am a Super Reseller for Godaddy and continue to have all domains registered there along with several hundred customer websites.

Before anyone comments about it, yes I did all the usual such as disabling all plugins, new mySQL database, etc. Turns out that the static HTML pages and even MS Access databases run fine. It’s something to do with GoDaddy’s mySQL implementation.

One of the issues I ran into was with the popular wp-dbmanager plugin. I use this plugin to automatically backup my database and store it on my webserver and email a copy which is archived in my Google mail. Remember, Rule #1.

As I blogged previously, I setup a Google Voice account and have integrated it into my telephone support. You can call 318-995-GEEK (4335), and it will directly ring my cell phone. I setup my iPhone voicemail to automatically route to gVoice too.

There are several advantages. First, let me say that the visual voicemail on the iPhone is cool, but gVoice takes that concept to a whole new level. I have a copy of EVERY voicemail that I have received since setting it up. That makes a tremendous difference in my business since I go through a lot of calls each day. As most of you know, I am a one-man show. There is no secretary.

As with most businesses customer communication is a key component. I can sign in to my Google Voice account from any internet-connected computer and review all of them. I can download them as mp3 files, embed them in my website, or forward them on to others. Of course, my main purpose is to store them for customer history information.

The voice transcription is not that great. So far, it is more entertaining than useful, but Google is working on improving it. I have full faith that they will get it right.

Overall, I am very pleased with its performance and features. For free – you can’t beat it.

What is Google Voice?

It is NOT a phone service per se. You need an existing phone or you can just use it for voicemail. When someone calls your Google Voice number, it will ring your existing phone or phones. You answer one of them and take the call or route it to voicemail.

Google Voice Explained – from Google.

From email 3-19-2010. This is a great question and answer for everyone to read.

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I just got that 100′ CAT6 10/100/1000 cable tonight.
—————-

You know that Cat5e supports gigabit right? That might have saved you a little money.

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Did you know Media Center doesn’t come on anything before Vista? That sucks.
—————

Wrong. XP Media Center Edition has been around since shortly after XP was released. I have a copy of it for Dell.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_XP_editions#Media_Center_Edition

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I want to get a wireless N router but have seen where g devices connected to an N router are no better than a G router. This prompts me to look at “True Dual Band” routers.
——————–

We discussed that when we discussed 100/1000 on ethernet. You don’t have to get a “true dual band” – that is marketing bullshit. All N access points will fall back to G or B on devices that don’t support N. That is part of the N spec.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_802.11n#Backward_compatibility

—————–
keep coming back to this Linksys WRT610N. It is simultaneous, has a USB port for a network USB drive where I could store all my music, audiobooks, and the rest of that crap.
—————–

Of course I’m a fan of Linksys stuff. That model has some good/bad reviews. I’m going to say you will probably be fine with it.

—————-
Need faster down and upload speeds if I am going to be streaming TV on my TV through Media Extender and Xbox
—————-

While I hate DSL and love cable, if you are streaming from your Media Extender directly to your TV, then you ‘net connection doesn’t matter. That would fall under the internal network bandwidth – and thus gigabit and wireless n would help.

However, if you are going to be streaming from Hulu.com or wherever to your TV, then having more ‘net bandwidth is definitely a plus.

By the way, I have 20Mbs down and 2Mbs up now.

——————
I was also thinking about checking out one of those TV tuners for your computer… what do you think of those?
——————

I think they work great, especially for displaying ‘net content on your TV or ripping your DVD’s to your pc and playing them directly from a media box.

—————
My Dell Inspiron 1525 (that you have the twin), can we upgrade the internal network card to an N+ card instead of a G, or would I do better with a adapter hanging on the side of the machine?
————–

Nope – you have to add a USB card, PCMCIA, or ExpressCard type.

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the hard drive for the laptop, its 250Gigs, can we make that much bigger and still keep the outside shell of the laptop?
—————–

Yep – the hard drive form factor is the same for a larger capacity. I’ve got a 500GB in my dell right now.

http://www.newegg.com/Store/SubCategory.aspx?SubCategory=380&name=Laptop-Hard-Drives

A long time ago in a galaxy far away…I was addicted to EverQuest (aka EQ or EverCrack). I’m not kidding. I played EQ at least 30 hours a week starting around mid 1999 (on dialup) and continuing until 2005. Genia played. The best man at our first wedding was my best friend in EQ. Scott and his wife drove down to Hot Springs to meet us for our wedding.

Now here is the cool thing. A lot of people play MMORPG games just to play, but for me EQ was different. It actually inspired me. I can honestly trace the vast majority of my web coding skills and graphics abilities back to the days when my guild needed a website. Ok – I learned to code. We needed a way to show off our characters outside the game. Ok – I learned Fireworks and Adobe Photoshop. We need a way to communicate in the game. Ok – I learned about early VOIP programs such as Ventrilo, and that spawned a further interest in routers, port forwarding, and much much more including Flash and video technologies.

At some point, I became interested in a program called ShowEQ or SEQ for short. It allowed you to have an in-game radar. Some of the developers spun-off and needed a home for development. I volunteered the web hosting and site, and Scott and I launched the MySEQ forums February 4, 2004. It grew to 4000 members within 24 hours. That’s nothing these days, but then it was awesome for a bunch of EQ’ers who were running an outlaw program at the risk of Sony banning us.

Of course, I haven’t played EQ in a long time. I just honestly don’t have the time with my business and family. However, I do owe a lot to my days in EverQuest. They were inspirational to say the least.

This is one of the more common “issues” that I encounter. Probably many of you reading this blog may be guilty. When someone asks you to type an address (URL) in your browser (ex: www.smartergeek.com), that means you should type it in the ADDRESS BAR of the browser!

Sure, you can type in the search bar of Google, Yahoo, or Bing – but that requires an extra click. It’s not a really big deal, but when I’m trying to get you to type in an address and see a particular page, and then you don’t and get something different – it just makes it that much harder to help you.

Interestingly enough, if you want to see the top search terms for Yahoo and Google – click the following links:

http://buzzlog.buzz.yahoo.com/overall/

http://www.google.com/trends

————
Question from Email:
————

Rex,
I have a customer that is having a real problem with her wireless signal in a 2 story hotel. She has tried everything from getting another Netgear range max router and still can not get a signal on her outer areas of the 2nd floor. I recommended the WRT54GL and the DD-WRT firmware. That would increase the signal of the wireless on that router correct?

———–
My Reply:
———–

The NetGear Range Max is marketing hype. The reason that it doesn’t help her is simple – even if the access point can transmit a considerable distance, that doesn’t mean the remote device (laptop) has the strength to transmit back. The main advantage to the devices with MIMO technology is that they are less prone to interference.

Wireless N won’t help either since the majority of laptops won’t support N and will fall back to G.

The WRT54GL flashed with DD-WRT or Tomato (what I recommend now) is an excellent choice. Of course, it’s what I recommend due to features, cost, and performance. Plus, the WRT54GL runs 16MB of onboard RAM, which means it can handle higher numbers of devices well. I’ve set them up with 80+ devices connected and no performance issues.

However, her main concern is going to be saturating the wireless to the 2nd floor. You have to remember that the G band basically comes out in an umbrella shape. Even turning up the transmit power (available under Tomato and DD-WRT) won’t guarantee The best solution is to run ethernet to the 2nd floor and connect a 2nd WRT54GL setup as a switch/AP.

If she can’t run ethernet cable to the 2nd floor, then a 2nd WRT54GL can be setup as a repeater. As long as you place the “repeater” in decent proximity to the 1st floor access point, it should work out fine. Again, remote devices at the edge signal on the 2nd floor may still experience connectivity issues. It depends on total square footage of the 2nd floor, walls, other interference, etc.

*Originally posted on my old message board in Feb 2005. Copied here as it is popular.

Well, this is the story of how a Panasonic SV-AV20u was donated to me by someone with whom I have done a lot of computer work. The device is pretty cool as it will work as an mp3 player (sort of), video recorder (.asf), and audio recorder. It even has some good write-ups. The only real issues seem to stem for the SD Jukebox software and the use of the SD encryption technology.

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Charging System
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The CH-9007 Charging System is compatible with this device even though Panasonic tries to say only their charging unit works. eBay usually has some, but I found one for around $50 here:

http://www.batterysavings.com/site/1/product/5/194/16619/CH- 9007/1/a.aspx

One of the nice things about this unit is that it comes with both the a/c charging plug and the car adapter for the charging unit.

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USB Cable
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The USB cable is a  USB 2.0 to MINI USB 2.0 (5 Pin Format). These aren’t hard to find either. As a matter of fact Wal-Mart has them too.

http://www.mycableshop.com/sku/CUSB2-AM506.htm?x=22&y=9

*See below for the Lexar Jumpdrive Trio method of dealing with the files.*

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A/C Power Supply
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One of the issues with using the USB cable is that it will not respond until the SV-AV20 detects the A/C power supply. The until calls for a 4.7v DC input. I went to Radio Shack and purchased the 4.5V/1600mA AC-to-DC Power Adapter (part# 273-1760) which comes with a free “B” type plug. Connecting this unit works perfectly.

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SD-Jukebox, SD-MovieStage, and USB Drivers
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The fact that you cannot download the USB drivers nor the software from the US Panasonic website is crazy. There is nothing very proprietary about this software. It is simply a way for Panasonic to make their products more difficult or rape you of more money for something that should be easily accessible.

Originally, the Russian Panasonic site had the v3 downloads of the software. After I downloaded the software, and published the link, Panasonic yanked it down.

I have copies of the software so here are the links to them (at least until Panasonic threatens me):

www.smartergeek.com/files/PanasonicVoiceEditor3.zip

www.smartergeek.com/files/PanasonicSDJukeboxv4.zip

www.smartergeek.com/files/Panasonic_SV-AV20_USBDriver.zip

www.smartergeek.com/files/Panasonic_SD-MovieStage_and_USBDriver-SV-AV20.zip

www.smartergeek.com/files/Panasonic_SD-JukeboxV3_and_USBDriver-SV-AV20.zip

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Converting the .VM1 files
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I’ve found that using Awave Studio is the best and easiest method to convert the SV-AV20 .vm1 audio files to mp3. No, it’s not cheap to buy the software, but it works very easy. Make sure you copy the Lame encoder DLL to the Awave installed directory for mp3 output.

• Just put the SD card in your computer
• make sure hidden files are enabled in Windows
• copy the files to your computer
• start Awave and open the files to convert them

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Another Thread on AV-20
#########

http://www.petesipple.co.uk/panasonicbook.html

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Other Notes:
########

I do have a PDF copy of the manual for the SV-AV20u. If you would like a copy, send me a private message on the board or email at rex (at) rexpage.com with Panasonic SV-AV20u in the subject (or the spam filters will get it).

I also purchased a Lexar Card Reader for SD/MMC/Memory Stick (USB thumb-drive type device) so that I could read the 64MB SanDisk SD Card on any computer. This device is compatible with Win98, 2k, and XP without the need for drivers. Now, I can access the device however I need. Moving the files from  the SV-AV20u is now simply a case of pulling out the SD card, inserting it into the Trio, plugging that into my USB port, and doing a little copy/pasting. Then I use my other methods described in this article to deal with the movies and voice recorded audio. In the future I may also purchase a larger SD card although I hate to spend money on DRM-type devices.

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Convert .asf to .mpg
##########

www.tmpgenc.net

===========

TMPGEnc converts *.AVI file to MPEG1, the format which is used in VideoCD. Using variety of option in TMPGEnc, you can compress your video file in high quality.

TMPGEnc enables us adjust bitrate, quantize matrix, GOP structure, Interlace and many other parameter so that you can create most appropriate movie file depends on your purpose.

===============

Since the .asf format is proprietary Microsoft and oddly enough it is patented, I highly recommend that you convert your videos out of this format as soon as you are able. Using TMPgenc, you can easily convert the .asf files to non-proprietary MPEG or AVI (non-compressed) which means they should be playable in any player including vCD’s, DVD’s, etc.

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Listen / Convert .vm1 files:
#########

A reply on [ this site ] gives a method for listening to .vm1 files. You can then record them using Audacity or whatever method.

Note: you will unfortunately need Microsoft Windows Media player for this method.

Download WMP: [ Click here ]

Download WMP Plugin
http://www.wmplugins.com/ItemDetail.aspx?ItemID=524

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Convert .wav to mp3 format:
#########

Well, there doesn’t seem to be an easy way to do this in JukeBox or MovieStage or Voice Editor. The device saves your voice files in .vm1 format which is proprietary to Panasonic and requires the SD Voice Editor Software. Use Voice Editor to convert to .wav file. Then, simply use Audacity to convert to .mp3 or oog. Problem solved.

Link to Audacity (free and open source sound editor)
http://audacity.sourceforge.net

You can read more by checking [ this article ].

You will also need to install the LAME encoder [ download here ] for mp3′s. This is easy to do. You will download and unzip the file. Then place the lame_enc.dll somewhere in your computer (I usually put mine in the c:\program files\audacity directory) and use the File…Preferences…File Format (tab) to locate the .dll.

#########
Final Conclusion:
#########

This is the most idiotic thing I have seen that tries to utilize some sort of DRM. I called Panasonic support, and from what I can research I can either (1) order the software from them or (2) purchase an SD card reader to work with the SanDisk 64MB SD card that I have. The only downside is that audio recordings are saved on the device in a proprietary format, the video is saved as .asf which is owned by Microsoft, and I will not be able to really utilize it as an alleged “mp3″ player.

Since it is really not an mp3 player anyway as it encodes the mp3′s on-the-fly to the device anyway plus I have an iPod, I was going to opt for the card reader until I finally found the software. However, I up buying the SD card reader anyway. Then I can at least access the jpg images and .asf video files. The video files can then be converted to whatever format I wish. It’s a little bit of a pain to convert the voice recorder audio, but not too bad. All in all for a donated piece of technology, it is not too bad.

Would I ever buy one? Hell no.

As most of you know, I’m very much into backups. For my local information, I use and recommend JungleDisk. What do you do about “cloud” information though? What if Facebook lost your account? Think that can’t happen? Right.

I put a lot of trust in services such as Google; however, ultimately I’m into personal responsibility. That means that you and you alone are responsible for you data so I like to watch the watchers.

Ok – here is what I do:

• For Google email (Gmail, etc) – Gmail Backup. Easy. Simple.
• For Google Docs – choose all your docs…more actions…export.
• For JungleDisk – I also backup to an encrypted USB drive.
• For Picasa Web, I have local copies that are backed up to JungleDisk and USB drives.

For services such as Twitter and Facebook and any others, I don’t put any information in them that I don’t have somewhere else. Simple enough.

However, there are a lot of people that put a ton of information into cloud services and don’t have a copy of that data elsewhere. How do you back it up?

Backupify is a service that connects to your various cloud services, pulls in your data, and stores it securely with Amazon’s S3 cloud service – cloud to cloud backup. Now, they admit that recovering data back to some services (Facebook) is currently impossible. However, at least you would have your raw data should a disaster happen with Facebook.

As most of you know, I don’t play that many video games. In years past, I was very much into EverQuest, but I just don’t have the time anymore. However, the boys have PS2′s and Santa brought a Wii for Christmas. While I’d played a Wii before with customers, I didn’t realize how much fun the thing really is. Our whole family enjoys it.

Now, I have another reason to like it. Soon the Wii will add Netflix streaming. Since I’m already a Netflix subscriber (for DVD’s), this will be perfect. The only downsides – you have to insert a free Netflix disc to stream (runs the application) and Netflix’s streaming service generally has older titles. That’s ok though – more family time.

I’m still considering a Roku, but the Wii service will add to the entertainment capabilities.