Ed’s Tech Blog

Allow FXP in servu ftp server.
It fixed the problem….too much to go into now, but I can’t forget this setting.

In Adhoc mode, two WET’s cannot use wpa security and connect to each other.
WPA only works in Infrastructure mode.
2 WET’s can only connect in ad-hoc mode.

Linksys refuses to post this information on their website.

Linksys refuses to give out the release notes for v1.08 of the firmware for the WET.

Awesome.

Part 2.

A WET54G v3 v1.08 firmware and a WRT54G v2 v4.20.7 firmware can only we connected using WPA1 TKIP for security (if you want WPA.)
This must be done in infrastructure mode.

I know this. Not one goddam stupid son of a bitch at Linksys tech support has access to this information. (until they read this blog.)

Awesome. I love Linksys. Cisco did a fucking great job transforming them from a shoddy company that makes half ass products with lousy support and terrible documentation. Keep it up!

One more note, there is a problem with using my domain’s dns suffix across the bridge. We don’t use netbios, just dns in the environment.

nslookup mycomputer.domainname.local fails
nslookup mycomputer succeeds.

Not sure why. Have to remap some drives b/c they had the suffix in their name. But it looks like this will work.

Some companies just cannot grasp the concepts behind good usability. Maybe they’re afraid to spend any money on it. It sucks worst when they have a product or service that I want to use, but I keep getting slammed by their lousy websites.

I’ll just keep adding to this list of most frustrating websites I deal with:

Lenovo.com -
Good: Thinkpads. Hands down the best consumer laptops made today.
Bad: Every time I tried to custom configure one of these, the website blocked most available options. I call in, wait on hold, get an operator, and they say, “Why does everbody say that they can’t find feature X? Here’s how to click through the navigation to get to the fully customizable part of the site….” OK, obviously, it’s a very common problem with the site. I explain to him that their site’s problem is because it copies Dell’s site partially, and then everybody who buys laptops has been to Dell’s site. We know how Dell’s site works, and we expect that functionality as a baseline. I then ask him how I can leave feedback about the site, and he says they don’t have a way to accept feedback. Simply Awesome! Way to go Chinese Management! (or it could be some IBMer with his head up his arse.) Customers love to feel that no one is listening to them!

Let’s keep busting on Lenovo. Ever see a site since 1998 that was missing the ‘Contact Us’ section? Well, now you can go to Lenovo.com and marvel at their ineptitude.

And lastly, I just clicked off their homepage add for the new T60 line with Duo Core Centrino’s. (Those things are brand new, and the darlings of hardware reviewers.) So, I’m taken to a page for ordering them. It says, ‘Call for availability’. Now, that pisses me off for any company to do that. It means they have a lousy warehouse management system in place, and probably a lot of other mismanagaged aspects to their system. I mean, a guy in a callcenter is going to have access to a notebook’s availablity, but the website’s backend can’t access that same information? Right, it means either incompetence or a marketing ploy. Well, in this case, it’s a marketing ploy. After 20 minutes on hold (not exagerating), I get a rep. I ask about the T60’s off the websites, and he responds, “I can’t belive they did that to us. That line won’t be available to purchase until April, 2006 at the earliest.” There you go. Marketing ploy. and a mighty weak one at that.
So, I declare Lenovo’s management change from IBM to be a failure from a small business customer point of view. Oh, and the usability still sucks.

Flickr.com -
Good: Unlimited full size photo uploads and downloads for $25/ year. Nobody else offers that.
Bad: Most difficult site ever conceived for SHARING those unlimited photos. No excuse, the basics have been refined for 5 years by Ofoto, webshots and snapfish. Just copy it morons!

OK,

This is a nice tutorial on how to open up MS Access Databases in Open Office 2.0. (A glaring hole, that they apparently left on purpose. If you get the pay version of Open Office, you don’t have to jump through these hoops.)
http://www.openoffice.org/FAQs/ms-access/ms-access.html

If I get some time, I could write a script to do this. Or better yet, create a macro inside Base so that it becomes seemless for the user to open up MS Access databases. (Just a reminder to myself to do this.)