My New D-Link Wireless Router
Today was my first ever "Black Friday" shopping trip. Despite getting up at 4 AM and standing in a line that wrapped around the building, the savings were worth it. One of my great finds this morning was a D-Link Wireless G Kit for $15.00 at Best Buy. The router came with networking software called "Network Magic," which is supposed to simplify the setup of a home network. The software automates the sharing of folders, files, printers, as well as the internet connection. It looked interesting, so I thought I would give it a try. GREAT concept. Well-designed setup screens with directions in plain English. So simple, anyone could do it….if it worked. I thought it was hilarious how it claimed my router "was not supported" after it tried to detect it from my Windows XP machine (it worked fine on the Windows 2K box). After fiddling with it for a couple of minutes, I said "oh well," and uninstalled the software. I then quickly configured the connection manually. Although, manual configuration is easy for me, I thought it was pretty disappointing that the included software would bomb out on install. How difficult that would be for the average user! Such a shame…better luck next time, D-Link.
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Did it have WPA or is it just WEP?
I had somewhat of the same experience with my cousins SMC router, it seemed as if on his WindowsME computer the router was not detecting the DHCP connection from his cable modem, although without the router connected it was blatently working. Eventually, it ended up working, but it was a pretty big pain. Of course, WindowsME probably had a lot to do with it. Now that has WinXP I totally threw out the disk and did it myself.
At least you didn’t go with Linksys that has a 1-touch configuration, easilly opening up your internal network to the entire neighborhood with 1 click of the orange button on the device.
Wireless stuff is still not simple enough for newbies to install yet more and more of them have it.
I have the same router for my home network. Once configured it is a great router.
WPA and WEP were available
I went and got that same special yesterday. I didn’t need the router, though, just the usb wireless piece. My old one broke and you can’t get just the wireless adapter for $15.00, so I considered it a steal.