Bought a Buffalo WZR-RS-G54 wireless router with VPN capabilities in preparation for possibly sharing a B&W photo printer with my cousin in the neighborhood. Not a cheap router at HKD$950 but seems to be the most inexpensive one with its kind of features.
Setup needed a little getting used to. Manual and UI is not as straight forward as the 3 Linksys I have setup before or the Belkin I have just setup for my other cousin a couple of days ago. Took me about an hour to have it setup with 3 wireless connections for my notebooks and a wired connection for my desktop vs like 10 minutes with the Belkin. Oh well, the Belkin does not do VPN.
Everything seems to be in good order. Back to the Net I dive. SOMEBODY STOP ME!
Why you need the VPN?
My cousin-in-law and I wanted to buy the HP Photosmart 8750 printer but since they are so new, the shops would not make a deal even with buying 2 units. So we were thinking of buying just one unit as we live just half a block away. VPN would be nice for him to just set off the print job on his end without the need to copy the print file and bring it over to print. All just a theory so far.
I didn’t want to buy another Linksys as my cousin’s wireless part does not work at all. It keeps dropping the line.
I was thinking of getting a ZyXel 334-W, but they seem to be no longer available. If VPN were not needed, I was thinking of trying the ZyXel 334-WT or the 335-WT with print server. Otherwise Belkin has “life time” warranty which would not be a bad choice either.
My other cousin got a Buffalo WYR-G54 which was only some HKD$350 is also OK.
For you and your cousin’s need, VPN is a good solution. But he will also need a VPN router at his end, and you will need a fix IP or dynDNS, and it’s difficult to set.
I’d been thinking a lot about wireless, but hestitating cause I really don’t need wireless. I’ve a comfortable place for using my desktop….
I leave the setup to Tin.
Apparently, this particular unit has a full VPN spec and only needed WindO$ XP on the client end which is different from some of the cheaper VPN router units. All gibberish to me anyway.
I have a single desktop at work and I bought a cheap Wi-Fi B router for the wirewall and the occasional time that I or my friends bring a notebook over like Tin did a couple of times.
My Fujitsu notebook is only a wi-fi b setup and the speed is not bad. A wired router costs near HK$300, and a wi-fi b router costs about the same but with a wirewall thrown in for free. Unless you worry about the “radiation”, its a no brainer either way… pun intended ;-p
You’ll still need a fix IP or dynDNS account setup in your router because your cousin’s XP will need to know the internet address to access to your router, and there are a few different encraption for a VPN connection. I don’t know much about which protocal XP VPN is using, thou.
I am not particular concerned about radiation issue, OTOH security need to be paid attention to but nto a big issue as well. Just that my wired router worked like a horse and still running very good for 3 years!! It’s not so environmental friendly to trash it.
Anyway, it’s a nice idea to use my Fujisu to go online when I’m sitting on the toliet bowel….
I was helping James to do his bit for the economy this afternoon.
DynDNS is not too difficult to setup, and most modern broadband routers come w/ some a client. Even if the router doesn’t support it, you could always run the client on any of your desktop computers.
When we checked out the options w/ VPN, all the solutions were well over HK$1K. We found the Buffalo. At HK$950 it was expensive AFA wifi broadband routers go. However, seeing that the ZyXEL wifi router James was about to get was HK$10 short of HK$600, the HK$350 premium for the Buffalo is probably a good bet.
Now, all the pieces for what James wants to do seems to be in place, and I think it would work. However, until it works, we don’t know. All I can say is, the odds are good.
I was going to get a Linksys WRT54G/GS http://www.linksys.com/products/product.asp?grid=33&scid=35&prid=601 and put some third party firmware on it to play w/. It seems that the collective SSP shops have stopped selling them. In any case, my senses got hold of me in time not to spend money on useless redundant toys.
As for wifi access, it’s a bit like the mobile phone: once you have had it it becomes a necessity.
Just get an AP then; but they are even more expensive, I was told. However, range and quality should be better than a wi-fi router.
Security is not a problem; don’t broadcast the SSID and you are half way there. Besides, you could have wireless disabled when not in use. You could also use MAC filtering and only allow your own computer to get through.
HK kids are either too busy doing homework or too lasy to do anything at all. Hardly any wiz kids to worry about. When “cheaters” means those who bum spare changes off old ladies, you know you are fairly safe electronically.
Wifi scanners such as Netstumbler or Kismet/KisMAC have no problem revealing networks w/ hidden SSID.
Leon would be the man the answer whether an AP is really that much better than a wifi router.
As the wireless LAN is an extension of your LAN, security is most important. I recommend coop members to access IMAP via SSL, and send email via mother w/ TLS. In a wireless environment, it just isn’t too difficult for any competent hacker to be able to read one’s email if one receives/sends one’s email via unencrypted POP3/SMTP.
Not to mention the airpwn plank http://www.evilscheme.org/defcon/.
We could only be as safe as all the security setup that our money can buy and having them setup, or not using wi-fi at all which is not a big problem with desktop.
In my neighborhood, I have some 6 wi-fi signals broadcasted with some non-secured lines. There are planty of breadcrumbs for the stray cats. If they got hacked, it’s their own fault for not RTFM.
I was rather amused when that first sales today asked me if wireless is all that necessary for me. If it weren’t, we wouldn’t be looking for one. Once notebook is used, wi-fi pretty much became a necessity; and like smoking and drinking, although I don’t smoke and I have quit drinking myself, one just can’t worry too much about every single detail when reasonable or max affordable security has been setup.
On an other kind of security, my brother-in-law laughed at me for not opening and trashing any email that’s irrelvent even if they were from “known” people for he thinks there could be important email. If any thing were important enough, don’t send them via email. If they were sent, any senders who do not receive my reply, send again by other means. In email, nothing is worth more than a system crash by a virus. If people sent me something via email, there is nothing important.
What is AP??
With the appropriate router in place, it should not be too difficult to set-up a VPN tunnel because the hardwares have did the trickest part for you. You are not setting up a M$ or Linux VPN server. That should be easy. I would also suggest to select an odd port and block all other port access with the firewall function of your router (all VPN router should comes with firewall as well).
No much idea about wifi security, but many of router has backdoors, and very easy to crack in if you know the router’s model and the concerned backdoor. Otherwise, if you properly set-up the security function, it’s almost impossible to hack you.
AP - Access Point, Wireless access sans router - so you don’t need to chuck your router.
All I know is the cheaper routers that say VPN does not work the way I need it to, and all other ones that do work cost over HK$1200 with the exception of this Buffalo one. Captain Tin is in charge.
Let me know if you need a spare PC to setup a server config. at home. I got 1 PII for disposal. You can use it as the server (Linux or Win) for printer, DHCP, wireless AP, VPN with dynDNS client, firewall… etc.
Thanks. The HP 8750 comes with its own built-in print server, so I don’t think it is necessary. But it would be nice to put my laser printer in a print server also. I’ll keep it in mind should we needed one. You are however, welcome to send your print jobs over anytime on your own consumable expenses once it is setup.
I would imagine that the only time saved having it printed over the net would be the first batch or even just the first page of the print jobs. Should the print results not being satisfactory, subsequent reprints would still have to be done on-site. Which is both more and less desirable since no 2 monitors are color matched to the exact. So even if it is technically possible, it may not be all that convenient as ideally. While my cousin-in-law is willing to pay half of the price of the printer without knowing he could print over the net, this is something I’d have to discuss with him.
Like Roy said, the fun is in watching it print.
Wooh, the 8750 is very good in spec. I always think all better ink-jet printer should comes with internal print server because the mfrs. are really earning your money from the consumerables, and it’s to their own advantages.
I already have a Epson 1270 and I can print my own A3+ photos. However, I just begin to understand the color management workflow, and now I am geting better matching color with download profile for my printer/paper together with the soft-proof function of PS.
The result was quite disappointed without color management.
There isn’t much I could do with color matching HP printers as I think they all just have the sRGB profile.
The reason my cousin-in-law and I wanted the HP8750 is its stunning Black and White printing. I was looking at the B&W sample print outs and couldn’t believe my eyes how good they looked. Even better than Dai c’s silver prints if I may add ;-p. If not for the B&W prints I would opt for an even larger printer. Unfortunately, none of the current larger printers have this kind of print quality either Color or B&W. Perhaps the latest Epsons like the 9800 could beat the HP8750 quality, but it’s probably over HK$20K which is way way over my reach. And that’s close to Plasma price and we are back to the same question - why bother printing if we could do slide shows.
While the 8750 is using the SRGB color space, every printer / paper combo would have a unique color profile. Try search for it and put it in your windows system. When print, select the 8750 color profile as ‘proof space’ and click soft proof, you will see a change of the monitor’s color, and it should be more closely matching your final output color.
It took me a long while to figure out what is color space and what is profile. The are different.