[geeks] cable modem or verizon DSL (in Rhode Island)?

[Kurt Huhn]

On Tue, 18 Nov 2003 12:39:39 -0500
William Enestvedt wrote:

> Kurt wrote:
> >
> > Cox, at least in RI, requires DHCP be bound to NetBIOS.
> >
>    But...but...but they say that they support Macs! Are they only
>    stringing me
> along? Bastards!

Well, apparently OS 9 and OS X will support this nastiness.  YMMV, but
that's what one of the engineers told me when I was on the phone with
him a couple years ago.  It ain't pretty, that's for sure.

>    That raises another question: they'll probably only give me one
>    cable,
> right? So if I want to plug in my work (XPPro/Linux) laptop or my
> wife's Win20 laptop once in a while, I'll need a little Soho router,
> right? I've seen good press on this list (from Bill?) for stuff by
> Barricade, if I'm remembering correctly. And iknow that LinkSys stuff
> is ppopular, but I thought there was aproblem upgrading the fireware
> from a Mac (which is important, as they tend to release a lot of
> updates that are worth applying). Oh, and Belkin are idiots. Any votes
> for favorites?

No favorites here, at least not for cheap-o hardware firewalls.  Linksys
only make available a windows executable for updateing firmware on their
boxen.  I use a Linksys BEFVP41 here at the house (to do VPN to work)
and it's "okay".  It's not great, and there's a whole bunch of
MS-specific javascript in it sothat you need to use IE in order to admin
the damn thing.  The wall-warts on these go in about 3 months, be sure
to get a spare almost as soon as you buy one.  Also, be positive that
the latest firmware is on it right out of the box - older firmwares are
buggy, to say the least.

Another box I've been playing with recently is the NetGear FVS318.  Not
a bad box - better designed than the Linksys, at least physically.  I
really haven't put either one through their paces yet.

I used a Netscreen-5 while I was on Cox, and it does't (obviously) use
NetBIOS bound to DHCP.  I see some indication in both the Linksys and
NetGear mentioned above, that they do support this.  There's a field for
"computer/host name" in the main config page with "required by some
ISPs" in parens next to it.  Logically that would mean that they support
such nastiness.

-- 
Kurt                  The superior man understands what is right; 
kurt at k-huhn.com       the inferior man understands what will sell.
                                         -- Confucius