The Four-eyed Journal » Networking

Setup Globe Broadband with D-Link DIR-300 Wireless G Router

jhay — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 00:00:59 +0000

I’ve been getting a lot of queries on how I setup my Globe Broadband connection to power my simple home wireless network.

Well, I’ll share how I did it today.

First off, some reminders and warnings of sorts. I’m not a computer networking professional nor have I received any formal training in setting up computer networks. What I’m going to share here is based on my first-hand experiences in working with computers and routers backed by trial-and-error methods, research from the web and self-teachings.

Now that’s clear, I’ll go right into the meat of this post by using this photo I’ve prepared for this occasion.

GlobeWiFiSetup

It’s that simple. Here are the steps:

Place the router in an open and central location. Do not plug the power adapter into the router.
Turn the power off on your modem. If there is no on/off switch, then unplug the modem’s power adapter. Shut down your computer.
Unplug the Ethernet cable (that connects your computer to your modem) from your computer and place it into the WAN port on the router.
Plug an Ethernet cable into one of the four LAN ports on the router. Plug the other end into the Ethernet port on your computer.
Turn on or plug in your modem. Wait for the modem to boot (about 30 seconds).
Plug the power adapter to the router and connect to an outlet or power strip. Wait about 30 seconds for the router to boot.
Turn on your computer.
Verify the link lights on the router. The power light, WAN light, and the LAN light (the port that your computer is plugged into) should be lit. If not, make sure your computer, modem, and router are powered on and verify the cable connections are correct.

Now here’s how I configured my home Wi-Fi:

Open a web browser, I used Firefox when I first configured the home Wi-Fi.
Type in 192.168.0.1 into the address bar.
Type in admin as username and leave the password field blank. (I’ve changed these default settings to my own so as to increase my network’s security.)
Used the Internet Connection Setup Wizard and after all the steps, my home Wi-Fi is up, secured and providing internet access throughout our entire house and compound.

The D-Link DIR-300 Wireless G router has been in service in my house for almost a year now and so far, it has been performing superbly well. It may not be the leading model in its line but it sure provides a solid value for the money I spent on it, which is not that much as compared to other wireless routers.

It’s ease of use, setup and configuration has made setting up a home Wi-Fi network as easy as plugging in a flash drive to your pc or laptop. The only problems I have with it is when my internet connection becomes intermittent every once in a while, but then that’s Globe’s fault!

Anyone else using the D-Link DIR-300 wireless router? How about similar routers? How was your experience in setting up your home Wi-Fi network?

Entrecard now selling credits

jhay — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 00:30:19 +0000

It has finally arrived, those who are tired of dropping their Entrecards on the millions of blogs out there wishing there could be an easier way to earn more credits can do so if they have the cash to spare (and I bet die-hard users do) by buying credits directly from Entrecard.com

Option to Buy Credits is here
Finally, the long awaited option to buy credits has arrived. While dropping is by far the most popular option to get credits, if you wanted to launch a massive campaign, there is no way you could get the credits you needed quickly by dropping.

So now, on your dashboard, you will now find a link to “Buy Credits”. You can also use this link:

http://entrecard.com/r/buy_credits

Where does the credits you’ll buy come from? The answer is quite interesting and can be read on Entrecard’s blog:

To this end, it wouldn’t serve you well if we just generated credits out of thin air and sold them. You’ve worked hard for those credits, and in a sense we don’t feel we have the right to undermine all the time you spend with us by cheating our own system. So, the answer to the long awaited question, is you. We buy these credits from you.

The way it works is we purchase the credits from trusted members of the community. We’re going to secure about 20,000 to 40,000 credits each day to sell by purchasing them from these trusted members who’s earning methods can be validated and approved through our system, and who’s blogs are top-notch. We will not buy from anyone who exhibits suspicious activity, and we will not buy from anyone with a sub-par quality blog.

Our economy is very delicate and must stay balanced at all time, and we would like to take a moment to assure you that this action will serve only to increase the value of the Credit, and create more value for our members who are interested in generating revenue by selling their credits.

So this is how Entrecard plans to monetize their service though they haven’t mentioned if they take a cut from the buying and selling of credits. Still, it’s a brilliant idea in which both Entrecard and EC users will benefit. All those time spent bloghopping and EC-dropping will finally yield more rewards.

A delicate economy

EC users can buy limited amounts of credits a day using PayPal. I just bought 1,000 credits for US$9.50 and when I returned to see if more are available I saw this message:

* Please note: A maximum of 1,002ec are currently available for purchase using paypal. If there are insufficient credits left today for your purposes, please try again tomorrow – credits are generally added daily.

A well thought-of scheme if I may say. This whole new system depends on the hard working EC users continuing to visit other blogs to drop their Entrecards. Brilliant!

Do you run your home network 24/7?

jhay — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 15:41:22 +0000

Things were much simpler when there was only one computer at home. Whenever no one was using the old desktop, it would be turned off along with the broadband modem/router. This is usually the case when I’m out of the house, asleep or I really have nothing to do on the computer.

Now that I have my laptop, there are two computers at home. Both are connected to the internet thanks to the D-Link DIR-300 Wireless Router I bought along with my laptop. And since then, things have changed.

When I’m done using my laptop or would have nothing to do on it, I would turn it off but I would have to keep both the broadband modem and wireless router on because they’re still in my room and my sister or little brother is still using the old desktop which I have moved out of my room and into theirs.

I sleep at around midnight but sometimes my sister would still go on using the desktop computer up until the wee hours of the next morning. Since I’m already asleep and the modem + wireless router is locked inside my room, they just hit the sack as well leaving the home network running for more than 24 hours.

Asides from pumping up our monthly electricity bill, much to the anguish of my parents, I’m also concerned about the safety of our home and of the equipments themselves. What if these things overheat and just burst into flames burning our house down? Or either or both modem and wireless router just and break down and die from the prolonged use?

I would not be this concerned if this situation would happen like once or twice in a week but for the past weeks since the home network was established, this has been the typical daily scenario: the home network running almost 24/7

I’m new to setting up and running my own network so I ask the experts and masters; do you run your home networks 24/7? Is it safe to do so? What tips or advice could you offer to address some if not all, of the concerns I’ve raised here?

Every bit would be greatly appreciated.