Registered: Apr 2000
Location: St Petersburg Fla
Posts: 224

Roadrunner

Wih all the problems mentioned in the above posts, I would like to add that I had no problems with Timer Warner's Roadrunner.
This is the only Cable modem available in my area and DSL is not available.
The cable guy just hooked up the cables and made sure the cable modem line was good. Another person installed the NIC card and modem.
My son and I are networked via Intel Anyport Phone Line hardware and have had no Internet access problems.
Zonelarm works great as my firewall.

Registered: Sep 2000
Location: Rochester, NY
Posts: 284

quote:

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EricG wrote:

So to fix this situation, I have a "dummy" hard drive I keep around.

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Hmm. I like the idea, but I don't have any spare drives. Maybe I'll really throw them for a loop and let them play with my old 120Mhz laptop running 98, since it's not doing anything at the moment. They'll be able to install the software, but they certainly won't be able to use their crappy net card! (BTW, I've seen 3 installations where they use this no-name card, and none of them worked until the card was replaced with a 3Com or a Netgear card!)

Now, if I could only borrow a G4 running OS X beta for the install.....

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It's gotta be weather balloons. It's always weather balloons. Big, fiery, exploding weather balloons.
-- ComaVN (from Slashdot)

Registered: Aug 2000
Location: Alive and well on VisorCentral.com
Posts: 861

I'd only recommend the "dummy drive" method if you feel comfortable with networking and have a grasp on how to implement it on your system. You may want to watch the tech and see what he does (software wise) incase you need fall back on their junk.

Also, some (not all) cable modem/dsl services are bound or tied to a specific network card (they all have unique MAC (not apple mac - Machine Address Code) addresses.. so in some cases you are "stuck" with their crappy card.. (The Ugate (and other) device(s) lets you clone the mac address from their card) so you aren't stuck with it. If you do switch net cards, (and don't use a hardware firewall with address cloning)you probably will have to call them and tell them you "switched computers".. Road Runner is famous for this, if you don't do it, the cable modem won't function.

I recommend a hardware based firewall over a software one (aka Ugate or Linksys).. Ontop of the hardware firewall, I use AtGuard (predecessor to Norton Internet Security)) on my pc.. it addition to privacy and removal of ad banners, cookies, etc.. it helps catch Viruses and Spyware (advertising parasites).

See http://www.lavasoft.de/aaw/index.html to learn what a Spyware parasite is and how to get rid of them.

Registered: Nov 1999
Location: New York, New York
Posts: 560

quote:

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Originally posted by fixitgal
I told him to not touch anything (read: "Step away from the computer and leave...")

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Felipe Garcia
Happy Treo 600 user, so far. Thanx Cingular for having an unlocked phone.

My Treo 600 is my phone, my PDA, my watch, and my MP3 player. Oh yeah, I take a picture once in a while with it. Convergence is such a great thing.

Registered: Mar 2000
Location: NJ
Posts: 517

Another good hardware router is the Xsense Xrouter Pro. Its for both Mac and PC and has worked flawlessly for me for the last few months.

FYI - You can use the Linksys router with the Mac too, though they don't make a Mac version. You just set it up through a web browser.

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Registered: Aug 2000
Location: Alive and well on VisorCentral.com
Posts: 861

Once you signup for an account and get connected with their "hacked/old" Netscape you can jettison their junk.. For Verizon you apparently need to use their butchered junk to actually create your account.

(Using GHOST is a good alternative idea, I'll pass it along..)

The real thing that frosts my cupcakes is 20ft away from my house is high bandwidth fiber-optic cable. We were supposed to get F-O cable modems with 5MB/sec up/down!, but the At&t merger has put it on hold all of that as our cable company is looking to get bought out by at&t! So there it sits (for well over a year now)... The only use it gets now is from the birds as a perch, I hope at least they enjoy it....

Registered: Sep 1999
Location: Texan in Calgary for a while
Posts: 1361

quote:

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Originally posted by lennonhead
Another good hardware router is the Xsense Xrouter Pro. Its for both Mac and PC and has worked flawlessly for me for the last few months.

FYI - You can use the Linksys router with the Mac too, though they don't make a Mac version. You just set it up through a web browser.

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James Hromadka
Old Friend