MacVoices #773: Pat Fauquet Makes Sense of Routers, Switches and Hubs [33:19m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download
MacVoices’ Tech Guru Pat Fauquet of Dr. Mac Consulting helps make sense out of the hardware aspects of networking. When shopping to create or expand your network you are confronted with many confusing options: routers, switches, hubs, wired, wireless…the list seems to go on and on. Pat attacks the issue by explaining how connectivity hardware has evolved as needs change, and helps you determine what you need by using her own network set-up as an example. Pat also talks about why Apple networking hardware should be your first choice and provides some simple procedures for fixing your network when things go haywire.
I’m sorry, I can’t let the blanket recommendation of Apple wireless products go without pointing out these comments on Apple’s site:
http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APPLE/WebObjects/AppleStore.woa/wa/RSLID?mco=83C90BF3&nplm=MA073LL/A
Every manufacturer has people who find their products easy to set up and configure, and others who can’t tell top from bottom. I’ve personally had Apple’s setup wizards completely hose an Airport network (like when the Express first came out and I told the wizard to setup a WDS; took me 20 minutes to restore my network after it completely screwed up the settings in the Extreme base station and hosed the Express so bad I had to do a hard reset).
For those of us who have a clue, Linksys is a fine alternative, especially for those people who are switchers. And I’ve had networking products from two other companies that had Java based firmware upgrades that didn’t require a Windows machine: Dayna and Intel. Copy the file to a directory on the router, reboot the router, and the boot process uncompressed an installed the firmware upgrade.
Sticking with all Apple may be good advice for the non-computer literate or first-timer, but then no matter how good the setup software is, those people are likely to get into trouble. Does grandma know what DHCP or DNS is?
I love MacVoices, I respect Bob LeVitus and his consulting firm but I just had to leave a comment on this podcast. Of course I am probably not the target audience so take my comments in the context of a Solaris and Network admin.
Respectfully,
Dave Stempnakowski