We don't often think about routers as being computers but they actually are. They have memory, processors and run an operating system. That operating system typically takes that comes into one port (usually the port labelled as "WAN") and routes to the other, numbered ports. All of this requires some smarts so that the traffic comes and goes between the correct LAN ports. That's what the router software manages.

Router software does a bunch of other stuff like manage communications standards, provide a firewall, keep all your wireless traffic protected by implementing encryption and a whole bunch of other stuff.

The Problem

My LAN is not the usual home setup with a single router. As you'd know from the story of how I built my office I require two routers so that both the house and office have wired and wireless LAN access.

The first Linksys WRT310N has been running in the house for some time. It's connected to the cable modem and has worked flawlessly. I reviewed this unit for APC a while ago and I reckon it's a great router.

Until recently, I'd been using a Belkin N1 Vision. It's been OK but I find that it loses wireless connectivity from time to time. Also, I found that some of my shared devices, like my Thecus NAS became invisible unless I restarted the N1 Vision. I've updated the firmware but every week or so the router needed to be restarted. Incidentally, the reason I stuck with the N1 Vision was that it was super easy to use as a second router. It had a single checkbox that converted it from a router to an access point.

When setting up a LAN with two routers you can do one of two things; run each router as a seperate LAN or create one LAN that uses both devices. If you run them as two LANs it makes the job of sharing resources like printers and files far trickier. A single LAN is usually easier to use but you need to make sure that either you have only one DHCP server (a DHCP server gives each device on the LAN it's own unique address), set up both routers to use DHCP but with non-overlapping address ranges or use manual addressing for each device on the LAN (not impossible but a pain to maintain).

I decided that I wanted to use my original WRT310N as a true router, doing DHCP, and the second router configured to just act as an access point, with no intelligence.

The problem was that short of a bunch of complex manual configuration the second WRT310N couldn't be set up as a simple access point. That's what lead me to DD-WRT.

The Solution

My buddy Wayne is a full on Linux user and loves using open source solutions whenever he can find them. He put me on to DD-WRT some time ago.

According to the DD-WRT wiki:

DD-WRT is a third party developed firmware released under the terms of the GPL for many ieee802.11a/b/g/h/n wireless routers based on a Broadcom or Atheros chip reference design.

Installation was dead simple. All I needed to do was download the firmware and then use the default Linksys firmware to update the router's firmware with DD-WRT. There's a compatibility list so you can check if your router can be given the DD-WRT treatment. The whole process took just a few minutes.

What you find is that the DD-WRT does everything that the original Linksys firmware does. However, it adds a a whole bunch of other options.

For example, making the WRT310N into a simple access point and disabling its routing capability only required that I set a couple options. In my case I simply set the Internet connection to "Disabled" (I know that's counterintuitive but it works), give the router a new IP address (so that it's not the same as the main router), disable the DHCP server and then set the WAN port to take the incoming connection from the main router.

A full list of all DD-WRT's features can be found here.

Once all that was set, I restarted the router (following the instructions) and tested basic connectivity. I was able to connect to the Internet and see resources on my LAN. I then set up wireless with WPA2 and my preferred SSID so that wireless was secured. Another restart and I confirmed that all was working perfectly.

Conclusions

Ultimately, my decision to look at alternate firmware for the WRT310N was driven by the lack of a specific function in my router - a simple way to make the router into an access point. Many people tend to equate free software with poor quality.

DD-WRT is a great example of open source software and how free doesn't have to equal junk. DD-WRT takes a great product, the Linksys WRT310N, and expands its functionality significantly.

Back in February, Microsoft announced that its latest handheld OS, Windows Mobile 6.5, would be appearing devices later this year. I was given an exclusive hands on first look at this latest portable OS to come from Redmond by Rick Anderson, a mobile solution specialist from Microsoft Australia.

On the face of it, Windows Mobile 6.5 is more evolutionary than revolutionary. The guts of the OS haven't changed much with the development effort firmly focussed on improving the entire user experience.

One of the criticisms leveled at Windows Mobile, particularly since the release of the iPhone, is that getting things done was a two-handed operation; one to hold the device and the other to hunt and peck with a stylus. In response, Microsoft has made many of the menus and buttons substantially larger. As a result, many operations can be completed singlehandedly.

In one of the more creative moves, Windows Mobile 6.5 eschews the typical grid arrangement we're all used to with screens of icons. Instead, icons are arranged in a honeycomb pattern with larger "active zones" for each icon. As a result, it's almost impossible for even the most sausage-fingered user to accidentally hit the icon adjacent to the target. While this means there are fewer icons on the screen, scrolling up and down doesn't use scroll bars with iPhone-like finger flicks used for moving around.

Working with Melbourne company, Point UI (www.pointui.com), Microsoft is working with carrier and OEM partners to create customised interfaces. As you'd expect, carriers are rapt as access to their premium services is made very easy for customers. However, the introduction of widgets, small applets that run on the Today screen, offers both opportunities for developers and great productivity boosts.

For example, we saw a widget that brought a consolidated inbox, for SMS, email and other messaging services, to an easy to access module. Using a finger swipe to the left or right flicked us through different installed widgets. Like Palm, Android and Apple, Microsoft is jumping on the application store bandwagon with MarketPlace - a place to buy new programs and widgets directly from your handheld.

One of the weakest points of previous iterations of Windows Mobile was web browsing. Simply put, Pocket Internet Explorer was rubbish. Microsoft is putting that aside and now delivers a full version of Internet Explorer 6 althoughbthye're dubbing it Interent Explorer Mobile. We really liked the way it was easy to zoom in and out of sections of a page with reasonably complex rendering by simply double tapping the region we wanted to focus on.

In the past, Microsoft has confused its market by offering multiple versions of the Windows Mobile. For Windows Mobile 6 there will be one version called Windows Phone. If only the boffins in Redmond will do the same with their desktop OS.

As far as performance goes, we were looking at Windows Mobile 6.5 on a HTC Touch Pro. Performance wasn't great but as we were looking at beta code on hardware that wasn't optimised for the OS we wouldn't worry terribly. By the time devices are brought to market we'd expect to see far snappier response times.

In an official sense, Windows Mobile 6.5 has been released as it's in the hands of licensed OEMs. However, it's up to individual manufacturers to implement it. Some may choose to offer it as an update to existing Windows Mobile 6.1 devices while others may hold it back, making it available only on brand new hardware.

I've been reviewing on of those desktop replacement, super-large notebooks. The make and model aren't important but what is of importance is what I learned today about Blu-Ray and some of the issues around its implementation.

I tested three different movies out and only one actually worked. The first movie, Don't Mess With the Zohan, caused the system to complain about the drive's region setting. What made this infuriating was that the movie was encoded as multi-region and so should play on just about any drive.

My second movie, Quantum of Solace, wouldn't play either. The playback software told me that I needed to update the drive's firmware as the disk had features that were unsupported. What's that about? Watching a movie is an unsupported feature? That has to be the most ludicrous things I've ever seen.

The third movie, Blade Runner, played just fine.

Watching a movie shouldn't be this difficult.

In this week's Green Guide, the tech and entertainment supplement in Melbourne's best newspaper, The Age, I take a look at the Lenovo W700ds - the world's first dual-screen notebook.

I don;t see the W700ds as a laptop. Rather, it's a portable desktop system. What do you think?