CompUSA is closing all (or most?) of their San Diego stores. They're
having a clearance sale with 10% to 30% pricing discounts. The
networking stuff is 15%.
I got an Antec Sonata II case for $90 (30% discount - I was going to get
one anyway).
I also picked up two D-Link DWL-G730AP Pocket Router/AP's. Cool little
device: it can be used as either an AP client (i.e. wireless card),
Access Point, or wireless router/firewall (including SPI). There's a
slide switch on the bottom to select the modes. It's a B/G device.
It's really a bridging device (I guess) as it connects to the host PC
(or switch, cable/DSL modem, etc.) via Ethernet cable. Power is from a
wall wart about the size of a typical cell phone charger. Better yet, it
includes a short (~6") adapter cable to power it from a USB port. Also
includes a nice little ditty bag case - in fact, it's packed in it.
The docs are a bit sketchy - it took me a while to get it to work as a
wireless card: it includes the usual Weblet interface for configuration.
It's at 192.168.0.30 by default. I couldn't get it to talk to my
192.168.7.0 LAN because. Once I figured out that I needed to enable DHCP
on the device (who'd figure you need to have DHCP running on a wireless
client?) it worked fine. I've also used it in the AP mode, but have yet
to try the router/firewall mode.
The whole thing it relatively tiny. Not much bigger than a Cardbus Wifi
adapter - certainly small enough to fit in a shirt pocket.
I'm more interested in this as an AP than as either a router or AP
client. My wife does consulting four days a month at UCP where they have
a wired network, but no way for me to conveniently attach my laptop -
the old stringing a wire across the room problem. With this really small
AP, I can just plug it into their hub and I'm good to go.
The discounted Compusa price is $34 + tax. The store in Kearny Mesa had
several as of yesterday. The La Mesa store had several as of Thursday.
[Also picked up a ZyXEL ZyAIR G-220 USB wireless card (it has the zd1211
chipset which is supposed to be open source and Linux friendly), and a
Netgear WG511T (says "Atheros" right on the box!) Cardbus wireless card
- on the recommendation from a Linux-using store employee who seemed
pretty knowledgeable about wireless on Linux - go figure.
--
Best Regards,
~DJA.
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