If you have more than one computer at home or in a small office and you have a fast Internet connection, (DSL or cable), then you probably have a router box which connects the computers and maybe a printer.

Popular units come from vendors such as Linksys, D-Link, and Netgear, and are available from mail order or office supply vendors for $40 – $90 (US). They are available in wireless versions, (like the illustrations showing the wireless antennae), or wired versions. I buy these at Staples.

Such boxes are themselves a small, embedded computer. You access the configuration via a web page generated by the unit.

I’ve installed about two-dozen of these over the course of the past two years, and was interested to note several points:

1. Quality control is iffy. The price of these units has been driven down so low, that every possible corner has been cut to reduce the cost of the hardware. Like a cheap ink-jet printer, once the hardware goes bad, it is probably just as easy to throw the unit out and buy a new one. Consider that a router with a retail price of $45.00 probably has a wholesale price of $20.00.

2. Software, in the form of the embedded operating system, and the web server inside the unit, is very much a work in progress. You may find that functions that you set up on the web page don’t work at all, and upon further investigation, maybe never worked. For example, the firewall, the virtual private network function, or the porn filter on these units doesn’t work depending on the manufacturer or model. A good source for discussion about these issues is www.broadbandreports.com . There are vendor forums for each manufacturer on this site.

3. A frequent fix for a quirky problem is to “flash the ROM” or “update the firmware” that is, update the embedded program in the router with a new version from the manufacturer’s site. When calling tech support, that is usually the first thing they will ask, as in, “Have you updated the router with version 1.2.xxxx of the firmware?” and that they won’t discuss your problem further, until you have done that. Updating isn’t difficult, but you have to download a new version of the firmware on to a local computer attached to the router, and then run an installation program which will then copy the new firmware to the router, and then reboot the router. The process can also blow away your existing configuration, so be sure that you have documented the old configuration before starting. It is possible (although its never happened to me..) that the update process fails somehow leaving you in a half-updated state, with a non-functional router. In that case you have to attempt to recover the factory defaults configuration, and try again. The upshot here is, don’t do this necessarily when you are in a hurry.

4. Faced with the prospect described above, consider buying a new unit and replacing your older one if you are trying to fix a problem with a unit that is more than 2 years old. If you are only talking forty-five dollars…what is your time worth?

5. Also, if you’ve got something weird going on…switch brands. At least four or five times, I’ve solved a problem by switching from Linksys to D-Link or vice versa.

6. Use the wired version instead of the wireless. Fewer potential problems. If you have a wireless version you can turnoff the wireless part and just use the jacks on the back. You will get higher performance with wired.

7. If you do opt for wireless, be sure to turn on the wireless security function. Even the lowest level security function is better than what about 90% of the world has, which is nothing.

8. For an office, consider moving to a “real” router, like the Contivity 221. This will cost around $350.00 It sounds outrageous, but only a few years ago an office router cost $800–$1400. I solved a very obscure problem with by switching from a $60.00 Linksys to the Contivity. The problem was with an agency attempting to access very long report from a poorly performing state web site. It turns out that the Linksys would drop the connection to the web site after receiving a burst of data that was too large. Thus, the agency couldn’t receive the report, (which was a report on the agency’s performance as evaluated by the state). After some weeks of desperate searching, it turns out that the firmware in the Linksys router apparently was not compliant with a very esoteric provision of some standard or other that was part of the TCP/IP specification. The problem was solved with the better router. Such things probably won’t be an issue 99% of the time and the lower cost units will be fine in most instances.

Tom Friedman, the columnist for the New York Times has written his book describing ten trends that have begun to knit the globe together.  The ten “flatteners” are:

11/9/89, the fall of the Berlin Wall and dissolution of the Soviet Union
8/9/95, the invention of Netscape, the first widely available commercial web browser
Work Flow Software – software like the Amazon web site which allows customers to order merchandise effortlessly with little or no human interaction in the entire process
Open Sourcing – Linux, and the open source movement
Outsourcing – Allowing other companies to perform routine operations that previously were done in-house
Offshoring – Moving work to the lowest-cost/highest quality provider regardless of physical location
Supply-Chaining– things like just-in-time manufacturing
Insourcing – Allowing companies that you used to outsource things to actually come into your company to perform functions in-house
In-forming – Using software like Google and Wikipedia to instantly inform yourself about people and things in ways that used to require going to a library, or were impossible
The steroids: broadband, wireless, digital 

Some quotes:

On outsourcing offshore:
“Every time I think I have found the last, most obscure job that could be outsourced to Bengalore, I discover a new one. My friend Vivek Kulkarni used to head the government office in Bengalore responsible for attracting high technology global investment. After stepping down from that post in 2003 he started a company called B2K, with a  division called Brickwork, which offers busy global executives their own personal assistant in India. Say you are running a company and you have been asked to give a speech and a PowerPoint presentation in two days. Your “remote executive assistant” in India, provided by Brickwork, will do all the research for you, create the PowerPoint presentation, and e-mail the whole thing to you overnight so that it is on your desk the day you have to deliver it.”

On collaborative authoring:
“Another intellectual commons collaboration that I used regularly in writing this book is Wikipedia, the user-contributed online encyclopedia also known as “the people’s encyclopedia.” The word “wikis” is taken from the Hawaiian word for “quick” Wikis are Web sites that allow users to directly edit any Web page on their own from their home computer.”

On citizen journalism:
“Ardolino [a journalist for InDC Journal] said the MP3 player cost him about $125. It is “primarily designed to play music, “ he explained, but it also “comes prepackaged as a digital recorder that creates a WAV sound file that can be uploaded back to a computer… Basically, I’d say that the barrier to entry to do journalism that requires portable, ad hoc recording equipment is [now] about $100–$200 to $300 if you add a camera, $400 to $500 for a pretty nice recorder and pretty nice camera. [But] $200 is all that you need to get the job done”.

On outsourced programmers:
“If you are a Web programmer and are still using only HTML and have not expanded your skill set to include newer and creative technologies, such as XML and multimedia, your value to the organisation gets diminished every year,” added Vashistha. “New technologies get introduced that increase complexity but improve results, and as long as a programmer embraces these and keeps abreast of what clients are looking for, his or her job gets hard to outsource. “while technology advances make last year’s work a commodity,” said Vashistha, “reskilling, continual professional education and client intimacy to develop new relationships keeps him or her ahead of the commodity curve and away from a potential offshore.’”

In this week’s Chronicle of Philanthropy:

Fundraisers pay up 15%, U.S. postal rates will rise 5.4% in ‘06,  Art museums donations and attendance rise in 2004.

produces a walk-through the town of Keene, in the U.S. state of New Hampshire.

http://weblog.infoworld.com/udell/2005/02/25.html

Fascinating. I think the preparation of the presentation, and the way it appears in the web page is almost as interesting. Udall calls this screencasting, and has this to say about it:

A year later it’s clear that my instincts weren’t leading me astray. I’m now using screencasts — that is, narrated movies of software in action — to showcase application tips, capture and publish product demonstrations, and even make short documentaries. And I’m seeing others around the Net starting to do the same. Now’s a good time to explain why I think this mode of communication matters and will flourish.

More on screencasting here, and a discussion of applications for recording screens, from O’Reilly Network here.

Presentation for the Vermont Consultant’s Network

Handout (Adobe .PDF)
Links Page: Voice over IP Quick Start

The Participatory Politics Foundation | participatorypolitics.org looks like it is fostering some innovative projects, including a mind-boggling idea: open source TV. Essentially this allows video providers to distribute full-length television programs over the internet…bypassing Hollywood, cable providers, the FCC, Clear Channel, Adelphia, stupid local channels, and the almost moribund PBS.

The ultimate cabling job…laying the first telegraph cable across the Atlantic Ocean.

I am currently configuring user accounts for a Windows 2003 server, and for the first time ever, I want to automate adding accounts.  Checking the Windows Command-Line Administrator’s Pocket Consultant I find the following command syntax:  

dsadd user  UserDN  -samid SAMName
[-upn UPN] [-fn FirstName] [-mi Initial]
[-ln LastName] [-display DisplayName] 
[-empid EmployeeID] [-pwd {Password|*}]
[-desc Description] [-memberof Group;...]
[-office Office] [-tel PhoneNumber]
[-email Email][-hometel HomePhoneNumber]
[-pager PagerNumber]  [-mobile CellPhoneNumber]
[-fax FaxNumber] [-iptel IPPhoneNumber][-webpg WebPage] 
[-title Title] [-dept Department] [-company Company] 
[-mgr Manager] [-hmdir HomeDirectory] 
[-hmdrv DriveLetter:] [-profile ProfilePath]
[-loscr ScriptPath] [-mustchpwd {yes | no}] 
[-canchpwd {yes | no}] [-reversiblepwd {yes | no}] 
[-pwdneverexpires {yes | no}] [-acctexpires NumberOfDays]
[-disabled {yes | no}] [{-s Server | -d Domain}] 
[-u UserName][-p {Password | *}] [-q] 

Even trying this to add a single account is pretty discouraging. The syntax is described on the Microsoft XP web site.

Then I remember that I’m a database programmer, and that Active Directory is really only a database. And you would think that you could put all the users into a database file, and write a “report” which is really a .CMD file to add all of the users. So I managed to do this. I wrote it up. Automating Creation of Active Directory User Accounts. (Adobe Acrobat .pdf) With a title like that it sounds like a stuffy academic paper. A further search of the, um,  literature reveals:

Simplify Tedious Administration Tasks With Windows Scripting, which mentions creating an AD user using Windows Scripting, and the Active Directory objects. The example, like all other others I’ve seen only show the creation of a single user account, which is fine for an example. but none of this makes much sense until you are looking at 30 accounts or more.

I’m still poking about to find other examples of creating a larger number of users.  An older book, Windows NT User Administration (the octopus book) from O’Reilly has a very nice discussion of account creation for Windows NT using Perl. Maybe there is more in some of the newer Windows Administrator scripting books. And, sorry, Tech Friday turned into Tech Monday.

Microsoft Windows Command-Line Administrator’s Pocket Consultant is a dandy book which covers command line programming, batch files, CMD files, using Active Directory from the command line, etc.  I needed this for some Active Directory stuff. It was there.  It includes commands for Windows 2003 Server and for Windows XP. Recommended.

The Tactical Technology Collective

is a hub for european tech and non profit/NGO resources. A couple of interesting projects:

Unpacking Recycling: Recycled machines for non-profits. 

NGO in a box. A set of reviewed and selected Free and Open Source software tailored to the needs of non-profits. The software list provides a very nice overview of open source, but does not mention software specific to accounting or fundraising.