Review: Draytek Vigor 2955 SSL VPN appliance

My review of the Draytek Vigor 2955 SSL VPN appliance has now been published by V3.co.uk.

Feature: Understanding PC memory

Here's a feature I wrote in 2009 about PC memory for PCW. It explains the basics of how it works and offers practical tips on choosing the right memory. There's even a bit of historical background covering the first acoustic delay-line memory. Enjoy.

Feature: Improve your search results

Computeractive has just published a feature I wrote some time ago for the print edition about getting better results from search engines. It offers basic advice about composing searches and exploiting some of the advanced features of individual search engines.

Reviews: Billion 6200NXL and 7800GZ 3G/Wifi routers

My review of the Billion BiPAC 6200NXL dual-WAN Wifi/3G router has just been published on IT Reviews, and that of the BiPAC 7800GZ embedded 3G model is live on V3.co.uk.

ABBYY releases OCR software for Linux

ABBYY has just launched a command-line version of its FineReader OCR engine for Linux users. Pricing is dependent on the number of pages scanned per year, starting at €149 for up to 12,000 pages. The payment is a one-time payment, and the software's page counter is reset annually. A trial version is available.

Windows XP Mode drops hardware virtualisation

Microsoft has just announced that it's dropping the hardware virtualisation requirements for Windows XP mode. According to the blog post, an update will be released later today on the Virtual PC website.

Until now XP Mode (which is available on Windows 7 Professional and Ultimate) required processors with either Intel VT or AMD-V. Now a wider range of PCs with older processors will be able to run XP Mode.

Update 19/3/2010: The 32-bit download is available from here and the 64-bit version from here. Microsoft says that when running on PCs without hardware virtualisation, only Windows XP is officially supported as the guest OS, even though other operating systems can be installed without problems.

Cheap networking

It's amazing how prices of networking kit have plummeted over the past decade. I have an old Linksys BEFSR41 4-port router that I bought in around 2002-3 for £75 or so. It was actually launched in 1999, costing about £150 as far as I can discover. Perhaps the most amazing thing is that it's still a current product, (now up to version 4.3) and costs about £30-40.

So imagine my surprise when I discovered a router that appears to do everything that the Linksys does, but for less than £9. It's a Dabs Best Value model, and costs £8.81 plus delivery. Absolutely bonkers - worth buying just for an emergency standby if nothing else. There's even an ADSL version for just £10.99 from Play.com.


And if four ports isn't enough, on my bargain-hunting travels I also discovered this GetNet 5-port switch for just £5.99 with free delivery from Play.com.

Of course, none of these products are wireless, so I went on the hunt for a Windows 7-compatible 802.11n Wifi dongle. The best I could come up with was this Tenda W311U for just £8.49 plus shipping from Ebuyer. I actually bought one as I needed a Windows 7 model to use with Connectify as part of a feature I was writing. It works perfectly with no drivers needed for Windows 7 and has the bonus of being absolutely tiny. It is only 'basic' 11n, which means it doesn't use 40MHz channels and hence has a link speed of 150Mbps rather than 300Mbps, but it's still faster than 802.11g.

Now on a roll, I thought I'd look for the cheapest Wifi router I could find, and Google Shopping came up with the TP-Link WR340G (pictured) for just £14.45 from SVP. It's an 802.11g 5-port model, but if you fancy 150Mbps 802.11n, for just £18.99 Amazon has a GetNet model.

So for under £20, you can get pretty well everything you need to run a small home wireless network. Remarkable. Of course, how reliable all these pocket-money packet-shifters are is a topic for another day.

Google introduces PowerMeter API

Earth2Tech reports that Google has just released the API for the Google PowerMeter application, allowing developers to create more devices and applications that interact with this home energy monitoring tool.

Until now, Google has only been working with a few device manufacturers, such as the AlertMe gizmo that I'm currently trying out.

Review: Connectify

My review of the Connectify virtual Wifi hotspot software has just been published by IT Reviews. It's a great little free app with lots of uses, once you realise how it works.

Obsolete? by Pixelh8

Chip-tunes composer extraordinaire Pixelh8 (a.k.a. Matthew C. Applegate) has released the full-length Obsolete? video on Vimeo. This was composed using actual recorded sounds from ancient computer hardware at the National Museum of Computing, Bletchley Park. More details at the links below the video.


Obsolete? from Pixelh8 on Vimeo.