Review: LINKSKEY LKW-G553 IEEE 802.11b/g 32bit PCI Wireless Card

I purchased two wireless adapters recently to get two PC's I had lying around online. I finally got around to installing them and had mixed results. I got them from NewEgg at a decent price. No complaint so far. One of the reasons I bought was that it advertised as compatible with both Windows 2000 and ME which was what I needed it for.

Windows 2000 Professional: My first installation was pretty much simple as installations go. First you install software and drivers. Shut the machine down. Install wireless card. Reboot PC. Once machine is booted up configure your wireless connection. I was online in about fifteen minutes. I was a happy camper.

Windows ME: This one didn't go as well. Well when I went to install software it said it couldn't find the software drivers for my OS. On top of that the error message had obvious misspellings which I thought was odd and sloppy proofreading on the vendors part. I even tried downloading software from the LinksKey website when I reinstalled it did install a driver but it failed to work properly. When checking the properties I got a pretty much a useless code 10 error which didn't go into much detail. I'd click on the configuration software and the tabs needed to connect to my router were not working. After a short while I just took out the machine. I may or may not try at a later date. I just may put it in a different machine altogether.

Comments: Though I was happy it worked in one machine I wasn't happy with the other. Although with some searching and configuring I may be able to get this to work with my Windows ME machine. I don't think it should be this hard to install when it was advertised to work in this OS(Windows ME). I don't think the average consumer has time to fool with tech support for something that was advertised to work out of the box. Also the misspelled words on the error message I thought was a bit amateurish. To be honest I'll be avoiding this one in the future even if I have to spend a little more. Sometimes you just get what you pay for. Just my two cents.

Dude! I got wood!

Sorry I couldn't resist the title. Dell is actually going to be selling a PC made of bamboo wood and other recycled materials on the inside. Now I'm all for being "green" or other Al Gore type catch words. To tell you the truth I'm a little tired of all the advertising and marketing gimmicks from companies telling us how green or environmentally conscious they are. Though it's an interesting concept building a PC of wood(been done before by modders). It just strikes me as a marketing gimmick by Dell.

Source: Earth2tech

Get Back

Getback.com is a new social networking sight geared for those over 35. I saw this news item and it sounded interesting since I fit into the demographic(I guess I'm an old fart). Since technically the site just started today they've got a deluge of traffic because the site loaded as if I was on a dial-up modem. In other words slow and cumbersome. So be prepared to wait for pages to load. Maybe they figure us older folk have more patience. It seems interesting enough to get back (pun intended) to. It has the popular "beta" sticker so maybe they'll work on speeding up the site.

I did sign up for it which like I said took awhile to load pages. The design is friendly and has retro feel to them. I did find some interesting movie clips and music clips. It has a lot of "then and now" stuff and trivia items from pop culture from late 60's to the 80's. If your tired of Myspace, Facebook or just want try some thing different give it a try.

We have no internet!

I'm not one to usually watch South Park but this was pretty funny. I know I'm pretty addicted to the internet. I know times when mine has been down for a short while I get a little anxious.

Best free software

PC Magazine put together a list of what they feel are the best of the free software. Aka freeware can save you a lot of money which is important these days. Many on the list I already use or have at least tried out like Firefox(browser), Avast!(antivirus), Open Office (office programs),Blogger(like this blog), Picasa (photo organizing) and others. For the full article click here.

Source: Windows Tip of the Day

Save Windows XP

Though I don't imagine online petitions hold a lot of weight but they at least let you express yourself. A petition has been started at Infoworld that has over 100,000 signatures already.If you don't know Microsoft is ending sales of XP on June 30 this year. Reaction to Vista has been mixed at best with it's quirkiness and cumbersome system requirements. I did sign it for what it's worth.

Source: Geeks Are Sexy blog originally posted this but was removed as it was found to be already posted.