TechAgility

Reap the rewards of the open-source community courtesy of Douglas Toombs from Windows IT Pro Magazine

Find your free tools:
"LocatePC"
"OCS Inventory NG" 
"PRTG" 
"SIW" 
"SyncBack" 
"TrueCrypt" 
"WinDirStat" 
"Wink"
"BareTail" 
"Ethereal" 
"FileZilla" 
"NeWT" 
"Ngrep" 
"OpenSSH" 
"WinDump" 
"WinPcap" 
"Winfingerprint"
"CamStudio" 
"CDBurnerXP" 
"Comodo Firewall Pro" 
"DriveImage XML" 
"GParted LiveCD" 
"JkDefrag" 
"PageDefrag" 
"TestDisk"

25 Absolutely Cool, Totally Free Utilities

written by dcaddick

DISCLAIMER: If you decide to flash ANY device with something other than the Vendors correct firmware then you are on your own!!!

Moving on from a previous post the other day regarding "Supercharge Your Wireless Router With Open Firmware - Wired How-To Wiki" I was chatting to my brother and it turns out that he has recently been having troubles with his Billion device and as a consequence of it being out of warranty he decided to buy an ASUS WL-500G

And now I can see why, not only is it a Wireless Access Point with ADSL but it also has 2 x USB 2.0 ports as well so that this can effectively act as a mini NAS unit as well by hosting additional storage <see table below>

But the real neat part is that with his help I was also able to discover that there is a complete OpenSource effort at OpenWrt

About OpenWrt

OpenWrt is an extensible Linux distribution that runs on Linksys WRT54G/GS routers, as well as some related hardware. Unlike many other distributions for these routers, OpenWrt is built from the ground up to be a full-featured, easily modifiable operating system for your router. In practice, this means that you can have all the features you need with none of the bloat, powered by a Linux kernel that’s more recent than most other distributions.

This is where I obtained the information in the table above (link - TableofHardware) - at the very least if you are considering purchasing some form of Wireless Access Point then you should really glance through this table and satisfy yourself that have made the right choice on Hardware?

So back to OpenWrt, is it for you? well it is based on Linux so it is somewhat command line driven etc. and it’s more than likely that as much as this might provide a benefit to some, they will be put off by the install method and the possibility of bricking their device?

So if that is the case then simply move on to: X-Wrt, "OpenWrt for end users"

About Us:

X-Wrt was started because there was a need for end user extensions to OpenWrt, such as an enhanced web management console (webif). For a long time now it has been established that OpenWrt is the best firmware in its class. It far exceeds other firmwares in performance, stability, extensibility, robustness, and design. We at X-Wrt decided it was long past time for end users to get access to this superior firmware.

We are a separate project from OpenWrt due to the difference in focus and development ideals. We are considerably more pragmatic than OpenWrt and have the goal of providing solutions today, while OpenWrt has a more idealistic development philosophy and intends to perfect the firmware core, no matter how many rewrites and how much time it takes. This difference in development attitude creates a complimentary atmosphere that benefits everyone.

So how easy is this to install? Follow the screen shots from here at Installation

written by dcaddick

So I can only guess that it must have been raining all weekend?

I must confess that I have never needed to resort to using Target Designer to customize the image of the XPe but I am certainly curious as to how it all goes together? Perhaps sometime I’ll be able to justify spending the time?

It does validate that this sort of modification can be accomplished if you’re determined enough?

ASUS EEE PC Running XPe, fun PC!

As part of an ongoing effort on the Windows Embedded team, our management encourages us to seek out new relevant devices to our industry to get a chance to understand these new devices and see how our products may apply.  One of these new gadgets that I felt would apply was the Asus EEE PC!   After ordering one, and patiently waiting, it has finally arrived!  I’m going to use the steps in my previous article on how to run TAP from WinPE to get a hardware profile so I can make an XPe Image for this device. 

Before I do that, here’s some interesting info on the Asus EEE PC.

Specs:

Intel Celeron Processor

7” LCD

4GB SSD Storage

512 RAM

Built in Wifi and LAN

Built in SD/MMC Reader

3 USB Ports

VGA Out

Headphone and Microphone Jacks

4 Cell Battery Lasting about 3 Hours

Weight:  2 Pounds!

In the Box:

• Asus EEE PC
• Battery Charger
• 4 Cell Battery
• Restore CD with Windows Drivers

Size:

* Dollar is intended to gauge size, and is not included in the box.

Okay let’s begin!

First we need to configure the ASUS system to boot from a USB drive, by default the ASUS is configured to boot from USB.  I am using an M-Systems/Sandisk SSD with a USB Adaptor it shows up in the BIOS as a hard drive, so I must change a setting in the BIOS so it boots the SSD first.

USB Drive I’m using:

Insert your USB Drive into the ASUS System, and then boot into the BIOS by pressing F2.

Go to the Boot menu, and then to boot priority, make sure the Removable Disk is set as the first boot device.

Now under the Boot Menu, go under Hard Disk Drives, in my case USB:M-Sys uDiskOnCh is set as the 1^st Boot Device.

After you have made these changes, it’s time to reboot the PC and boot into WinPE using your drive you made from my last blog article!

Once you’re booted into WinPE, run TAP.

Be sure to save your mydevices.pmq to a location other than the RAM drive, in my case the D: drive was the actual location for the USB drive.

Import your mydevices.pmq into Target Designer, add in your components (Many of the drivers for the ASUS are not in Target Designer, see this article on how to Componentize Drivers.), and VIOLA, an XPe image for the ASUS EEE PC.

Here’s my ASUS booting XPe in the First Boot Agent Stage:

I’m going to use my newly created ASUS EEE XPe PC to Remote Desktop into my Office Desktop during meetings.

Embedded Windows Team (NT4e, XPe, Vista Embedded) : ASUS EEE PC Running XPe, fun PC!

written by dcaddick

So it’s a pity that I can’t do anything to upgrade my Netgear 834G as with the new ADSL2+ service I’m currently only able to get about 5 - 6 Mb out of it - but essentially these hacks are not meant to improve speed or performance - more like gaining added features from products that have now been left behind by the developers as they now work on the latest gear?

Still, I though this useful to share if you were looking for a fix for these products?

Supercharge Your Wireless Router With Open Firmware

From Wired How-To Wiki

A Linksys Wireless-G broadband router (WRT54GL). Image courtesy of Cisco Systems

Consumer-grade wireless routers — your standard Linksyses or Belkins — do their job well enough much of the time. But there are some juicy features offered by high-end commercial routers that just don’t come with the home package. We’re talking features like quality of service (QoS) management, adjustable transmission power, and support for IPv6.

If you need (or just geekily crave) these features, you can shell out cash for a pro-grade router, or you can get them for free by installing new firmware on a cheap home router.

Got extra advice? Log in and add it.

Contents

[hide]

• 1 What You’ll Need
• 2 Customize Your Router
  • 2.1 Find a Compatible Router
  • 2.2 Get the Firmware
  • 2.3 Install the Firmware
  • 2.4 Use the Firmware

more at source…
Supercharge Your Wireless Router With Open Firmware - Wired How-To Wiki

written by dcaddick