MaximumPC 2007 06

19 Upgrades

TOMATO FIRMWARE

YOU CAN’T EAT IT, BUT YOU CAN SUPERCHARGE YOUR

LINKSYS OR BUFFALO ROUTER WITH THIS TASTY THIRD-PARTY

FIRMWARE UPGRADE

E

ver sat up late at night thinking, “Dang it, I wish there was

more I could do with my router!”? Well, say goodbye to

those sleepless nights because if you own a compatible Linksys

or Buffalo router, we’re going to show you how to hack it with

Polarcloud’s open-source, Linux-based Tomato fi rmware (free,

http://www.polarcloud.com).

Why would you want to do this? Because despite the tiny

download, the Tomato fi rmware’s kung fu knows more tricks

than Mr. Miyagi and will kick the tar out of your router’s exist-

ing confi guration options. Want to show your roommate proof

that his pr0n downloading habits make going halvsies on the

Internet bill an unfair proposition? Bring up the bandwidth usage

monitor and play amateur auditor. Then head over to the QoS

menu and fi ne-tune a plethora of priority settings previously

unavailable. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Input custom

scripts, change the function of the SES (Linksys) and AOSS

(Buffalo) buttons, create a fi le system in the unused space of

your router’s NVRAM for storing small fi les, view neighboring

wireless signals in the vicinity, and lots more.

To get started, you fi rst need to fl ip your router over and

look at the model and version numbers to verify compatibility

with Tomato. This is important because some routers lack the

amount of onboard fl ash memory necessary to install most

third-party fi rmware, including Tomato. Supported models from

Linksys include both the WRT54G and WRT54GS up to version

4, WRT54GL versions 1 and 1.1, and the WRTSL54GS (if you’re

willing to give up the single USB port). Buffalo models include

the WHR-G54S and WHR-HP-G54.

After verifying your router’s compatibility, head over to http://www.

polarcloud.com) and download the latest Tomato fi rmware (cur-

rently 1.06). If you own a Linksys router, open your browser

and type http://192.168.1.1/. Type admin for each fi eld

(unless you previously changed these) and navigate to the

Administration tab. Click the Firmware Upgrade subheading and

select the appropriate .bin fi le from the Tomato archive you just

downloaded. Click the Upgrade button and you’re all fi nished.

For Buffalo models, hold down the Reset button and then

hard-wire your computer to the router. Edit your Ethernet

card’s TCI/IP properties: Set the IP to 192.168.11.2, the mask

to 255.255.255.0, and the gateway to 192.168.11.1. Unplug

the router’s power cable for a few seconds, plug it back in,

and then run the wh4_install.bat fi le in the Tomato archive.

Congratulations, you now have the baddest router on the block!

With a whole

new level of QoS

tweaking at your

disposal, you

can ensure that

your significant

other’s web

surfing habits

never inter-

fere with your

BF2142 gaming

sessions, saving

you the cost of

an annulment!

Upgrades You Might Think You Need, But Don’t

It’s all well and good to strive for an improved computing experience, but be wary of irrational exuberance

VISTA

We’ve said it before and we’ll say it

again: There’s no reason right now to

switch to Vista. The OS doesn’t offer

any must-have features, other than

DX10, which is moot until there are DX

games (who knows when?); hardware

and application support for the OS is

spotty, and integrated digital rights man-

agement sucks.

MATROX TRIPLEHEAD2GO

We’re still waiting for Matrox to ship us

the digital version of its TripleHead2Go;

we hope it isn’t as terrible as the analog

version, which enables you to run three

monitors in analog mode at a maximum

resolution of just 1280x1024.

30-INCH LCD

Yes, we’re all for maximum screen real-

estate, and no single-screen solution

brings it like a 2560x1600-res, 30-inch

desktop LCD, but we can’t abide by

the compromises in today’s superlarge

desktop screens. We’ll feel differently

when 30-inch LCDs have built-in scal-

ers that let us tweak colors and resolu-

tions natively.

NEXT-GEN OPTICAL

Unless you have an HD video camera

and a yearning to author your own discs,

your money is better spent on things

other than a “next-gen” drive—like a

Ronco Food Dehydrator. Format wars,

costly product, burn times from hell, and

a shortage of worthwhile commercial HD

discs make this an ill-advised purchase.

AGEIA PHYSX PHYSICS

ACCELERATOR

Who wouldn’t want real-world physics

in a game? We remain intrigued by the

concept, but without support from game

developers, this hardware is about as

worthless as an old S3 ViRGE 3D-graph-

ics accelerator.

36 MAXIMUMPC JUNE 2007