Archive for August, 2006

Linksys Diagnostics, Firmware Hacks and Intel Driver Updates

Aug 31st, 06 / Comments Off

OK, now that we’ve got our network basically working, we’ve run “DSL Reports”:http://dslreports.com/tools to figure out that we do have the speed, but it still doesn’t seem very responsive. There are also various attacks by different folks, so we need some sort of el cheapo monitoring software. There are quite a few of these utilities that you could try:

As an example, “Link Logger”:http://www.linklogger.com/download.htm is a tool that isn’t expensive, but does require that you burn a third party firmware load onto your Linksys BEFSR41 that we have for instance has mulitple hardware “versions”:http://www.linklogger.com/linksys_config_issues.htm so you ahve to be careful.

There is also a whole market in firmware hacks for the very popular WRT54G line that include such tools as “HyperWRT”:, “DD-WRT”:http://www.dd-wrt.com/dd-wrtv2/index.php and “SveaSoft”:http://www.sveasoft.com. There is also lots of information on “Linksysinfo.org”:http://linksysinfo.org is a great resource to understand all of this. The main lesson though is that if you are buying a new one, you want a Linksys WRT54G V4 or *lower*. The V5 and later are cost reduced and have less memory!!!

Let’s review each

h2. Sveasoft

Sveasoft is a good example, they add lots of features but have a $20/month subscription fee to keep the software alive. What are some of the new “features”. BTW we can thank Linksys for using an open source Linux and distributing the firmware. These companies are added features because of that. Makes the WRT54G a pretty good line to buy into.

The most interesting thing is that apparently, the earlier models, WRT54G V1-4 were better because the new ones V5 and on actually have less RAM and ROM and switched operating environments, so if you can get the V4, they are probably the best for hacking around.

* Separate SSIDs per box with unique encryption rules for each SSID so you can on one box host both inside the firewall employees and outside the firewall visiters
* About a zillion repeater, bridge and routing modes that you normally only get with the dedicate WAP54G access point. These are now available on the WRT54G
* Lots of file wall improvements including blocking of bad adware sites
* Boosting the power of the system to 251 milliwatts to increase range, the addition of “Afterburner” support to increase speeds

h2. DD-WRT

“DD-WRT”:http://www.dd-wrt.com/dd-wrtv2/ddwrt.php is an open source project based on Sveasoft so it is free and has a very active “forum”:http://www.dd-wrt.com/phpBB2/viewforum.php?f=1&sid=6dfef779420445922429af2b43d36a49 with lots of the various flavors of the Linksys and other related hardware all based on the Broadcom chipset. Features from their “wiki”:http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Main_Page include:

“AP Client Mode”:http://www.dd-wrt.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=68 is the most important for providing more coverage where on WRT54G reaches out only so far, so at the edge, you put another WRT54G to extend the coverage. As an aside, the AP Client Bridge Mode only allows a single ethernet device behind the bridge, so you need to use WDS if you want mulitples. Also there are lots of posts about whether this is implemented properly, so probably not a good candidate.

The main thing it doesn’t do is multiple SSIDs on the one box. There is a pre-alpha V0.24 that does that

h2. HyperWRT

“HyperWRT”:http://www.hyperspacehome.com/hyperwrt/ is another option. The main page says it won’t work on anything new that V3 hardware. So it is a good candidate for Qiming which has three V3 routers, but not for John who has a pair of V4’s. But there is a “forum”:http://www.hyperwrt.org/forum/viewtopic.php?id=957 that describes how to load it on a WRT54G/GS V4. Confused yet? Also interesteing to see that there is a feature called Speedbooster which are basically hacks to the Wifi protocols that are firmware based, so save yourself some money if you are geek and buy a WRT54G and use this hack to save the $20 extra it costs for a WRT54GS. Specifically its “features”:http://www.hyperwrt.org/Features.shtml are:

* Adjustable power and ability to get up to 13 wireless channels. Apparently on the WRT54G by default, it is at 100Mw, the maximum according to the 802.11 specification, but you can artificially boost it to 200Mw with a firmware change
* “AP+WDS”:http://www.hyperwrt.org/wiki/BasicWirelessSettings. This is the mode that we really need, it merges the AP mode and WDS mode together so you can connect together multiple WRT54G servicing wired and wireless clients. (so it is too bad it doesn’t work with John’s hardware).
* The main complexity is that for WRT54G routers, you have to upgrade them with Linksys firmware to WRT54GS and from there go to HyperWRT.

Hat tip to the genius to figure this out at Hyperwrt named Danielhaden, you basically load DD-WRT to get the V4 in the right state of mind as a V4 GS then from there you can use HyperWRT’s GS version. That is because the WRT54G HyperWRT only works for V1-3 of that that hardware. Confused yet:

# Used the Linksys CD that came with the router to set it up initially and make sure the thing worked out of the box.” It is always wise to check out a brand-new product before modifying it. wink
# After confirming the router worked, I went to 192.168.1.1 and reset the factory defaults. Did I need to? Probably not, but I wanted to start clean with no funny business. . .” This is a very important part of the official directions for DD-WRT mini generic that is used in the next step. Setting factory defaults before loading firmware reduces risk.
# Navigated to the ‘Upgrade Firmware’ section of the Linksys interface and browsed for the dd-wrt mini generic (121005 release, v23) I downloaded from “DD-WRT”:http://www.dd-wrt.com/. Note that there is no specific download for mini generic. It is in the 121005-2.dd-wrt.v23.mini_beta1.zip archive and you will see it after unpacking the archive.” This information may have changed, but others have had success with the final version of DD-WRT mini generic V23.
# Clicked the ‘upgrade’ button. danielhaden suggested that due to the v4’s alleged stubborn nature, it is a good idea to wait five minutes and walk away. So I did. I even set a timer. However, the upgrade was successful in about one minute with no hang or apparent problems. I waited five minutes anyway. Hey, why not?” Also a vital part of the DD-WRT directions is that you wait 5 minutes after loading. This is specific to DD-WRT.
# I clicked the ‘continue’ button on the page that said the upgrade was successful and verified that dd-wrt was indeed running.
# Then I navigated to the “Upgrade Firmware” section of dd-wrt’s interface and browsed for Thibor’s HyperWRT 201105 .bin file I had already downloaded from “Hyperwrt”:http://www.hyperwrt.org/Downloads.shtml and held my breath as I continued.” See the FAQ on where to get the latest HyperWRT.
# I set my timer for five minutes, just to keep me honest. And again, I didn’t need it- after approximately one minute, I saw the page that said the upgrade was successful…and again, I waited the five minutes anyway. I wasn’t in a big hurry.” It wasn’t necessary to wait 5 minutes after loading HyperWRT. The router was ready to use as soon as HyperWRT appeared. Still, not a bad idea. wink
# After my (probably unnecessary) five minutes, I continued from the upgrade successful page and found that HyperWRT was running. I had a momentary bout of panic as the interface looks very similar to the stock Linksys interface. Uh oh. Then I saw the Thibor HyperWRT firmware description up in the right corner. Whew.” HyperWRT adds many features onto the original Linksys sources, and it is made from the latest Linksys code for the latest in fixes and security. That is why it looks similar.
# I then performed a hard reset on the router. Unplugged, pressed the reset button- one one thousand, two one thousand…thirty one thousand- then plugged it back in for ten more seconds with the reset button still pressed. One one thousand, two one thousand….”
# After the reset, I went to 192.168.1.1 in my browser and HyperWRT was still there. Yay. I navigated to the startup script page and entered “erase nvram; reboot” into the. . .” run command section of the administration page. At first, it is difficult to figure out where to type, but the single line is where you type, not the big box.
# At this time, it is recommended that you set your router to factory defaults. It will restart. Now, set an administration (admin) password, and then login with username admin and your new password. Until you save an admin password, many of your changes will not save.
# Success! Thibor’s HyperWRT made the 54G appear as a 54GS. Neat. I don’t know if it’s faster or better since this is my first wireless router, but it was fun to stick it to The Man (?) and turn it into the more expensive model.”

h2. Fix your Intel Drivers they have security holes!

As another aside, it turns out the 2200BG Intel driver we have has all kinds of security issues, so if you have downloaded as of August 9, 2006, you should download the new Intel drivers at “http://support.intel.com/support/wireless/wlan/sb/cs-010623.htm”:http://support.intel.com/support/wireless/wlan/sb/cs-010623.htm

Linksys

Linksys AP Client Mode vs. Wireless Bridge Mode

Aug 31st, 06 / Comments Off

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* Access Point. This is the normal mode where you have a wired connection (usual several) and then a wifi connect. One of the connection usually goes to a separate router somewhere and then to the Internet. You can think of the WAP54G in this mode as a 4-port hub with a wifi hub connected to it that shares 54Mbps.
* AP Client. This mode is pretty useless in that what it means is that you bridge together two WAP54Gs, but the one that is the client *can’t have any PCs connect to it, only the hardwired PCs work* You wold never need this mode for a normal office, so I’m not quite sure why it is the second thing there.
* Wireless Repeater. In this mode, one AP runs in normal AP mode, while the other is a wireless repeater, it just repeats everything it hears and thus you can extend your network. The big tradeoff is that it halves your bandwidth since half the bandwidth is used to the send and the other to recieve.
* Wireless Bridge. IN this “mode”:http://www.tomsnetworking.com/2002/10/25/wireless_bridging_ntk/page4.html you have you put the router on oned side and then set the a pair of WAP54G into bridge mode. It is also called “point-to-point” bridging which is a little clearer. This basically connects two wired Ethernets together

“Tom’s Hardware”:http://www.tomsnetworking.com/2002/10/25/wireless_bridging_ntk/page4.html has the only decent tutorial. The Linksys manual is useless. Some other notes from this are that it requires that

We finally ended up just making them all just standard APs since we have Ethernet access wired for each. There is no use to have a wireless repeater bridge or whatever AP client mode is.

The big change we made was to change all the access point to use channels 1, 6 and 11, so we have minimum interference. Netstumbler is a good tool for doing this. Another issue is that someho we are still getting lots of port accesses from random sites through our router. Not cleR WHY THIS is happening as the Linksys BEFSX41 router doesn’t seem to have any logging tools that are any good. My D-link had DMon but there is nothing for this from linksys.

Linksys

Printers

Aug 30th, 06 / 1 Comment

Well, the printer market has gotten simpler in the last year. Now the main thing, if you want a printer for digital photos is that you can either pick an all-in-one that gives excellent print quality or you can get a high end dedicated printer. Here are the two choices from PC Magazine that make the most sense to me:

h2. All in One

It use to be there was a big tradeoff in quality if you got an all-in-one that included scanning and printer, but the “Canon Pixma MP800R”:http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,1961536,00.asp seems just about perfect. It doesn’t include a fax module, but does allow you to network it with Ethernet or 802.11 which is great. Print quality is excellent and it lets you scan as well.

“Pricegrabber”:http://www.pricegrabber.com/p__Canon_PIXMA_MP800R_All_In_One_Printer,__17744224/sort_type=bottomline has it for $370 street.

h2. Professional Printer

I have a Canon i9900, but just this year, Epson one upped this high end category with the “Epson Stylus Photo R2400″:http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,1848554,00.asp. It uses no less than 10 different color inks and the quality is amazing. It is $800 street, but worth it if you have a DSLR and want to print gigantic (19″x44″) posters or want something indistinguishable from professional.

“Pricegrabber”:http://www.pricegrabber.com/p__Epson_Stylus_R2400_Inkjet_Printer,__8827734/sort_type=bottomline has it for $750 street.

PCs

Tools for Duane

Aug 30th, 06 / Comments Off

Most folks only seem to have the very rudiments of a protection on their PC. At most you might have the anti-virus software your OEM put on your computer. Duane reminded me it is hard to figure out what you need in today’s world. Here is what I put on every PC that I own. These are all free utilities, but they are quite good:

* “Antivir”:http://www.free-av.com. This is free for personal use and gets updated regularly. It seems to work decently as an anti-virus package.
* “Zone Alarm”:http://zonelabs.com. Thi s is a free firewall that I like to use instead of the Windows XP firewall. It is more complicated to setup but tells you when you are being attacked. Many times, it is more valuable to know you are under attack so you can figure out why. For instance, we were using “PPStream”:http://ppstream.com here and it turns out it automatically uses uPNP to open ports in our firewall, but never closes them down. So we could go in and do it manually. It is complicated to figure out though if you change networks alot because it will block DNS requests and other things that are benign, but if you ever to go a Wifi hotspot, you *absolutely* have to have this.
* “Spybot”:http://safer-networking.org. This is a free utility that blows out spyware and malware. It is free and you just have to make sure you also go into options and turn on TeaTimer so that you are protected all the time against registry changes and also from spyware 24-7.
* Final thing is to turn on Cookie acceptance in IE or Firefox. YOu really need in this day and age check out everything that is laying down a cookie on your machine.

Then there are utilities that you can add that help get more spyware out. That seems to be the least mature in terms of full protection. Here are the ones I use supplementarily when I have time:

* “Yahoo Toolbar”:http://toolbar.yahoo.com. Normally toolbars are terrible spyware themselves, but in this case, Yahoo bundles a very nice antispyware package in their IE toolbar. I think it is webroot who makes it. Finds somethings spybot doesn’t
* “Adaware”:http://lavasoft.de. I don’t use this as much since spybot seems to get rid of most of the bad stuff.

Blackberry

Google Sets and Alexaholic

Aug 30th, 06 / Comments Off

When we are working on companies, it is often times useful to see what’s related to what, here are the tools that I use:

* “Google Sets”:http://labs.google.com/sets. This lets you type in a bunch of related ideas and see from the web, what else is related, so if you type in Microsoft, Ignition and Oracle, the related terms “include”:http://labs.google.com/sets?hl=en&q1=microsoft&q2=ignition&q3=oracle&q4=&q5=&btn=Large+Set Oracle, IBM, Novell, Intel, Cisco, Netscape in that order.
* “Alexaholic”:http://alexaholic.com. Once you have the related companies, its easy to see where they are ranking if they are consumer sites.

Internet

Thin and Light Notebooks…just wait

Aug 29th, 06 / Comments Off

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h2. Hold off for the Core 2 Duo

In any case, here’s a review of the so called thin-and-light notebooks, I personally wouldn’t buy a notebook until the “Core 2 Duo”:http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=3134&article=Core+2+Duo+Performance ships. It is about 2x faster in raw processing speed and with two cores is way more responsive. It should ship in quantity in October-November and “PC Magazine”:http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,2009703,00.asp has a good overview of some of the machines. This chip is just so much faster than the current Core Duo. Still if your laptop breaks and you *have* to have one today here are the recommendations. You can see the latest announced “Core 2 Duo”:http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=3135&article=Core+2+Duo+Notebooks processor here with the most interesting one being the upcoming Macbook Pro which folks believe will ship with Core Duo 2 and accelerate graphics.

These are generally about five pounds or less. I personally only get a notebook with the Core Duo processor if you don’t mind being bigger or the Pentium M ULV for the really small notebooks like the Sony T-Series and you should remember to include the charger in the total weight, what matters is traveling weight. To me a five pound notebook feels really heay while a 3.5 pounds is amazingly light. As an aside, this list only include Intel Core Duo machines (or Pentium M if weight less than 4.5 pounds) and there’s a bias towards dedicated graphics with an eye towards Windows Vista which requires graphics acceleration. Here are top sites from “light and light notebook review”:google

h2. “Notebook Review”:http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=3135&article=Core+2+Duo+Notebooks

Notebook review has a great list of constantly updating Core 2 Duo (aka Merom) notebooks. Here’s a quick review of the ones that are now available with an emphasis on finding a lighter one in order of what I’d expect to be good ones based on past experience based on “PC Magazine”:http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,2009703,00.asp as well which reports that these new Core 2 Duo are mainly faster for media applications like Photoshop and games of course.

# “Apple Macbook Pro 15.4″:http://www.notebookreview.com/scripts/redirect.asp?merchantPricingID=6212108&merchantID=272829&productID=15783 . This one isn’t announced yet, but personally I’d really think about waiting for it. Rumored spec are that it will be 2GHz Core Duo, 512MB (you can upgrade the memory separately since Apple memory is so expensive), 80GB, 4x DVD burner, ATI X1600 grpahics card for $2000. Also it has a webcam and it can of course run both Windows and the MacOSx
# “Dell XPS M1210″:http://configure.us.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx?oc=m1210s3&cs=19&dgvcode=ss&c=US&l=EN”. As a the biggest PC vendor, they have a huge lead in the number of Core 2 Duo producs with the high end XPS flipping in particular the is very small while if you really want to splurge they have a 20″ (!!!) notebook as well. These models are scheduled to ship in mid September right now. You can get it with a webcam, T7200 2GHz processor, 1GB DDR2-667 memory, 120GB hard disk, 8x DL DVD burner, nVidia Go 7400 graphics for a pretty amazing $1900. There isn’t anywhere on the site I could find what it weighs though. In “China”:http://www1.ap.dell.com/content/products/prouctdetails.aspx/xps_m1210_cn?c=cn&l=en&s=dhs you can order this direct from Dell buit they don’t ship the M1210 with Core 2 Duo so beware. There is also a consumer version of this called the “Precision M65″:http://configure.us.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx?oc=m65min&cs=04&dgvcode=ss&c=US&l=EN with T5600 1.83GHz processor, 15.4 Wide WUXGA panel, 1GB memory, 80GB, 8x DVD burner for $2K mainly because it has a nicer 15″ screen. As an amazing aside, you can get a 24″ widescreen monitor now for just $880 from Dell.
# “Dell XPS M1710″:http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,2008177,00.asp won the PC Magazine Editors Choice and although expensive at $2900 for the tested configuration (2.16Ghz, 2GB memory, 8.8 lbs, 17″, 7900GTX graphics, 100GB disk, DVD DL burner, 802.11 pre-n

h2. “Cnet”:http://reviews.cnet.com/4520-3121_7-6248578-1.html

The did a shootout and the most interesting thing is that as of last year, the “Sharp M4000″:http://reviews.cnet.com/Sharp_M4000/4505-3121_7-31484390-2.html?tag=nav won with 7.2/10 while the old Apple Powerbook G4 came in at 7.1. I’ve never owned Sharp, but this has a nice widescreen 13.3″ screen, 3.7 pounds (4.3 pounds with charger). It streets for about $1600. It has a DVD drive in it, 5+ hour battery life and 1.7GHz Pentium M its perfectly good for the business guy.

“About”:http://compreviews.about.com/od/thinandlight/tp/ThinandLight.htm

They just did a review in May of the same category, but without any rigorous testing, this is more like a quick overview of what one person likes. I don’t know if I’d buy an HP, but the ever so strangely named “dv5190us”:http://compreviews.about.com/od/thinandlight/gr/HPdv5190us.htm has the perfect feature set with a very fast Core Duo T2400 (1.83GHz) processor, 1GB DDR2 PC2-5400 ram, 100GB 5400 rpm hard drive, 8x DVD DL Lightscribe burner, 15.4 widescreen LCD, dedicated nVidia GeFore 7400 graphics. The main tradeoff is that it weighs in at 6.5 pounds, but it is a very complete multimedia system. The other machine they like i the Toshiba Satellite “M105-S3004″:http://compreviews.about.com/od/thinandlight/gr/ToshM105S3004.htm with similar spec having a 1.66GHz processor, 1GB PC2-4000 memory, 100GB hard drive, 8x DVD DL, 14″ widescreen but it is lighter at 5.4 pounds and doesn’t have high speed graphics you would need for games. I haven’t ever owned a Dell and would worry about reliability but the “Inspiron E1405″:http://compreviews.about.com/od/thinandlight/gr/InspironE1405.htm has a nice feature set with a 1.66GHz Core Duo, 1GB PC2-4200 memory, 100GB drive, 8x DVD DL burner, 14.1″ wide screen at 5.4 pounds with the main tradeoff being the lack of dedicated graphics, so it won’t look so great with Windows Vista.

h2. “Notebookreview.com”:http://www.notebookreview.com/

It had to happen eventually but there is finally a review site dedicated to just notebook PCs. The other two reviewers above have high page rank, but they aren’t specialized (read better) information sites so these are more detailed:

“Toshiba Satellite U200″:http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=3136&review=Toshiba+Satellite+U200 is a consumer oriented notebook with all the features (4.1 pounds, 1.66 GHz T2300E Core Duo, 1GB DDR2@533MHz, 100GB hard drive, DVD DL burner, 12.1 wide screen, bluetooth) Performance wise, its about the middle of the pack of Core Duo machines. It has a 4.5 hour battery life and Bluetooth is nice for those of us who Skype alot. Main drawback is lack of accelerated graphics, but that’ smainluy a furutre issue.

Hardware

Blinklist

Aug 29th, 06 / Comments Off

Since I’ve been traveling, I’ve been way off of my goal of logging onto 10 Web 2.0 sites a day. Sorry! but here are the latest:

!http://www.blinklist.com:8080/Theme/Graphic/Blinklist.gif!:http://blinklist.com/richt This looks like a delicious clone, but it has been getting impressive increase in traffic according to “Alexa”:http://www.alexa.com/data/details/main?q=&url=www.blinklist.com and is now 4000 after just a year. Seems related to Furl, Simppy, Spurl.net, Netvives and Jots according to Alexa. I found it because it is the number hit on google:”RSS Bittorrent” search

!http://www.furl.net/i/logo-furl.gif!:http://www.furl.net/members/richtong It reminds me quite a bit of Furl which is owned by Looksmart. That thing is even more successful at “Alexa”:http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details?&range=2y&size=medium&compare_sites=&y=t&url=www.furl.net#top. It is quite a bit older, but has really moved in the last 18 months.

Web 2.0

Paradise Garden

Aug 29th, 06 / Comments Off

This is right next to the Jinmao and I’d agree, it is a great place for a fancy lunch. The dim sum is very good and they have a very open feeling. By foreign standards it isn’t too expensive and the decor is very, very nice.

Pudong Restaurants – Reviews, Photos – VirtualTourist.com

Paradise Garden is located on the 6th (top) floor of the J-Life Building, which is an annex to the Jinmao Tower. This is a Dim Sum place There are private rooms for group dining, and tables in the open atrium area for groups of 1-6 people. The food is of very good quality and they have a good selection. When I go with my colleagues for lunch we usually pay between RMB60-90 per head

Shanghai

Another Wireless Setup issue

Aug 29th, 06 / Comments Off

I someday wish that someone would solve this, but fresh on leaving work, I got to spend an evening fixing another network here in China. This time I had a good education in Chinese user interfaces and thanks to “dltool”:http://dltool.sourceforge.net, it was easy to figure out the interface and learn some Chinese words for things like subnet mask:

* “TP-Link”:http://tp-link.com . This is the largest networking vendor in China and they have their own firmware. This is an 8-port router and wired hub. They have a good “English”:http://www.tp-link.com/support/download.asp download tool. Basically, the main fix was to turn on uPNP support so programs could automatically open ports

* “Linksys”:http://linksys.com. We got a set of Chinese Linksys WRT54G routers to use as access points. These are strange babies as they have all English packaging, instructions and setup wizard, but the actual firmware is in Chinese. Pretty wierd. I basically had to turn off the router functionality to use them as just APs. Another oddity is that there are no less than *six* versions of this box, we got V4.0 which you can only tell by flipping the box over and reading the exact Model Number
* Since I’ve used this router before, I was really tempted to “download”:http://www.linksys.com/servlet/Satellite?childpagename=US%2FLayout&packedargs=page%3D2%26cid%3D1115416835852%26c%3DL_Content_C1&pagename=Linksys%2FCommon%2FVisitorWrapper&SubmittedElement=Linksys%2FFormSubmit%2FProductDownloadSearch&sp_prodsku=1124916802645 the latest firmware

Also is hard to find, but the default user name and password for the TP-Link is _admin_ for both.

Networking

Wifi Debugging

Aug 29th, 06 / Comments Off

Well, the network at Qiming doesn’t seem to work that well, we have a low end all Linksys system with two access points and a LAN router, so how to diagnose it. “Tech-faq.com”:http://www.tech-faq.com/wi-fi-software-tools.shtml has a very good list of tools and at the top is my old favorite “Netstumbler”:http://www.stumbler.net/ this tool only works with Prism cards, but fortunately, the Intel chipset in my VAIO is compatible. So now I can look at the Signal to noise ratio and see what channels the APs are on.

With wireless, you have to be careful about channels because you don’t want things to interfere. In fact over here, we had a 2.4GHz phone right next to the router, you never want to do that as it will interfere with the signal. As “About.com”:http://compnetworking.about.com/od/wifihomenetworking/qt/wifichannel.htm says, the so called 11 channels are actually overlapping, so if you have any choice, the default is typicall channel 6 (the middle channel), so if you have two access points, use channel 1 and 11 (these are the only ones that don’t overlap). Here is the scheme:

Only 1, use channel 6, the default
If you have two, then use channels 1 and 11 to maximize the difference
If you have three, then use channels 1, 6 and 11 and try to keep the 1 and 11 APs far apart.

Networking