1. Review: Why the Netgear WG311 v3 Sucks (72)
   Slightly dodgy network card that Netgear don’t seem that fussed about fixing. Bad on XP, it got worse on Vista (see number 4).
   
2. Playing iPod Video on Your TV (45)
   Seems to be a lot of people looking for instructions for the iPod Classic. Here’s a tip: sell it.
3. Server application unavailable: installing IIS on .NET 2.0 (44)
   Seems to be a common problem. Sadly Microsoft’s error message is about as relevant as ever.
   
4. Installing Vista (AKA More Netgear WG311 Misery) (31)
   Even more messed up. Thank goodness for Linksys!
   
5. Thunderbird/Outlook/Google Calendar Integration (25)
   How to integrate your Thunderbird calendar at home with your Outlook in work, via Google Calendar.
   
6. Orange Answerphone (Voicemail) Number for PAYG (23)
   Such a simple problem. Who knew it would be so hard to find?
   
7. Stop Monitor.exe Hogging CPU (20)
   Why can’t people just give you a standard installation instead of trying to do everything for you? Help sounds good, until their useful tools start killing your PC.
   
8. How to run IIS Web Server in Windows XP Home (20)
   Microsoft’s official line is it can’t be done, but it’s not that tricky.
   
9. Making Firefox Scroll With Syanptics TouchPad (19)
   Discovering the solution to making Firefox scroll on my Acer Aspire laptop.
   
10. NAS or Home Server (17)
    I deliberate over whether I can justify spending the extra to build or buy a home server before eventually deciding that a Linkstation Live will meet my needs for less than half the price.
    

I have been using Windows Media Player 11 (as it’s already built in to Vista, it’s also a free download for XP) as the server to stream from. The problem is that when I tried to browse a particular folder the Linktheater seems to freeze for a while before opening it, and then showing it as empty. When I checked my PC an error message had appeared informing me that “Windows Media Player Network Sharing Service has stopped working”. On clicking “search online” for more information Windows informed me that:

This problem was caused by DivX Codec. DivX Codec was created by DivX, Inc..
DivX, Inc. is aware of this problem and working as quickly as possible to make a solution available.

The Application Event Log contains an entry for each crash with Event ID 1000 and Task Category 100 and a description something along the lines of:

Faulting application wmpnetwk.exe, version 11.0.6000.6324, time stamp 0x4549b540, faulting module divxdec.ax, version 6.8.0.0, time stamp 0x47547cff, exception code 0xc0000005, fault offset 0x0005c021, process id 0xe1c, application start time 0x01c84be4834cb5f8.

which doesn’t really help much.

Workaround

I split the folder in two, and one of the new ones worked fine. I continued like this until I had narrowed the culprit down to be one of two files. However at this stage the folders all displayed their contents fine, including the one containing only the suspects. Now they just wouldn’t play.

After a lot of moving files and much more crashing and restarting of the Windows Media Player Network Sharing Service, I narrowed the culprit down to a particular video file. I’m not sure what the problem was as it had worked fine when streamed from an XP computer also using Windows Media Player 11; in fact it was watched start to finish without any problems. It may be an issue specific to Vista or the DivX 6.8 codec, either way I’m happy it’s sorted.

If anyone finds out any more about the cause of this kind of problem or a quicker solution, please do let me know. Meanwhile I hope the above helps someone. Oh and the Buffalo Linktheater Wireless A & G is available from Dabs for about £95.

What’s the big deal with the new N95 8GB anyway? Well, there are a few tweaks to the N95 formula: for a start I’ve wanted a phone equipped with WiFi for a good while now, but while the N95 met this criterion it apparently ate batteries, so the new 8GB version Nokia are releasing has a bigger battery as well as an even bigger 2.8″ screen (very useful when using the wireless to browse the internet) and has 8GB of internal flash memory instead of an expansion slot. I really badly wanted an N95 but I’ve been hanging off until this comes out, though I may be hoping for too much for Vodafone to have it available on a £30/month tariff before Christmas (the busiest time of the year for mobile phone sales).

Ah well, maybe I can get one in the January sales?

For more info on the N95 8GB see the Nokia or “tweaks” links in the post or see this Dialaphone blog post.

Firstly, my new Linksys (WMP54G v4.1) wireless card is working fine. Thanks Amazon.

Secondly, I updated the Windows Experience Index score just now. Still the same graphics card in the machine, so I don’t know how but suddenly my desktop graphics rating jumped from showing 2.1 to 4.1, pretty sweet! On viewing the details I also noticed that the graphics card apparently has 334MB of system memory available on top of the 256MB of dedicated RAM. I don’t know if this was the case before or not so can’t say if that influenced the change in score.

Anyway, this brings my overall Windows Experience Index up from 2.1 to 3.0, now based on the Gaming Graphics score (WEI bases your overall experience rating on the lowest score it finds). My system now looks like:

Processor (AMD Athlon 2800+): 3.4
RAM (1.5GB @ 266MHz): 3.7
Graphics (256MB eForce 6200): 4.1
Gaming Graphics: 3.0
Primary Hard Disk (Seagate 120GB 7200rpm): 4.4

Now if anyone can tell me of a Protowall/PeerGuardian substitute that works with Vista I’ll be sorted.

I managed to get a copy of the 32-bit Windows Vista Business from the MSDN Academic Alliance program through university and, after a RAM and graphics card upgrade, and a lot of moving of files to clear a partition for it, I was ready to install Vista. The installation itself went reasonably quickly. After about half an hour I was choosing desktops and playing with the control panel.

I was disappointed to notice that my initial Windows Experience Index (Microsoft’s measure of how pimped your PC is) was disappointing at 2.2, let down by poor graphics performance, considering I’d just spent about £40 on a new 256MB card from Dabs. Maybe it’s because I’m only running AGP4x, I don’t know. Anyway, Vista told me my system was rated as follows:

Processor (AMD Athlon 2800+): 3.4
RAM (1.5GB @ 266MHz): 3.7
Graphics (256MB eForce 6200): 2.2 4.1* – yay!
Gaming Graphics: 3.0
Primary Hard Disk (Seagate 120GB 7200rpm): 4.4

The first spot of trouble came as I tried to get my wireless connection going. The device manager was reporting my Netgear WG311 v3 present and correct, but it wasn’t picking up my network. Oh dear. Anyone familiar with my previous exploits with this card will probably guess I wasn’t very surprised by this.

I was tempted to see if a restart solved the problem, but instead I downloaded the Vista drivers from Netgear and installed them from my USB stick. No joy. THEN I restarted and it worked fine. The only thing is for some reason I chose to use the Netgear utility instead of Vista’s built-in wireless configuration. Probably not the wisest move ever but I can always redo that later.

Sight & Sound Issues

Anyway the next problem came with the graphics and sound. The system was reporting no audio device installed and my monitor wouldn’t display above 1024×768 without getting stuck in an uncomfortably flickery 60Hz.

Now that I was connected to the internet though, I noticed Vista was downloading updates – including one for my graphics driver. As I’d asked Vista to only download essential updates, it wasn’t downloading the recommended one for my motherboard’s built-in audio, but I ticked a box and it added that to the download.

One restart more and we have lift-off: sound!! But wait.. I increase the resolution back to 1152×864, apply and go into advanced to increase the refresh rate. To my horror, once again only 60Hz is selectable at this higher resolution. I know from XP that my monitor can do better than that, so I tentatively untick the “hide modes that this monitor cannot display” box and crank it up to 75Hz. It works fine. I’m not comfortable with the idea that Vista thinks the monitor can’t handle it for some reason, but I’ll leave it as it is for now.

Fucking Netgear Again!

Now there seem to be problems with the wireless card again, the signal’s dropped and it can’t find any networks! The Netgear config program doesn’t even seem to want to start. Netgear’s PCI Chocolate Teapot strikes again. Let me make this clear; the WG311 v3 is possibly the worst piece of hardware I’ve eve had the misfortune of owning and those responsible for its development at Netgear should be rounded up, publicly flogged, hung, drawn, quartered and fed to ravenous wolves.

Anyway, as I go in to the control panel hunting for the Add/Remove Programs control to remove the Netgear tool, I decide to re-run the “Windows Experience Index” test and it actually comes out worse! Great! The graphics have dropped from 2.2 to 2.1 and the gaming graphics from 3.0 to 2.6. Fuck.

I restart, figuring that when Vista picks up the card again it will re-install the drivers it used when it first recognised the card during the initial install. Sure enough when Vista reboots a message appears saying it’s installing drivers. Then it tells me it failed. Double fuck.

Into device manager and uninstall the card. Restart Vista (again). Back into device manager. While I’m doing this Vista tries again (and fails again) to install drivers for the card. Now I’m beyond caring. In device manager I view the cards properties and see a message saying “This device cannot start”. What’s one more reboot?

Back into device manager and “This device is working properly”. Oh really? So Mr. Device Manager, explain to me why “Windows Cannot Find Any Networks.”

It’s nearly 4AM and I’m getting pretty hacked off. Back to reinstalling the Netgear drivers.

It’s scant consolation, but it appears I’m not the only one having problems. At least one chap reckons the Marvell drivers (also available zipped) that got my card just about working with XP should do the trick. I try these to no avail. Now Vista refuses to even search for networks! Device manager jumps between “This device is working properly” and “This device cannot start” (code 10?!) from restart to restart. I even tried ‘repairing’ the connection through the by right-clicking the Wi-Fi button in the system tray. This tried to do something (which, I think, involved restarting the driver) but failed whatever it was. Fuck, fuck, FUCK!

Of course, Netgear Support (that’s an oxymoron if ever I heard one) is as useful as ever. The Netgear forums make you jump through I don’t know how many hoops just to register, so there’s so few users to help that it makes registration pointless and they don’t seem to plan on updating their “Beta” drivers any time soon, despite numerous complaints that they just don’t work! Useless fuckers.

At 5AM, still nothing works. I’m giving up and going back to XP until I can get a new wireless card. I think I’ll enjoy smashing that piece of shit into tiny shards when I finally replace it. As another option, any suggestions for alternative uses for the WG311 v3 would be gratefully received. Sadly, ‘paperweight’ is as good as I could come up with.

* – See my Vista Update

The first problem I had was that on installation was that the connection would cut out inexplicably (the router was about 2 feet away through a plasterboard wall), but wouldn’t actually realise that it had been disconnected (either running the Netgear utility or the Windows Wireless Zero configuration, both seemed to think they were still connected despite the lack of traffic.

Fortunately I also had a nearly clean partition with Windows XP Pro installed, so I tried using it with that. Here it seemed ok, for a few hours anyway. It turned out it was suffering from the same problem, but it the connection lasted for 8-12 hours rather than 30-90 minutes.

I tried everything. I used the Netgear utility; upgraded the drivers to the latest version from the Netgear website (1.1 – despite well-known problems with Windows XP SP 2, they’ve only ever produced one revision); I disabled the Netgear utility and just used the Windows Wireless Zero Configuration (uninstalling and reinstalling the card between times to be doubly sure there was nothing left lurking on the system). Nothing seemed to work.

A Solution?

Eventually I downloaded the drivers provided by Marvell, the original manufacturers of the chipset for the v3 version of the WG311 (Netgear seem to bring out different, incompatible versions of the same card with chipsets from different manufacturers to allow them to shop around for parts- and you can’t usually choose which one you get when you buy, not that the previous versions of the WG311 were problem-free). Shock of shock, the Marvell drivers actually worked!! Netgear should just bundle them with the card instead of their own messed up piece of crap they call a ‘utility’.

Now all I had to worry about was the fact that since moving the PC with the WG311 in it to a different room, the signal was extremely weak and intermittent. Having little experience with wireless networks, I just assumed this was because, despite only being about 10 feet away, there were 3 plasterboard walls between the router and the PC. Still blaming the router, I was on the verge of ordering a stronger antenna when my brand spanking new laptop arrived and in the same room, it was getting a “Very Good” signal at 54 Mbps; imagine my pure rage!

So that’s that. After a few months of pain after pain in the ass with Netgear’s WG311 v3, I’ve given up and am planning to replace the card in the near future. What’s the point in a wireless network card that only works when its right beside the router?

If you’re having similar problems, you might find the Marvell drivers (MV-S800374-00.zip) useful. That said I make no warranty as to their usefulness, and Marvell probably won’t either since I can’t find a link to the file from their site. Use at your own risk.

Also, see this follow-up for the next chapter of my battle with the Netgear WG311v3.

From what I’d read on the subject on the internet, it seemed unlikely that the loop antenna on my TV wouldn’t be sufficient to receive DTT (Freeview), even though the iPlayer supposedly performed better than other boxes when there was a weak signal. I assumed my house would have poor reception (particularly in my downstairs room) so I also grabbed an amplified set-top aerial from Argos and was initially quite impressed with the quality of the picture and sound. In fact, aside from the fact that initially the EPG was only a now/next (see below), I would have been delighted.

Setting Up

The box immediately auto-tuned to pick up the available channels; the standard 5, plus ITV2, BBC Three and Four etc. The picture’s good, although subject to interference from mobile phones and cars outside (I blame that on the set-top aerial though). The on-screen display menus make it easy to configure your box the way you like it.

Features

The box itself is packed with features. Mine was the BT Iplayer, meaning that although it was manufactured by Netgem, it was BT-branded and came with different features, such as on-screen caller ID when plugged into your phone line, at the expense of a Top-Up TV slot (which wasn’t a problem as I wouldn’t waste my money on Topup TV anyway). Other than that the boxes were nearly identical, and thanks to a subsequent software upgrade (downloaded through the box’s built-in modem) I now have a Topup TV-capable “Iplayer+” (complete with 7-day EPG) anyway.

Multimedia

The Iplayer also has a USB port allowing you to plug in and play songs or video from an MP3 player or memory stick. According to other users on the (now defunct) Iplayer user/support forum, the box should (in theory) playback MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 files with a bitrate of up to around 3.5Mbps and less than 2GB in total size. However I’ve tried various movies and the only one to work was a small (MPEG 1) email attachment – various other videos just completely refused to play. I never did determine whether this is due to the wireless connection or the video-processing limitations of the box itself.

Networking

It’s also through this USB port that you can attach a Wi-Fi adaptor to enjoy wireless networking on your Iplayer – allowing it to play shared audio/video files from your PC and to use your wireless home network to access the internet. Unfortunately, as the box is several years old and Netgem don’t support it (at least in any meaningful way) any longer, the technology is slightly out of date. The Iplayer Wi-Fi connectivity doesn’t support WPA security, only going so far as the more easily cracked WEP (64 or 128-bit) and compatability seems to be limited to a handful of old USB adaptors (more ebay hunting, since most are no longer in production) which only run in 802.11b mode at 11Mbps. I wouldn’t have a problem with the lax security if it was only on the Iplayer, however to connect the Iplayer at all means I have to also disable WPA on my router, hence my PC is also connected using the insecure encryption.

Internet

You can use the Wi-Fi connection to connect to the internet using the Iplayer’s own browser, however if you don’t want the hassle of the wireless setup, you can connect to the internet to your dial-up ISP through the built-in modem. As well as the internet you will be able to send and receive POP mail through the Iplayer.

The first time you connect the box will download logos for the channels (which will then be displayed in the EPG) and will also check for software updates. I did this through the built-in modem at the time, but I presume it would do the same if you connect using WiFi.

The browser itself is quite basic and it’s often not the easiest thing to read a website from a TV screen, but the basic functionality’s all there, including some CSS formatting. In older software versions there were reported problems with some complicated sites (Yahoo mail particularly sticks out in my mind) but all I can say from my own experience is that it seems to work ok with Gmail.

The Vendor

Netgem themselves seem to have given up supporting the Iplayer in the UK, now focusing on the apparently more lucrative (for them anyway) French market. Their website, Netgem.com, now focuses on their activities there, with the UK Iplayer relegated to Iplayer.co.uk, which doesn’t seem to have been updated in a few years.

When I got my Iplayer way back when, the main (only?) source of support was the official forum, which used to be frequented by at least one member of Netgem’s staff, but has been completely locked (no new posts allowed) since October 2005.

Conclusion

Even today, managing to get one at £30 would make it a good little purchase. The main downfalls are, as I’ve mentioned the slow and insecure wireless, but I guess beggars can’t be choosers. I had a quick look on google for Freeview boxes with WiFi and didn’t find much, so I guess if you want internet through your Freeview box it’s still a decent choice. The picture/sound quality sounds ok to my untrained ear and the EPG is as functional as any (and less frustrating than ntl’s). As long as you don’t expect any support from Netgem, and you’re not looking for a multimedia centre, the Iplayer’s a good buy.