Dual-WAN.com - Your Second Opinion on Business Networking and Internet Applications

Little known gem - Superuser.com

2009-08-29T08:33:00.000-07:00

For regular readers of our blog, I believe most of you (if not all) would be considered as power/super/enthusiastic computer users.

You are probably a computer geek, opinion leader among your friends and family.

What you probably don't know about is a great resource for you exchange and sharpen your skills even further.

Introducing Superuser.com, an Q&A site specifically designed for the rest of us! Meet thousands of other friendly, helpful, knowledgeable super users around the world. It's unbelievably good.

Only caveat - you would feel sorry that you didn't know about this earlier - it's THAT good.

Why The Apple Tablet will work

2009-08-28T09:31:00.000-07:00

The Apple Tablet has gathered so many buzz now. However, unlike many other Apple products, people cast doubt with it. Some say it’s too big for mobile computing, some suggested it will be too expensive. But I think the Apple Tablet is going to be the most important piece of computer equipment for the next decade.

Solid Platform
What the iPhone has bought to the market, is more than just an exceptional mobile smartphone, Apple also bought its top-notch, highly stable, highly capable platform, the iPhone OS to the industry. It’s fancy & easy for the customer to use. And with it’s lucrative channel, the App Store, has gathered a huge crowd of talented developer. This provides the perfect foundation that every computer company hoped for. And the iPhone and iPod touch is just the beginning of what Apple is going after, the embedded computing.

It’s all embedded
Remember all those bar-code scanner that built on-top of palm? Or all those fancy touch screen kiosk you see everywhere? Almost everything device out there with an LCD, can be a potential target market for the Apple Tablet. Traditionally, development of these devices requires a computing unit, and a screen. There are tons of options to choose from, but none of them give them a good operating system. Apple is here to give the industry the best package ever.

The iPhone OS advantage
The palm OS is considering legacy now and the new Palm Web OS is not going to help. The Windows mobile, well, it’s just unreliable for anything serious. Many developers, therefore, choose to start with Linux. The problem with Linux, however, is that open source community is not fast enough to provide all the support needed for a platform. The drivers are slow and it won’t work with some display card, some touch screen sensor, or some of the networking feature. It’s ugly, and the developer are change it by copying from Apple.

iPhone OS, while it’s not open source, but it already provide a package of things that works. The Apple Tablet, or the iPod Touch, provide an excellent standard package for these developers. The iPhone OS provides the industry a very robust platform and save them hardware development cost by using the iPod Touch. Imagine this, all the touch screen applications, movie playing kiosks, Bluetooth controller or GPS logger, everything will just work!

Apple Tablet, the standard package for every gadget
TomTom is a perfect example of how business can transform from traditional device maker, to a service provider. Consider all the money saved from hardware development, now TomTom can get more profit from selling the software and data alone. They don’t even need to find all the sales channels, the App store give them perfect international exposure to millions of iPhone users out there. While TomTom won’t give up the traditional GPS device model now, but I won’t be surprise that they ditch this old market once the iPhone model can give them more profit than before.

Embedded to everyday life
The iPhone and iPod touch is already doing magic in many applications. For the starter, there is the GPS software and also the Nike+ integration. There are many people who designed application to allow iPhone to control their RC car, or even military drones.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YlbEbQ6TJMc

The Apple Tablet

The Apple Tablet, therefore, is an extension of the iPhone, giving developer the same advantage of using iPhone and iPod touch. This new product line-up, will therefore give Apple the flexibility to release multiple variant, and therefore, serving the different need of the embedded market. Maybe a small iPod Touch for your desktop machine, and the Apple Tablet for the large medical device, soon, there will be always be an Apple powered iDevice around you.

Windows 7 Sins

2009-08-26T08:30:00.000-07:00

On the verge of the launch of Windows 7, the Free Software Foundation re-wraps Bad Vista 6.1 and launched Windows 7 Sins to attack Microsoft and proprietary software in general. Interesting web site - new bottle, old wine.

Read

Apple must let go App Store approval

2009-08-19T21:31:00.000-07:00

There is no doubt that Apple has a successful App Store. It is so successful that it served 1.5 billion downloads in 1 year. That's hard to catch up as their CEO put it.

However, the biggest hurdle to the growth of the iPhone/iPod software market and the iPhoneOS platform in general lies in the App Store itself. I am not going to discuss how easy/difficult you can find a good camera enhancement app out of the 100 others doing pretty much the same thing. I want to focus on why the App Store approval saga has become a bad idea and that Apple should abandon it altogether.

App approval is damn slow.

Take Twitterrific as an example, according to the developer, they submitted the 2.1 version for approval on Aug 6. It finally escaped from the black hole appeared on App Store on Aug 19. That's 13 days of delay before getting into the hands of customers. Please be reminded that it's year 2009 and that we've long been used to instant software and security updates within mins. What if a critical bug is found after publishing? Wait for another 13 days?

Can Apple swallow them all?

OK, we know there are 50,000+ apps on the store. Even if there is just 5% of them having a new version pending approval, Apple has to process 2,500 apps in backlog. That's a lot of apps! Take our example of "13 days". That's 192 apps per day if working non-stop over the weekend. Apple, can you swallow them?

App approval is hindering technology innovation.

Now if a typical approval takes 13 days, and we assume that an app has 5 updates in a year (which is pretty conservative). We are talking about 5 x 13 = 65 days of waiting time in the dark! Software developers are losing vast amount of precious time that could have been well spent in the hands of thousands, and in some cases, millions of customers to test, evaluate and give feedback to their product - not to mention the delay in locating bugs, security issues, and delivering fixes and improvements.

App approval is anti-competitive.

Now, if Twitterrific has to wait for 13 days, I want to challenge whether Apple's Keynote Remote or Texas Hold'em are subject to the same rules and process as Twitterrific. Please remember, Apple released iPhone 3.0.1 in just ONE DAY after an SMS security vulnerability is made public at Black Hat.

Another highly popular app, Facebook 3.0 is believed to be pending approval. According to the author, he has absolutely no ideas on when it will appear publicly. Now, while the (FB x iPhone) world is waiting, we'd like to ask Apple, it's time to Think Different.

Cloud Load Balancing

2009-08-19T11:35:00.000-07:00

Server Load Balancing used to be the very center piece of a business network. A few years ago, typical enterprise would host hundreds of specialized ERP, CRM, and Databases servers on the local network. Server Load Balancer would distribute the resources across the servers. Recent years, with the increasing popularity of Cloud Computing, enterprise is moving to the cloud platforms such as Salesforce CRM, Google App Engine, Amazon EC2, Microsoft Azure, or IBM CloudBrust. Cloud allows enterprise to scale their computing resource at a click of a button. All thousands of server can be consider as one single unit. This trend has transformed the way business networks are being built. And with flexibility like this, is server load balancing still necessary?

Server Load Balancing will become Cloud Balancing

We believe Server Load Balancing will stay, but it will evolve in a form of Cloud Load Balancing. The reason is that even with Amazon or Google experience and expertise on the cloud computing, downtime occurred. Enterprise has to build their own private cloud as backup. A new cloud load balancing technology will blend the backup into the existing cloud deployment. New cloud load balancing technology will soon appear on the market.

Cloud Balancing SaaS

This Cloud Balancer, will no longer be a hardware, but as a SaaS that exist among multiple cloud services for redundancy. It will be as simple as a web application that let you key in the essential information such as domain, ports, clouds, and numbers for user sessions. Bingo, a new cloud balancer is now ready to redirect user request, to your own mix of public and private clouds.

This will happen so fast that I predict some form of this launch in the year of 2010, and become popular in year 2012. In fact, the F5 guy is also talking about this.

Simpler Network in Business Sites

Server and SLB will be taken away from office and placed in the cloud. Internet, will therefore, plays an increasingly important role in business networking. This also means for the office, you will now need even more reliable Internet access. With the servers, server load balancer, and the firewall taken away from the picture, the future of business network is as simple as a Router and Switches. A dual-wan or multi-wan router, will soon become the industry standard. This is why we are so enthusiastic about multi wan router.

Save Money and Skip the Firewall

2009-08-14T11:29:00.000-07:00

Every once in a while, we see reports of DDoS, or virus outbreak. They damage computers, lower productivity and eventually cost enterprise money. Firewall and UTM are very popular on the market now as a way to protect network from threats like these. However, firewall just doesn’t work. Even with multiple virus engines, most firewall is unable to handle many of threats. Why? Because Internet is no longer the single source of infection, so why don’t you skip the firewall altogether?

The Mobility of Workforce

More and more laptops are sold to the Enterprise market and the worker would bring their laptop to other networks. They start plugging it into home network or share other people’s Wi-Fi, it won’t take long before it gets infected with malware and virus. The laptop travelled around the globe with you, but your firewall is sitting helplessly in office’s server room. What good can they do?

Contagious USB flash drives!

One of the most powerful virus media is USB flash drives. You may call it the web 2.0 era floppy disk. USB flash drive is so handy and popular that everyone has at least one. People would copy pictures from home or video from friends, and during the course, contaminate everyone’s computer with malware and virus from the very same USB flash drive. Firewall may have block your internet traffic, but do nothing to protect you from a physical drive!

Firewall does nothing in LAN Traffic

Many big virus outrages are historically spread among LAN computers first. Once they reach a threshold, the explosive effect is something that a firewall cannot handle. LAN traffic pass among the LAN switch are normally not filtered and this is how they spread. Virus does not stop in LAN but firewall stops.

Phishing website

Firewall may protect you from the passive Internet activity, but malware and virus, are bought inside the network because of a user’s activity. These phishing website shows flashy ad and catchy title that eventually, clicked by someone who is less aware. Once the malware or virus gets into the network, it will grow from there. Firewall would completely allow this since this is an user action, how useless that is.

SPAM SPAM SPAM!

Every UTM and firewall devices claims they have the world-class SPAM engine. But everyone of them gives you the wrong result from time to time. Spam get into the inbox and important email goes to spam. Moreover, businesses are migrating to online email. This feature simply becomes useless for customer who is having the email server hosted elsewhere.

So ask yourself again which part of Firewall you need. The Anti Virus that does not work? Or inaccurate Spam filters?

Review: Peplink load balancing and VoIP

2009-07-24T14:40:00.000-07:00

I came across a review at Amazon the other day. Once again, you need a router that works as advertised and made by the true expert. It is reproduced here for your reading pleasure.

By	Thomas matthews "Tom Matthews"

I purchased this router to replace a previous load balancing router that actually supported up to 8 WAN connections. The problem with this other router (Xincom) was that its firewall kept interfering with some of my applications -- especially VoIP.

My office maintains 2 WAN connections a cable modem and a DSL line. The router is supposed to sample the load on each and route traffic to the least used connection. It's also suppose to detect when a connection goes down and automatically route traffic to the remaining connection(s).

The Xincom never correctly detected when a connection went down (when a connection fails, it returns a "fake" internal IP address which the Xincom mistook for being a valid connection).

The Peplink over came every one of these problems out of the box. As soon as I plugged it in and configured it with my network, both VoIP phones worked perfectly as well as my existing applications. It fully supports port forwarding, firewall protection, VPN access while at the same time performing load balancing and fault detection/redirection.

Coincidentally, on the third day of having the Peplink installed, my cable connection went down. It took me a couple of hours to realize this because Peplink had detected the failure and redirected all traffic through the DSL line.

This is a great product for someone wanting higher performance by using multiple WAN connections.

Original

MacBook Pro Low Audio Volume in Bootcamp: SOLVED

2009-07-18T20:05:00.000-07:00

I got a MacBook Pro 15" recently. YEAH! The reason I bought it - like many of you, I love the option of running both Windows (via Boot Camp) and Mac OSX on the same machine.

The MBP has the best hardware build quality and workmanship as a PC. There is no doubt about it. I was enjoying my Windows 7 in a unibody until... I found that the audio volume output is extremely low.

Google is my friend and it's not hard to find that everybody with the new MBP runs into the same problem! Some people are even returning their MBP because Apple can't give good answer or solution. I was wondering the same thing as everyone else - did Apple QA department actually try Bootcamp with latest MBP?

Angry customers keep calling up Apple support centers, keep returning products, and keep waiting...

Problem Solved

Now fast forward and here is the solution that some genius found and posted to Apple discussion board.

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=9834817&#9834817

Here, I just want copy the last three steps in the post that I can't agree more.

9. Enjoy your sound.

10. Thank ChristianZ and everyone else except Apple, Cirrus Logic, and Soft Reset

11. Wait for the official driver update from Apple... and wait, and wait, and wait...

As of now, Gmail is down!

2009-02-24T02:26:00.000-08:00

Normally we don't report this but Gmail appears to be having a major system failure and downtime *AGAIN*. Both free Gmail and paid Google Apps email service are inaccessible. Customers are furious.

Ahem... I am glad that Blogger is still up... :)

Update: As of Feb 24, 2009 3AM PST, it's still down. Downtime is approx. 45 min.

Update 2: At 3:40AM: Service outage is worldwide, downtime reports from UK, Sweden, Hong Kong and of course, San Diego.

Update 3: At 4:20AM: Service seems largely recovered.

Google posted an apology and explanation on their official company blog. Oh... a user reminded me that this service is still beta.

Dual WAN'ed, now what? (Hint: pump up the pipes)

2009-02-17T10:30:00.000-08:00

Let's face it, we have increasingly more important files sitting on the hard drives. Like many others, I need a backup. If you have been doing so, congratulations to you but please make sure you have the right strategy.

I started using Backblaze a while ago. It works great and I've been recommending it to friends. The Backblaze folks have done a great job. I like their KISS approach and that it backs up everything.

Now, isn't this a great way to eat up all bandwidth of your Internet links?

Disclaimer: I am not paid by Backblaze to write this post but rather, I pay them for their backup service!

09's 1st prediction: Google Knol is going to the deadpool

2009-01-13T21:17:00.002-08:00

After Google Lively lost steam, I predict Google Knol is the next to follow.

Knol: a unit of knowledge. Launched by Google but was closed in 2009 due to poor adoption. It failed because:

100 results to a search term. Users don't know which one to pick.
Difficult to collaborate. Its authorship ideology makes it almost impossible for others to modify or enhance existing articles.
Low quality. Since the (user) efforts are so scattered, many articles seem to be unfinished or work in progress at best.
Little market awareness. Knol? Who "knols"? Who cares?

Update: 1/15/2009: I was almost right! Google is shuting down a lot of services. Too bad that Knol is not yet one of them.

PC Magazine in its glory days

2008-11-20T14:13:00.000-08:00

You may have read the news. The PC Magazine is phasing out their printed edition. Here we present you an article from the very original PC Magazine, the first issue that started it all, publised 26 years ago. What you see is a scan of the Interview with Bill Gates. That's like a piece of historical article all geek should read...

Get the scan here:

http://www.sendspace.com/file/6emdw2

Faster Internet does not come cheap

2008-10-30T02:45:00.000-07:00

It has been a while since we last post here and the Internet landscape continues to change. Most importantly, a new generation of broadband Internet is now available for the States!

We have always heard how crazy fast Internets is in Japan and other South East Asia countries. They can get like 100Mbps for as cheap as 50USD. The price-performance ratio is like 10 times better than the Comcast we have. But things are changing and we no longer have to be jealous. The new generation of broadband has arrived.

With the introduction of Comcast Extreme 50 (DOCSIS 3.0), AT&T U-Verse and Verizon FiOS, Internet is faster than ever. These new generation of Internet services are quite expensive though, up to 140USD per month. It’s no good for home use. As business owners, you also have to think throughfully before getting one of these services, since there are other costs associated with this upgrade.

After you get one of these new broadband, you will still need a dual-wan router or multi-wan router. Why? This is because just like every new technology out there, they tend to fail more. Moreover, the Linksys or D-link you have may not be working for you anymore due to the new higher throughput requirement. You end up creating a bottleneck yourself using a cheap router for these services. You may as well update to the new Multi-WAN router with high throughput, such as the Peplink Balance 390. Another hidden cost is that you will have to upgrade your Wireless LAN too. The 802.11b/g Wi-Fi infrastructure has a theoretical limit of 54Mbps, which in real life, it never reaches that fast. You will therefore need to upgrade to 802.11n Wi-Fi too.

Now that one massive network upgrade for a faster internet.

Firefox 3 Final Finally Out!

2008-06-17T03:39:00.001-07:00

Firefox 3 final has finally landed. It is used to compose this article. Hurray!

You can download it directly above and/or wait to make the world record together in a few hours at the Download Day 2008 home page.

Either way, enjoy the BEST browser in history, and let's make history.

Update: Don't forget to get your certificate after downloading!

A 2nd look at pfSense, is it really FREE?

2008-06-13T00:18:00.000-07:00

Got a number of users asking me if pfSense is any good as a "free" (as in beer) multi wan solution, rather than spending few hundred bucks for a ready-to-go, optimized, multi-wan appliance.

Guys, is it REALLY FREE?

We haven't tried pfSense ourselves so it would be unfair if I try to belittle it in any way. But depending on how you do the math, it is NOT free as a COMPLETE solution. Here is the cost structure:

At the very least, you need a spare computer, see min hardware requirements. (est. US$300)
Studying, installation, testing, tuning, deploying, testing again. From a few hours to a day or two of hard work (est. US$400 for a good IT professional)
Obtaining commercial support (est. another few hundreds per year, maybe)

Obviously, I would not say this is a free solution. If you don't agree, I beg to know why.

---

Update (June 16): I had tried to make it clear that I was not pointing my fingers to the quality of pfSense at the original post above, but obviously I failed in this regard. ;) People just thought I was attacking the open source model in general. That's not my intention. I tried to bring the cost structure to the table and let everyone rethink the cost of any solution in a big picture.

Reading Router Specification Carefully

2008-05-11T11:05:00.000-07:00

As Internet bandwidth is ever increasing, routers are not performing fast enough to handle the increased load. Many router manufacturers are unable to catch-up with this and start playing numbers tricks. Having that said, buyer should be aware when choosing their next router, whether it’s a load balancing router or not.

System Performance/ Backplane Performance
These are more or less the capacity of the router hardware only. As an analogy, the Hard Disk Drive using SATA Interface has a performance capacity of 1.5Gbit/second. However, this number is just one of the many parameters that give you real performance. Writing file to your hard disk is also limited by, how fast the data is coming in, how fast the hard disk is spinning, etc. This is what happening with the router too. Router differs from the switch for its routing software inside, and the bandwidth after routing is usually slower than the backplane performance.

Throughput
This is the magic number you should be looking for. The faster a router throughput is, the more capable of this router in real world situation. Some router manufacturers call this utilization of routing performance, but they all imply the same thing. Throughput is the practical bandwidth after the routing software works.

The routing software will, for example, monitor TCP packets and applies the QoS feature. The more features a router has, the more resources it takes to process the traffic. This something you should consider when choosing your next router

Salesforce & Google Apps

2008-05-09T10:00:00.000-07:00

Google Apps "integration" with Salesforce has been out for a while. It's a great solution for many SME. However, I will say it still takes some more integration to get them work. Instead of associating the document with sales lead, I am expecting more way they work together. For example, maybe they can make Google Spreadsheet load dynamic Salesforce reports? How about pulling values from Salesforce for Google Documents? Or maybe archiving customer chat history as record in Saleforce? These are the real integration that makes them flies. Bcc an email alias to add email from Gmail is quite lame.

For companies who has been using on both SaaS, it's a welcome change, but I expect more.

2008 – The Year of SaaS

2008-05-07T01:13:00.000-07:00

Software as a Service is the hottest buzzword on the Internet this year. We tried a few of them and the experience is so great there is no turning back.

Note that SaaS is not Web 2.0. Web 2.0 is more about the social networking, the fancy AJAX interfaces. SaaS, however, is your traditional business software no longer running on your OS, but hosted online on provider’s servers.

What make SaaS so cool is that this allows reliable collaborations. Try editing on Google docs with your friends and you will know why. This mean no more email attachment, server downtime. Moreover, there are no more servers to host or tech support to operate enterprise software.

However, SaaS being an online app, your Internet has to be reliable. But reader of this blog should have a multi-wan setup already, so you are now safe for the next wave of business apps! If you find some killer SaaS app not mentioned in this article, feel free to let me know in the comment.

Customer Relationship Management(CRM)

Saleforces

http://www.salesforce.com/

Great for small team to big corporations, Salesforce is all about customer relationship. As the front runner in the SaaS Revolution, Salesforce CRM is not more than the Service. The force platform is something everyone should watch closely.

Oracle Siebel CRM on Demand

http://crmondemand.oracle.com/en/index.htm

Feeling the pressure from all sides, traditional enterprise Software Company is moving towards the on-demand solutions. Oracle is one following this trend.

Accounting

Coda 2Go

http://www.coda.com/products-services/Salesforce/CODA2go

Leveraging the salesforce platform, coda2go is going to be a big hit.

Product Lifecycle Management

Arena Solutions

http://www.bom.com/

Company that makes their own product will find this very useful. Reducing the need of paper documentation and allow better internal communication.

ERP Software

SAP Business ByDesign

http://www.sap.com/solutions/sme/businessbydesign/index.epx

SAP, another giant enterprise software company, is going to launch this Business ByDesign Platform. This software is going to cost 149USD/user/month, far lower than if you get their original platform. I expect many medium size business will upgrade to this system.

NetSuite

http://www.netsuite.com/portal/home.shtml

Netsuite is a new contender in ERP system coming from Singapore. If they do it right, they maybe the next salesforce and take on big software company like SAP.

Office Suite

Google Docs

http://docs.google.com/

While this is more like an application than a service, Google Docs is definitely the first step to online service for beginner or companies. Try using Google Docs instead of Word or Excel for your next project. No more email attachment for everyone.

ZOHO Office

http://www.zoho.com/

I heard it’s much better than Google Docs in many ways, but I still haven’t try it yet. The big guys should just buy it. I will feel more confident trying Yahoo Office or Microsoft Office Live than using ZOHO for my business documents.

The Myth of Real Bonding

2008-04-24T21:48:00.000-07:00

Bonding has been the holy grail of Load Balancer. This term was used in the older days when a MUX (multiplexer) is used to bond multiple lines together from a single network provider.

However, it’s technically impossible in the multi-WAN, multi-provider setups. Recently, some readers emailed me about a device from Mushroom Networks which claims to be doing "real bonding". See attached advert from Google Adwords. I was so excited to find out. So I give them a call, and guess what. It's a hoax.

On closer look, the so-called real bonding technology is limited to HTTP request only. So I ask them if they can do bonding on FTP or SMTP or IMAP or just any other traffic... "NOPE". Hey! This is definitely not what bonding really is, it's just a router with a Download Manager Built-in! (DownThemAll is one which we covered earlier)

This HTTP active intercept at the router level could cause compatibility problems too. For one, what if a user runs HTTP on a port other than port 80, no "bonding".... What if an application (such as uTorrent) runs non HTTP traffic over port 80? What if a server restricts single connection to a protected/DRM content... God knows.

Be a smart customer and ask intelligent questions next time when someone claims real bonding again. At lease our informed readers, like yourself, should ask "Can it bond any Internet traffic? Or just some or one Internet protocol? Is there any chance of causing compatibility problem?"

DON'T BE FOOLED BY "REAL BONDING!"

Update: Due to popular demands, I have updated this article with the interesting ad. Guys, please stop emailing me for their name now. Thank you!

Life without Internet

2008-04-21T23:44:00.000-07:00

What will happen if there is no Internet? Well, here is a nice preview that unimaginable disastrous dark days. I hope you won't have to go to the Internet Refugee Camps.

SouthPark - Over Logging

http://www.southparkstudios.com/episodes/166179/

Don't trust your ISP

2008-04-16T20:41:00.000-07:00

A while ago, I successfully convinced my friend, John, over Georgia to get a multi-wan router. As always, I recommended him with my brand of choice, PePLink. His business internet is doing great for him after the installation. His business is very dependent on the internet. In additional to the usual stuff like emails and voip, he also uses a lot of SaaS (Software as a Service) like Salesforce, Google Docs, etc…

A few days ago, the disaster strike over the Georgia area. The Speedfactory ISP shuts down without notice. I give John a call, and he is very happy about my recommendation. He is able to continue business without affect by the internet downtime. While I know ISP going out of business is not usual, but this gives you an idea why a dual-wan or multi-wan router is necessary. Now he is joining me and recommends these multi-wan routers to his friends.

Dual-WAN with Wi-Fi Internet

2007-10-29T02:43:00.000-07:00

Wi-Fi has been rising as an option to get internet access. Some city now provides citywide Wi-Fi and apartment complexes have free Wi-Fi access for resident. You may also choose to pay for commercial Wi-Fi services. Stealing Wi-Fi, however, is not recommended. Many Wi-Fi leecher has been caught and face jail terms.

Wi-Fi internet services are not fast and have a lower reliability. User of Wi-Fi internet should consider a dualwan router and subscribe to a landline internet as backup. This will reduce your internet downtime.

On the other hand, Wi-Fi Internet is also a great option for person who already has a landline and wants more internet uptime. While Wi-Fi may have a lower reliability than landline, but it has a lower cost per month. Your network will see increase in bandwidth, and you only need the Wi-Fi as a backup when your landline is down. Or you can load balance your traffic through the Wi-Fi.

Wi-Fi reliability depends largely on the signal strength. A high-power Wi-Fi Modem will be able eliminate dropping connections due to low signal strength. PePWave manufacture a High-Power directional Wi-Fi Modem called Surf-DX and you can connects to a distant access point. Pair with a good dualwan router such as PePLink and add to your existing landline internet. This is the ultimate consumer dual wan solution for an always on internet.

Firefox Extension: DownThemAll is multi-WAN friendly

2007-10-25T21:23:00.001-07:00

Firefox Extension DownThemAll is an advanced download manager free of charges. Most important of all, it accelerates download speed by making multiple connections to a web or FTP server simultaneously.

Sounds familiar in the multi-WAN world? Yes! To take advantage of all available bandwidths of all Internet links, you have to have multiple connections (or sessions), more so for single user environments.

Anyway, if you're using Firefox, get DownThemAll to easily enjoy the best of what a multi-WAN router can offer - combining all bandwidths from multiple Internet links!

Remember DownThemAll is a free extension available for Firefox (Windows/OSX/Linux).

Gmail IMAP support is rolling out!

2007-10-23T20:22:00.001-07:00

There are early signs that Gmail is rolling out IMAP support in the next few days or hours. The online help section has all the IMAP support materials posted already!

What's even more interesting is the support of iPhone!!! Wow!

The Rise of Web Applications

2007-10-08T20:19:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago, we demonstrate the Google Presentation here in Dual-WAN.com. Web Application is going to be the future of software. The trend is clear.

Web Application has many advantages over traditional software. It requires no installation. It only has to be compatible with the browser, instead of the whole computer and therefore causing less bug running across platform. It can be update by the administrator easily. Instead of issuing patch or service pack, any major bug or improvement associate with a web application can be updated quickly, depending on the size of web application. The best part of internet application is the accessibility of the same interface and documents anywhere in the world, as long as you are connected to the internet.

Web Application has only one drawback, you have to be online. The Google Gear is a great tool to make web application work offline, but this is for people who need to access this when they are traveling around. Google Gears cannot help much when there is an internet outrage.

Many small business, medium business are now depending solely on web application, along with high VoIP usage. With such a high dependency on the internet, a stable internet connection is very very essential. That’s where the dualwan or multiwan router comes in. A business should not be stopped just because the internet is down.