Mike's Page

I updated my old Linksys router to a D-Link DI-824VUP router, which sports 802.11G and VPN. I mainly got it for the VPN feature, so I can use it on some projects. I like wireless, but only use it rarely. I was really surprised to find that there's no way to turn the wireless off on this model. My Linksys router allowed for this. I contacted D-Link's tech support about it, and here's an excerpt of the reply:

You can log into the router configuration, go to the Advanced tab and the performance section. From there you can select the Disable SSID broadcast (which will prevent the SSID from being broadcast). You can also put the Antenna transmit Power to the lowest setting. On the Home tab, Wireless section you can enable encryption.

There does not appear to be a way to turn off the wireless broadcast completely, but doing these things will help prevent anyone from being able to access the router wirelessly.

I give them credit for replying quickly but I'm not thrilled with the answer. Maybe they'll add a wireless on/off switch to future firmware, but I won't hold my breath.

Update 2005-11-08: I just installed a new firmware, 1.05, and the first setting on the Wireless page says "Wireless Radio: On/Off." It happily disables the Wifi when I don't want it on. Cool!

We spent last week at Edisto Beach. We rented a house with a few of our friends. It's the first time in a long time that I've spent so much vacation time in one place, and it was very relaxing. The weather was decent, the kids loved the beach, and cooking for each other, we ate better than if we had gone to restaurants. Sharing a house is pretty inexpensive too. I found time for some photography, kayaking, swimming in the ocean, and heated battles of NCAA Football on the PS2.

One day we took the kids to the South Carolina Aquarium in Charleston, which I think I enjoyed more than they did.

One neighbor brought his boat and we went out on St. Helena Sound for some saltwater fishing, which I've never tried before. The first day we all caught stingrays; the second day we all caught sharks. Certainly fun to see what you can pull out of the deep. We took pictures and put them all back.

Thanks to my friends who made it a fun week and I hope we can all do it again sometime.

On a board where I run phpBB, a recent member registered with the name "deixxervaisul". The profile says the member is in the United Kingdom. He left his occupation as "King of the Web" and the email address deixxervaisul@flashcubicle.com. The member didn't try to leave a website and never made a post. I left it alone.

Today, while looking at another phpBB board that I occasionally admin, I noticed a new user with the same odd name. The profile info is the same. The subject matter of the two board is completely different, so I have a hard time believing these are both real users.

A Google search on "deixxervaisul" pulls up 113,000 hits. I didn't go through them all, but the first 100 hits or so point to that username on more forums, and not just phpBB either. The poster must be using some automated tool, which means he probably circumvented my basic bot prevention method.

I'm not sure what the motivation was to create these accounts, but I'm going to delete them from my boards. Maybe the poster is trying to get search engines to index the domain of that email address?

I'd encourage phpBB admins to make their memberlist and profiles unavailable to search engines, as I described in an earlier post.

Just a brief entry to say that my domain transfer from Network Solutions to GoDaddy was quick and painless. It just wasn't worth it to continue to pay $35 a year when someone else provides the same service for $9 a year. The only downside was that GoDaddy's checkout process is full of offers for "accessories" that you don't need. But I passed on all of those and got a pretty good deal.