otherwise 1) In another way, differently; 2) Under other circumstances; 3) In other respects.

Time Capsule and VPN troubleshooting

My D-Link router started acting up recently (dropping connections, requiring reset), and it was time to upgrade to a larger hard drive anyway, so I bit the bullet and bought Apple's 2TB Time Capsule. It was expensive, and it wouldn't be worth it unless you needed both a new router and a new backup drive.

But I did, and after fiddling for days with a Linksys WRT610 that supposedly supported networked USB drives but in actuality: 1) it was super Windoze-centric and although I did eventually get the drive to work, I couldn't get Macs to stay connected; and 2) the user interface was so utterly, unbelievably hideous that I found it offensive. I mean, does Linksys not have dedicated staff to work on their router interface? Shudder.

So, I went from this D-Link 625 (worked for 2.5 solid years):

To this for a few days (which is quite a bit bigger than the D-Link, by the way):

And then finally to this beauty. Now we're officially an all-Mac household.

As expected, the setup was smooth and hassle-free for all devices -- an iMac G5, 2 MacBook Pros, 2 iPhones, and an 8-year-old (and still going strong) HP LaserJet 2100M via D-Link print server (DP-101P). And the Time Machine backup initiated without a hitch.

Actually, there was one hitch. I use a VPN connection to access the university library, and when I connected to the VPN, I found myself unable to access the Internet or the local network -- thus, no printing. Which is a big problem. There wasn't an easy way to reset this problem, either, but after Googling around, I found this helpful thread. The default was set to "Link-local only," and instead of changing it to "Tunnel" as some of the threads suggested (but didn't work for me), I changed it to "Router."

And voila! All is well in the world. Well, not really, given the oil spills and flotilla massacres and racist anti-immigrant legislations. But hey, one problem at a time, right?

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