The Market Coalition

The WRT54G is a wireless router made by linksys. A few years ago linksys released its WRT54G firmware source code giving the open source community the ability to make its own versions.

Installing Linux on your wireless router has many benefits and in my opinion few risks. The one risk you do face is turning your router into a “Brick”. Now, this does seem like a big chance to take but there are many options if upgrade fails. Also, if you follow the installation instructions for each wrt54g firmware distribution you won’t have a problem.

Typical ways to “Brick” your wrt54g router are: trying to install your firmware upgrade over a wireless connection, interrupting the upgrade, and finally powering cycling during or five minutes after the upgrade.

General rules to follow are:
1. Always perform an upgrade from the original wrt54g linksys firmware not other firmware distributions.

2. Set your firmware back to factory defaults.
3. Don’t upgrade from a wireless connection.
4. Don’t turn off your router for about five minutes after the upgrade.
5. Insure your firmware is meant for your router, some firmware versions are meant for the WRT54GS (WRT54G with speed booster), and the regular wrt54g.

6. Follow the given instructions for each given firmware distribution.
7. Enable the Boot_wait function on your router. This option will give you the ability recover from a failed upgrade by using tftp to upload new firmware.

Linksys does have tools to that will let you recover from failed distributions. There are many different wrt54g firmware distrobutions to pick from. Some have specific purposes: like being used for a wireless hotspot or a radius server. Do your research before installing and always follow the exact installation instructions.

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While most small businesses really do need to find a good local computer consulting business to take care of their computer problems, there are some computer problems that are simple enough for even a technophobe to handle. At Computer Consulting 101, we’ve found there’s one very simple piece of advice that often doesn’t get communicated to non-technical small business end users: When in doubt, reboot first.

Seriously, while it may sound tremendously simple, end users often overlook it during typical computer panic attacks.

Anytime you’re about to consider an issue a real IT support problem and call your computer consulting vendor, always reboot first.

First, exit out of whatever files and programs that you’re working on. Then, run through a Shutdown and Restart sequence to reboot your computer.

If you suspect your computer problem involves something hardware-related, such as with your network card, modem, mouse, keyboard or sound card, you should even go one step further, before calling your computer consulting experts.

Go to your Start menu. Next, shutdown your PC. Then turn the power off for a minute or so… if you’re computer didn’t power itself off on its own. Then finally power your PC back up again and see if the problem resolved itself on its own. Many times a simple reboot is all it takes.

The Bottom Line

While this advice probably sounds very basic, at Computer Consulting 101 we’ve found that a substantial percentage (as many as 10-20% of problems) of trouble calls for IT support become unnecessary after a reboot. And of course, because you probably pay every single time you pick up the phone, why not conserve your IT budget for those projects that can help your company drive more revenue, improve productivity, reduce overhead, and boost your bottom line. Remember, before you call a computer consulting professional, reboot first…. so you can conserve your computer consulting budget for those problems that really require expert assistance.

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Joshua Feinberg of Computer Consulting 101 helps computer consultants get more steady, high-paying clients. Sign-up now for free access Joshua’s field-tested, proven Computer Consulting 101 strategies at ComputerConsulting101.blogspot.com

How long have you been studying Spanish? Between high school and college classes and you own efforts you could easily have a couple years already under your belt. During that time you have likely built up a good Spanish vocabulary along with a basic understanding of Spanish verb conjugation, but can you actually speak Spanish?

Why is speaking Spanish so hard?
Can you go up to one of your Spanish speaking neighbors and start a conversation? Can you help a Spanish speaking customer who comes into your store? Why not? Why is it so hard to learn to speak Spanish even after years of study?

Learning Spanish the hard way
Beginning high school and college Spanish classes, as well as most self study Spanish courses start off by teaching vocabulary and verb conjugation. You practice speaking, but the focus is on the individual word or conjugation. Lists of words are memorized and tests are given on verb conjugation. So when it comes time to speak, the words and phrases are separate in your mind. It becomes a matter of trying to pull all the pieces together and form them all into a sensible sentence, which can be hard to do when you are on the spot.

How to learn to speak Spanish
The key to becoming more comfortable in speaking situations and learning to actually speak in Spanish is to practice and learn the sentences as a whole, not in separate words or pieces. Spend your time studying sentence construction. Don’t be satisfied just learning how to say a word properly, go the extra mile and learn how to properly pronounce and construct the complete sentence. For example, rather than just looking up the word “help” in the dictionary, research how to say the complete phrase, “Can I help you?” This way you spend your time practicing and memorizing useful phrases that you can use word for word.

Learning in this manner will build your confidence in speaking and allow you to quickly remember the phrases needed to have a useful conversation with someone. During your conversation when you try to remember what to say, complete Spanish sentences and phrases will pop into your mind, not just separate Spanish words. You will speak Spanish more correctly, more fluently and more confidently than ever before.

Brock Hadley manages the website http://www.spanishprograms.com where visitors can take Spanish lessons online and learn Spanish for free.