SMC Gateway 8014 WG – Open Nat

Thursday, July 9th, 2009

Here is the overall situation I have two Xbox 360’s one wired one wireless and I need the nat to be open for both so as you saw from my earlier D-link post it didn’t work.

This is the wireless router provided by Rogers SMC Gateway 8014 WG, and with the port forwarding i have been able to get one xbox 360 to open, with the other one’s Nat being moderate. I called rogers tech support who all of sudden were not helpful. This is the first complaint I’ve had about rogers tech support, up until last night they were very helpful but last night started the blame game. Saying if it was the router it would affect my pc which is untrue and just annoyed me.

So there is a couple of things I’m going to try tonight to see if we can get this up and running, but with this router if I forward the exact same ports for both xbox’s one of them won’t be able to connect to live at all. So I will be trying port forwarding for one, and dmz for the other to see if that has any effect. This router does not have UPNP so I can’t try that, but apparently the problem is having to xbox’s behind one connection which you would think with new technology would just work but as evidence has shown hasn’t worked yet.

If I get a working solution I will deffinately post it and link to the article online I found most helpful.

D-Link WBR-1310 – Open Nat?

Wednesday, July 8th, 2009

If you are looking for a router and you play Xbox Live this is the last one you want to choose. By doing a search you will see many people had the same problem as me that the nat is always set to strict or moderate and will kick you off xbox live and mess up games like Halo3.

Now there is lots of things you can try and I went through them all from documents on the web, to xbox live support, to D-link support(the worst support, not helpful at all.. they spent an hour trying to blame my internet service provider, xbox live, and me that i wasn’t doing what they asked.)

Moving on so first I setup all of the port forwarding rules, made no difference,
enable dmz that’s suppose to put my xbox on the outside of the router -no difference,
enabled UpnP no difference,
enabled gaming mode no difference,
final step upgrade the firmware no difference,
and repeat all of the steps 3 more times as they decided I was an idiot and didn’t put the information in right the first time.

I spent 2 hours on the phone with DLink changing settings restarting stuff and they could not make this thing work, and from what i’ve read online anyone else with this router has had the same problem.

So moving forward I will not be purchasing any D-Link Products after this wonderful experience I’ve just gone through, My conclusion is that this product isn’t worth the money, it worked great untill Xbox Live, it’s just an inconsistent product and I think there is better out there. I will be getting Rogers built in router with WiFi today and I have already spoken with their Tech’s and they said it should not be an issue.

So hopefully my problem will be resolved or hopefully at least Rogers will know thier own product enough to fix the problem, i’ll blog on that tomorrow to let you know if it worked.

Need an Affordable Digital Camcorder

Saturday, January 10th, 2009

I have had so many different people ask me about different digital camcorders and if I would recommend a good one that isn’t expensive. This was an area that always used to have the answer of there isn’t really a good affordable Digital Camcorder but that has definitely changed.

Pure Digital Technologies, Inc. has created the most affordable greatest line of Digital Camcorder’s that are easy to use, and within an everyday person’s budget. The Flip Ultra comes in at $149.99 and for the more tech savvy users who want HD they have the Mino HD packed with tons of features and high quality video and still only coming in at price of $229.99.

I have yet to find a comparable quality camera anywhere near this price range, I also have experienced that this out does some of the digital camcorders in the $600 – $700 price range. I have used the flip camcorder to shoot all of my family memories for the last year and videos for talknb, and work events and I don’t have any complaints.

You can purchase this online at the links provided and it also sold at your local Walmart for other stores check the website at www.theflip.com. I believe for Canadians it’s currently only sold at Walmart stores.