Thanks, but not very helpful really. I am well aware that there are lots of routers/waps that can run dd-wrt.

What I asked was are there any recommended ones that have ADSL2+ modems, are available in the UK and are easy to get hold of the "right" version of the hardware. That page doesn't even say which ones are ADSL modems.

I have attempted to work my way through that list before and given up in frustration after failing to find any from a brand that I trust, in the UK, with a guarantee that I'll end up with a hardware version that is recommended for dd-wrt. It doesn't help that I've had bad experiences with Linksys kit and so am not keen to buy Linksys again.

Though given my experience with the Thomson I might reconsider the risk of going with Linksys...

I didn't think DD-WRT supported any device which did ADSL/ADSL2+ because none of them actually ran Linux?

Ah, right. I forgot you do integrated devices in the UK. In the US, we pretty much have to have separate boxes because the telcos want to use their CPE, but their boxes either suck or are inaccessible to customers. (Or both, I suppose.)

That's another reason to couple it with a DD-WRT box. Use the modem as an excellent *modem*, and do the routing/firewalling/whatever on a better box.

But if your line quality is sufficient to get by with a less capable modem, then by all means look for a better-done all-in-one unit.

Cheers

Practically all of them use/run Linux, including Andy's Thomson. But not all of them do it in legal compliance with the software license for Linux.

The last time I looked, all of the combined modem + AP boxes ran a RTOS like VxWorks. The original Linksys WAG54G was one of these. It looks like the newer models do run Linux and there is a project to get a usable source tree out of the crap released by the manufacturers.

Well, I don't have to imagine reasons to leave my wap off. I think I have them:

1. My house has CAT6 in every room on GBit router, and I prefer wired over wireless for so many reasons: one for all is performance (I have file server and network drives).

2. I am most of the day in the office, so does my gf, and my cats (in spite of being named Mega and Byte), don't browse the internet (yet). So, yes, definitely waste of energy.

3. Network Safety? Yes, I am paranoid. I could not care less of people stealing my bandwidth when I don't use it, but my home server has been hosting websites for years, so always on, and I don't like to have my WiFi interfere with it. Safest bet is to keep wifi off when not needed.

And, why not:
4. Do EMFs hurt you? Apparently not / officially not, but I always tell myself that centuries of science teach us that todays beliefs may very well be mistakes in the wiser eyes of tomorrow. So, since I only need WiFi to browse the internet away from my desk, here is one more reason why only then I want it on. Of course, there's so much EMF around us regardless, and this is really at the bourdary between science, paranoia, blind belief, and what not.

And, I think I can find some more reasons with a clearer mind.

Anyway, I am afraid I'll have to change my wifi habits as more and more devices move to wifi versus other radio standards...

The plasticisers chemicals in plastic are going to give you more problems than anything possibly caused by EMF. That "new car" smell which some people for some bizarre reason actually like is pretty much plasticisers coming out of the new car parts.

[paranoia mode]
Yes, from a strictly scientific point of view, you're probably right.
[/paranoia mode]
On the other hand, I admit I could say the same about virtually any phenomenon on earth.

Anyway, I was about to place the order for a Classic, when a realize I saw it in a shop not too far from here. I am just thinking I may jump in my car tonight...

I found the Squeezebox Classic at FNAC at 200 Euros, which is a good price compared to the E. 230 you find on line at Logitech shop. Hopefully they have the same price all over EU.

It is now happyly playing in my living room. It works great, and I even like the UI a bit more than the boom: display is larger and remote makes it quicker to switch from "now playing" to other menu items.

The only issue I found so far is text scrolling, not so smooth unless I slow it down significanlty. But, I haven't played with cfg much, yet.

I also really like how it looks. I saw it few times in shops, and in the middle of so many other devices did not look parcularly nice. Instead, I now find it very classy and smooth

One thing I really really like, compared to having my empeg there, is that this thing is so small and so not invasive that you just don't notice it, it just merges perfectly whith other stuff around it, and if you do notice it, you just like it! And, it is so powerful. We haven't turned it off for two days now.

The Logitech shop usually charges you the retail price. Other places will sell it for less e.g. Amazon.


The larger remote works with the Boom.

True. So, Amazon is a good choice too. Fnac hopefully is useful for those countries where Amazon either does not sell, or will charge international shipping (like here in Italy).


Yes, this was an unexpected improvement of the boom.
However, I don't find it as useful as having a couple of more buttons on the boom body. I guess it dpepends on me using it as an alarm clock...

I got my Boom on Saturday

Has anyone used any of the streaming services that SqueezeNetworks links to? What did you think about them? Does anyone know of any high bitrate streaming services that the squeezebox can play?

It can play virtually any internet stream. You just have to configure it in your SqueezeServer, or whatever it's called these days.

I assume you mean things like Napster and Pandora ?

Both are good services and I subscribe to both. Pandora is very good at finding you new music that sounds like music you already like. Napster is good for finding music by artist/album etc or by finding new music by listening to their top 100 lists.

Pandora has a couple of downsides. The most important being that it is only available in the US. It takes me great hassle to work around their restrictions and get to listen to it in the UK.

The other Pandora downside is it carries relatively little content for each artist. Also, you can't just listen to what you want to, you tune into an "radio station" based around artists/tracks that are similar to an artist/track you have chosen.

With Pandora you can vote on tracks to say whether you like them or hate them. That helps it build up data on what to play to you.

Napster is much less clever, but on the plus side it carries many more tracks for each artist it lists and also you can choose to listen to whatever you want (rather than the radio station approach that Pandora takes).

At the moment they are both streamed to Squeezeboxes at 128k, soon Pandora should be streamed at 192k. Napster is 128k WMA though, which means the quality is better than 128k MP3 would be.

The integration with these services it very good. Whenever you are playing music from your local music library there are always context menu items on the track to take you to Pandora or Napster for that artist or track.

There is also last.fm, which takes yet another approach. You can set Squeezecenter up so that every track that you listen to gets reported to last.fm, which they then use to build up recommendations for tracks/artists to listen to. It also has the love/hate voting when listening to tracks via last.fm

Like Pandora they take the radio station approach. I believe if you subscribe you can pick what you want to play, but I only use the free version. last.fm is 128k MP3.

All the services have restrictions on which countries they are available in