I had a old 802.11b (11b) router that I wanted to replace due to the lack of security. I have it in Wifi Access Point mode as I already have a wireless router. The main reason I bought it was to gain a wireless network. Once the previous router died, I replaced it with a Linksys WRT-54G router to handle wireless. I mainly left up the 11b for a few devices. One being a SmartDisplay that only communicates via 11b, MSN TV2 which now is 54g complient (have not used it in a long time), and the HP Deskjet 6840 printer which cannot find the other one that is on the other side of the house. Well, my laptop can see it fine. I wanted a new high end Linksys N router with StorageLink (plug in a external HD to share info) and the reviews at the time were not good. I still could not find a wireless router I liked. Besides, I prefer the less wireless the better for your health. So, I decided to replace the 11b router with a switch. I used the one I bought in the previous post. A TRENDnet 5-port Gigabit GREENnet Switch. I do not know which of the three I saw that are green, but this one claims up to 70% less power. I hooked it up and the Cat5e cable to my printer without much effort. Well, the cable was not as easy due to going around and behind furnature and stuff. I found a long cable I am not using, and see I need to get a shorter one for my test computer to help the switch be green. The shorter the cable, the less energy the switch needs to provide, so I want to make sure I have short cables on everything if possible.

I also realized, I had the wireless on my main router in mixed mode. (11b and 54g). I turned off 11b and it is 54g only now. Also, I upgraded the firmware to a third party firemware, DD-WRT. This will allow for a few more tweaks. Also, Linksys stopped making updates for this old router (My WRT-54G is version 2.2) which they may not patch security holes for it. For security, and for energy effcientcy, I set the firmware to turn the wifi radio at times I would never use it. I am being genorus as most of these times I would never use it anyways.