Don't buy Netgear

Netgear sucks. I could leave it there and end my post with very few people wondering more. Since it's my opinion, though, I feel that I should justify this statement.

The links provided show two of my most dissatisfying purchases that I've made through Netgear. See, quite a while ago, I purchased a PS121 print server. I was so stoked that I would be able to share out my printer without needing to figure out how to configure print sharing in Linux. I was still new to Linux at the time, so it was a big deal to me and the price wasn't bad.

Enter the Lexmark brand of printers. I had an MFC that I wanted to put on the network. Opening up the server's box, I found out that you were required to set this little thing up using a program that runs only on Windows. BAH! Off to the old lady's computer to take care of that. Next up, I am totally unable to get the printer to recognize on the network. Calling Netgear tech support was of NO help since they informed me that they did not and never would support Lexmark printers.

What the HELL?

Most recently, I bought a pair of the Netgear SC101's. They seemed to be a very good deal (at $30 each) and you can slap in a pair of IDE hard drives for sharing over the network. SWEET!

Once again, I failed to do enough research - shame on me. It seems that this device also is required to be set up using a Windows-only program... and it does not support Linux.

There are several projects out there that have attempted to port this device over to Linux and they all have varying degrees of success. I've tried most of them and have been unable to get these things working. I either receive an LED error that tells me the hard drives are incompatible or I am unable to find the SC101 on the network.

Quick question: How the hell can a hard drive be incompatible if you are using industry standards? The answer is that Netgear is not using industry standards. They are using a proprietary file system that requires software to be installed on your computer to "translate" the information into something that the OS can understand.

I am now $100 in the hole to Netgear. I'm sure I can use the print server now (since I no longer own Lexmarks and the server is set up from its previous life), but the storage devices are going to either sit for a long time or be sold.

Netgear sucks!

And now we wait...

That's it. That's all I have to say... for now.

See, there are too many things going on in my life right now for me to be blogging and revealing my deep, dark secrets. There are some out there that would use anything I were to say here against me. It's a bad place to be. Hopefully, this will be over within the next several weeks.

And as I said when I started this, the first post on my blog: That's it. That's all I have to say... for now.