Today I purchased a new home router. Upon opening the box, the English part of the "Quick Start" guide, printed in 29 languages on a sheet of approximately A3 paper, read as follows, in toto (bad English theirs, not mine):
That's it. To understand just how awful those instructions are, it's necessary to know what is assumed but not stated:
In my case, these instructions were a complete failure. I'm running Linux, and I'm also running my own DHCP server, so it can update my DNS server when a new computer connects to my network with that computer's name and IP address.
The bigger failure was the utter lack of any sort of basic technical documentation on accessing the router, namely its default IP address and default username and password. Their support site had no additional documentation available, and the site itself is crap: in order to navigate it I had to turn off all my browser security by disabling NoScript.
Later, I actually was able to connect to the web interface after figuring out (based on experience) that its IP address was 192.168.1.1, but could not log in because it presented a realm authentication challenge. I had to reconnect my old router and do a web search to discover the default username and password are "admin" and "admin".
Finally able to actually configure the router, I discovered I could enable a telnet server on the device and telnet into it. When I did do, I saw it was running Linux. To me, that's a good sign: properly implemented, Linux is a stable and secure operating system, and I like Linux. The device's web interface, which appears to be a rebranded version of a similar open source effort, is easy to navigate and has lots of useful options.
So I'm torn. As much as I like this router, I'm appalled that the manufacturer gave what amounts to zero documentation with the product, and supplied nothing better on their web site. The other problem is I really don't think the manufacturer cares. If I return the router they've simply lost a sale--there are lots of other suckers out there willing to buy their stuff and put up with this crap.
Is returning a useful product because the manufacturer can't be bothered to give decent documentation and support a good way to tell the manufacturer how unimpressed I am with the lack of docs and support? Or should I just swallow my pride and use the router?
- Connect your devices.
- Launch the web browser and follow the Quick Internet Setup (QIS) steps.If the QIS web page does not appear after you launched the web browser, disable the proxy settings of the web browser.
- Setup is completed.
That's it. To understand just how awful those instructions are, it's necessary to know what is assumed but not stated:
- The user is running some version of the Windows operating system
- The "web browser" is Internet Explorer
- The user has not disabled any services that allow for network auto-discovery
- The user is not running any sort of third party firewall application
In my case, these instructions were a complete failure. I'm running Linux, and I'm also running my own DHCP server, so it can update my DNS server when a new computer connects to my network with that computer's name and IP address.
The bigger failure was the utter lack of any sort of basic technical documentation on accessing the router, namely its default IP address and default username and password. Their support site had no additional documentation available, and the site itself is crap: in order to navigate it I had to turn off all my browser security by disabling NoScript.
Later, I actually was able to connect to the web interface after figuring out (based on experience) that its IP address was 192.168.1.1, but could not log in because it presented a realm authentication challenge. I had to reconnect my old router and do a web search to discover the default username and password are "admin" and "admin".
Finally able to actually configure the router, I discovered I could enable a telnet server on the device and telnet into it. When I did do, I saw it was running Linux. To me, that's a good sign: properly implemented, Linux is a stable and secure operating system, and I like Linux. The device's web interface, which appears to be a rebranded version of a similar open source effort, is easy to navigate and has lots of useful options.
So I'm torn. As much as I like this router, I'm appalled that the manufacturer gave what amounts to zero documentation with the product, and supplied nothing better on their web site. The other problem is I really don't think the manufacturer cares. If I return the router they've simply lost a sale--there are lots of other suckers out there willing to buy their stuff and put up with this crap.
Is returning a useful product because the manufacturer can't be bothered to give decent documentation and support a good way to tell the manufacturer how unimpressed I am with the lack of docs and support? Or should I just swallow my pride and use the router?
via JREF Forum http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=265690&goto=newpost
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