If you've been looking for a gigabit switch for SOHO use that supports jumbo frames, your search could soon be over. NETGEAR is rolling the feature into this consumer-priced gigabit switch for no extra cost. But getting your hands on upgraded product will be tricky in the short term.

Chris Dickens' series has so far shown you how to organize a smooth-running LAN party and get it powered properly. This time he offers tips on choosing networking gear, installing it and handling the problems that come with the territory.

You may have heard of the trouble Michael Lynn got himself into with Cisco, ISS and maybe the Department of Homeland Security at Black Hat 2005 yesterday in Las Vegas. But Humphrey Cheung's report has had some of the slides that Cisco's army of page cutters didn't want you to see.

You can't have a LAN Party without a LAN and you shouldn't set up your party's LAN before reading the latest installment of our How To. Chris Dickens returns to step you through what it takes to set up a fast, robust LAN that can handle plenty of fraggin'.

Hawking's Broadband Booster promises to solve problems using time-sensitive applications on home and SOHO broadband connections. Tim Higgins finds it works well for what it does, but isn't a cure for all bandwidth-management problems.

The coming wave of consumer routers with gigabit Ethernet switches is starting to hit. ASUS' RX3141 is the first to support Jumbo Frames, but Tim Higgins finds it not as innovative on other counts.

Next-generation, SPI-based 4 port 10/100 switched router w/ print server. Bundled with zer0knowledge's Freedom Security and Privacy suite.

Wireless networking may get most of the attention these days, but there are still technologies competing to replace Ethernet as the primary home networking method. Tim Higgins takes a look at Corinex' AV CableLAN and Phoneline adapters, but finds at least one of them not ready for home-networking prime time.

Ever think about throwing your own LAN Party? Or maybe you already have an didn't have a great experience. Chris Dickens has been there and done that and in Part 1 of our LAN Party How To shares his secrets of getting set up for success and making sure that there's power a'plenty to keep everyone happy.

The ability of most routers to control the who, what and when of Internet access leaves much to be desired. Micah LaCombe found that ZyXEL's HomeSafe Parental Control Gateway is an exception to this status quo and doesn't command a premium price either.

Next in our series of reviews of Open Source based router / firewalls is SmoothWall Express 2.0. Jim Hubbard takes a look at this free, user-friendly distro, that's speedy enough for pretty much any connection you can throw at it.

Linux is definitely becoming more of a real option for desktop users, with many distributions available that anyone comfortable with Windows can install and use. Point Clark Networks' ClarkConnect has taken the same user-friendly approach and converts any Pentium-class box into a dedicated Linux-based Gateway / Server that can be installed and configured by mere mortals and puts many commercial products to shame. And did we mention that it's free? Jim Hubbard puts ClarkConnect through its paces.

The product pitch for AlphaShield's Hardware Firewall makes it sound like it provides some pretty heavy-duty Internet security. But while it does perform as advertised, we found there's little to recommend it over less-expensive SOHO routers.

You might think that installing and configuring an Open Source-based firewall / router requires skills far beyond those possessed by ordinary (wo)men... but you'd be wrong. The m0n0wall firewall may be based on FreeBSD, and have a name that's tricky to type, but our reviewer David Cook shows how getting it installed and running is well within the reach of most of us mere mortals...

You might think that installing and configuring an Open Source-based firewall / router requires skills far beyond those possessed by ordinary (wo)men... but you'd be wrong. The m0n0wall firewall may be based on FreeBSD, and have a name that's tricky to type, but our reviewer David Cook shows how getting it installed and running is well within the reach of most of us mere mortals...

Our quest to find SOHO routers with built-in bandwidth management lead us to examine OvisLink's multi-functional router. We found that it does provide bandwidth management - along with a host of other interesting features - but that it isn't all we'd hoped for.

Sure off-the-shelf router / firewalls are cheap and easy to set up, but sometimes they just don't get the job done, especially for more sophisticated requirements. And "big iron" products will put too big a dent in most small business budgets. Fortunately there are Open Source alternatives. Jim Hubbard takes a detailed look at one that can do just about anything you'd want it to do, while leaving your wallet alone.

Simply put, ASUS' SL1000 is one hell of a powerful little router and our test bench is still smoking! But it has a user interface that only true networking techies can love. ASUS agrees on this last point so it'll be awhile before you can buy it, but you can at least read about it now.

We welcome Scott Sidel with his first review for us. Scott takes a detailed look at Linksys' RV082, its first router aimed squarely at the small business market.

Until now, the one cable that hasn't been pressed into service to solve networking problems is the one carrying your cable or satellite TV signal around your home. Corinex' CableLAN adapter changes that, providing the first IP-over-coax networking solution that can handle networks both large and small.