SmallNetBuilder

Thin is In - more

The key choice in both menus is the "Settings" dialog (Figures 6 and 7) because settings is the one place in the thin client user interface where you can see what is going on with your DSD-150 installation. The other choices in both menus take you to the DSD-150's menus (discussed below) or to the thin client popup windows (also discussed below).

There are two critically important buttons on the Settings dialog: "Re-authenticate" and "Service Log". "Re-authenticate" establishes a connection between the client PC and the DSD-150 on your LAN. You need to re-authenticate a client after you power cycle the DSD-150 or if you've unplugged your PC or if you've changed the settings in the DSD-150 menus.

On XP I repeatedly ran into trouble that I eventually traced back to my computer not being able to authenticate to the DSD-150. Without the service log, you have no visible indicator of problems like authentication being the source of an Internet outage.

Figure 6: Win XP DSD-150 Settings window (Click to enlarge)

Figure 7: Mac OS X DSD-150 Settings window

But after the thin client installed on my Windows XP computer, I was not able to get out to the Internet. Instead, the DSD-150 again showed me Figure 2 and prompted me to download the thin client. I tried again and rebooted. I opened a web browser and was redirected to Figure 2 again. I was able to log in to the DSD-150's administrative web server (see Figure 8) as well as go to D-Link's website and look around the tech support web pages. But, I could not see anything else on the Internet.

Figure 8: DSD-150 Account Summary screen

The "Chat Live" icon in the lower right-hand corner of Figure 8 seemed to promise that help was at hand, but when I tried it, I got stuck in a loop because my PC needed to authenticate before being able to download the chat client. Fortunately, I was able to phone D-Link support, who quickly traced the problem to XP's software firewall. Once I disabled it, clicked "Reauthenticate" and waited for the thin client to download and do its thing, I was finally granted web access. Life is good!

In summary, the thin client software for the DSD-150 is big, silent, unseen, and hard to diagnose. Your computer will be slower while the DSD-150 back end is pushing software to your client. But, once your client has ingested its software, things return to normal.