Panasonic BL-C131A Network Camera Wireless 802.11 Review

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(More customer reviews)My wife and I wanted to keep an eye on the nanny with our baby from work. After researching the network cameras for several months, it seemed that only Panasonic cameras consistently received positive (usually glowing reviews) whereas cameras from other major brands like Linksys, D-Link, etc received mediocre or poor reviews. So I went with Panasonic. And after about a month, I have to say I am very impressed with it. Some background: I have a classic Linksys WRT54G 802.11g router, with 2 WinXP PCs connected to it via ethernet and 3 more PCs connected wirelessly; plus, I have AT&T/SBC DSL service via a Speedstream 5100 DSL modem. If you're moderately computer literate, you should have no problem following the included instructions to setup (view and control) the camera in wired mode or in wireless WiFi mode.
But if you want to setup the camera to be viewed (and controlled) from the internet, you need to do a bit more work. And this is where Panasonic's excellent, excellent customer support comes in. Panasonic's support line is 8_0_0-2_7_2-7_0_3_3; they are open Mon-Fri 9AM-9PM and Sat/Sun 10AM-7PM Eastern US Time; this tech support is available to you for the LIFE of the product. They will walk you through how to setup the camera, configure your router (for, among other things, port forwarding), and register with Panasonic's FREE Dynamic DNS web service. This last point is important: Panasonic network cameras include FREE Dynamic DNS hosting service for the life of the product; other brands offer the service for an annual fee.
Okay, step-by-step, here's how to config the camera for internet viewing:
First, if you use DSL as I do (as opposed to cable broadband), you have to configure the DSL modem for "bridge mode." (If you don't use DSL, then you can skip this step.) This is because DSL modems act as a router, and port forwarding cannot work behind both the DSL modem's router and (in my case) the Linksys WRT54G router. If you want, you can call your DSL tech support to ask them to walk you through how to "bridge" your DSL modem. But here's what I did.
1. Login to your DSL modem (for me, it's 192.168.0.1) using your DSL account (for me, it's my SBCglobal email address).
2. Select Advanced >> PPP Location
3. Select Bridged Mode (PPPoE is not used), then Change PPP Location
4. When prompted, restart the DSL modem
5. Login to your router (for me, it's 192.168.1.1)
6. Under Setup> Basic Setup >> Internet Connection Type, select PPPoE and enter the DSL login & password info you normally would enter in your DSL modem to authenticate your DSL service.
7. At this point, the "bridging" should have been successful. To check that bridging has been successful, click Status >> Router, and check that you are "connected" with an IP address showing. If successful, you should also see that your DSL modem's "internet" LED light is off while your router's "internet" light is on. What you basically have done is to move the point of authentication for your DSL service from the DSL modem to your router; your DSL modem merely acts as a bridge for the DSL service to your router.
8. Now, we move on to configuring the camera itself. I assume that the camera has already been configured for wired and wireless mode. Login to the network camera (for me it's, 192.168.1.253).
9. Click Setup. Change the Port No. from the default of 80 to 50000 (fifty thousand) and enter the IP address of the camera (for me, it's 192.168.1.253). Click Save, and the camera will restart. When it finishes restarting (taking as long as 1.5 min), it'll bring you back to the "Top" home page of the camera config screen.
10. Log back into your router, and go to Applications & Gaming, where you'll be able to set up port forwarding.
11. In the Port Range, enter 50000 as "Start" and 50000 as "End." Enter the IP Address of the camera (for me, 192.168.1.253). Check Enable. Save Settings.
12. Now, log back into your camera. Go to Setup >> DynamicDNS. Select viewnetcam-dot-com, then Next.
13. Click on "Your Account Link" to bring up the viewnetcam.com registration page, where you then select New Registration. Enter your desired registration info and select your domain name at viewnetcam-dot-com (e.g. yourname-dot-viewnetcam-dot-com). Click Choose.
14. Now, you will be shown a page confirming your registration. Under DDNS status, you will see Active-waiting. You need to wait up to 10min as the domain registration occurs, at which time, the status will change to Active.
15. We're almost done; stay with me! From WinXP Start Menu, click Run and type "cmd" to bring up a DOS window.
16. In the DOS window, type "ipconfig/all", which shows your computer's various network information. Under Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection, copy down the two addresses under DNS Servers.
17. Log back into your camera, select Setup, and enter the 2 DNS Server addresses from ipconfig/all in the 2 DNS boxes.
18. Go back to viewnetcam-dot-com, login to your account, and check that the DDNS status is now Active. If so, then you're all ready to go!
19. Go to yourname-dot-viewnetcam-dot-com:50000 to see your network camera on the internet!

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Wireless Network Camera 802.11g, MPEG4, Automatic Network Configuration, Universal Plug and Play, Set-up Wizard, Remote Pan/Tilt Control, Built in PIR motion detector

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Panasonic Factory Refurbished CF-29 13.3" Tough Notebook Review

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(More customer reviews)So, these computers rarely break. But they do sometimes break.
If yours breaks, forget about it. Just go buy a new one.
I don't like worrying about my warranties, so although the computer comes with a well-written standard warranty, i purchased
the
$250.00 Protection Plus Warranty Upgrade (Years 1-3) plus i purchased the
$180.00 Toughbook Premier 3 Year Service Upgrade and i also purchased the
$175.00 3-Year On-site Service
My computer broke (i dropped it--not from Six feet, but from about the height of my bedside table...)
Panasonic made me prove the warranty by sending a copy of my sales reciept before they would even talk to me about service.
Then they tried to talk me out of having the on site service, saying it would be faster and easier if i just sent them the computer.
The onsite service guy was nice, but had not been trained on how to fix the Toughbooks, so he took it home with him and sent it to Panasonic.
That was a week ago.
The onsite guy said i should leave my hard drive inside the computer.
He called later and said Panasonic would send me a new computer right away.
Then he called back and said that they would not cover accidental damage...and i should have bought one more warranty...
I pointed out that the warranty covered "non-intential damage"...their representative said that while "non intentional" seems to mean "accidental" it does not mean that "accidental" is covered!
The manager at Panasonic promised to look into my case...but never called me back.
One of my warranties included 'overnight' service.
I was later told that "overnight' means next business night, which, on a Friday, means Monday...but because Monday comes after Sunday, Monday means Tuesday...
Anyway, they have my money, and my computer....and this review.

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Panasonic Model KX-FPG175 Fax Machine Review

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(More customer reviews)I recently purchased the panasonic kx-fpg-175 and Iam
impressed with all of its numerouse features! I bought this
Fax to replace my older panasonic fax unit. Since I have also
been in the office machine repair business.I can highly recommend this unit. I expressly bought over the laser printer style for its extreme long term reliability as well as the 2.4 ghz handheld and caller I.D. functions. My old panasonic was thermal paper unit so this new unit will give me plain paper capability with thermal type reliability. The unit was easy to setup and make's great plain paper copies and fast fax transmissions!

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Combining a cordless telephone with a full-featured fax machine, the KX-FPG175 offers a 14.4 Kbps modem that can zip out nine pages per minute. The cordless handset functions at 2.4 GHz, with a two-line LCD caller ID display on the base, and a three-line LCD display on the handset itself. The machine includes a digital answering machine that can record 18 minutes of messages, divided into two personal mailboxes for different users or family members.
The KX-FPG175 has a 150-sheet paper tray, accommodating both letter- and legal-size paper, and a 28-page memory for those extra-long transmissions. We were a little surprised that Panasonic only includes a six-month warranty with the machine (one year would be expected), but it does include parts and labor.

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Panasonic BL-PA100A HD-PLC Ethernet Adaptor Review

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(More customer reviews)Note that this package has only one adapter. You need at least two adapters for them to be useful. I own three of these.
The configuration of my third adapter took me all of 5 mins. I am currently using it as I type.
Pros:
Very easily to configure.
Very reliable.
Low latency and high bandwidth. This is reliable enough for my gaming: Warcraft 3, World of Warcraft.
Cons:
Very expensive.
I may buy one more. I really like these adapters.

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Panasonic BL-PA100KTA Ethernet Adaptor Starter Pack Includes two HD-PLC (High Definition Power Communication) Review

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(More customer reviews)I researched competing products from DLink and NetGear online and read numerous reviews. Any of the HD-PLC products should perform similarly in the same situation. Before deciding on a powerline Ethernet product be sure to understand that the quality of your home wiring and the distance the signal must travel all can affect the performance of the product. Poor quality wiring or very long electrical runs may limit performance.
What I liked most about the Panasonic product is that the kit which includes two units is preconfigured, so it works right out of the box without any special configuration. I didn't have to install ANY software to get my network running. I plugged in one unit to my Internet router, and the other unit into a power outlet in a nearby office. Once I connected the Ethernet cable, I was up and running. It was really that easy.
One nice thing with this unit is that you can run a speed test from the unit itself, with the front LED's displaying the estimated network performance. This was handy as I tried different outlet combinations to acheive the best performance. As a side note, I found that plugging the "Master" unit into an outlet as close as possible to the breaker box yeilded the best results. By putting the master as close to the break box as possible (electrica wiring distance) I was able to get a much better signal. I have the master unit in a downtairs room that is about 40' from the breaker box, and the secondary unit in an upstairs office that is about 65' feet from the breaker box.
Note that any powerline Ethernet product is susceptible to interference from other devices. Pay attention to the manual regarding the types of devies that can cause interference, and avoid ever pluggint the device into a surge protector, since that will greatly limit performance.
An additional nice feature of the Panasonic unit compared with DLink and NetGear is that the unit has a power cable. This allows me to plug it into "hidden" outlets, and then place the box in an easy to reach location. Both the NetGear and DLink products are a box that plugs directly into the outlet. This makes them more difficult to access, especially if you want to look at the box to see what it is doing. I like that the Panasonic can sit nicely on the corner of my desk and I can see the lights. I also suspect that the Panasonic will operate cooler since it can be placed in locations where there is air flow all around the unit.
Performance will vary by house and situation. I have a gigabit network switch that connects my machine directly to a server. When I copy a 50 megabyte file to my server using Windows XP, it takes 8 to 9 seconds to copy a 50 megabyte file. Running the same 50 megabyte file copy to a machine on the HD-PLC network connection took about 27 seconds. This seems to be pretty good performance overall. Note that "speed test" is only as good as what is being tested. My test was a real world test under Windows XP copying a 50 megabyte ZIP file.

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Panasonic KX-FL511 High Speed, up to 12 ppm, Laser Fax/Copier Machine Review

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(More customer reviews)(This is mostly my review of the KX-FL501, with relevant changes)
It performs quite well, when it's working. The quick-scan feature is total gold, I can toss several pages through then walk away and do something else with them while it faxes.
But the toner. Oh, god, the toner.
I'm used to laser printers whining at me on the message display about low or "out" toner, and I'm just as used to ignoring them. The helpful people at Panasonic have decided that they don't like people ignoring those messages, so they include a pleasant beep. And when I say "pleasant", I mean it gives me nightmares. When the time comes for the machine to be replaced (and it will come, oh yes, it will come), I may run an extension cord outside so it can actually be actively beeping as I go Office Space on it.
Anyway, toner. To guard against the possibility of someone with super-human will tuning out the beeping (or perhaps to guard against the deaf), they also have included a helpful print out. On this print out are several large bars of varying shades, designed, presumably, to illustrate visually to you exactly how low your toner is.
I have never seen this page print in anything but a perfect, pristine manner. The bars are wonderful in their consistency, with nary a hint of lightness. While this would be an excellent demo of print quality, as a notification that the toner is low, I must admit to some confusion. It's *perfect*. It *never prints light*. So as far as I can tell, the only function it actually serves is to *use more toner*. Quite a bit of toner, considering the large black and near-black bars.
In amusing phone conversations with Panasonic, I've determined that either A) there is no way to disable this helpful function or B) there is, but they require a more substantial bribe than I've offered to offset their loss in toner revenue.
It gets better.
After it's printed two or three of these frame-worthy gems over the course of a week, it decides to play hard ball. Now it claims that the toner is gone. Out. No toner remains. This is communicated in two ways. One, the beep. Only this time it's incessant. The beep just goes on and on until you replace the toner, unplug the machine, or throw it out the window (and perhaps even then). It also...*prints out a notice*. That's right, you read that correctly; to inform you that there is no toner, it *uses toner*. I'm sure you've guessed the best part already - this notice, like the joyous banners of grayscale earlier, also prints perfectly. It's never been even a little light.
Now we engage in a little off-Broadway production for the benefit of the fax machine. "Ahh, pity," we say, opening the machine and removing the toner unit. "We're out of toner. Guess I'll have to get more toner. I'll just open this package over here," we continue, as one of us makes crinkling noises in the background, and the other grimly shakes the toner unit from side to side. "Ah, good, I'll just pop that in, then," we say, winking, as we remove the toner drum, whisper an incantation over it, and pop it back in. "Whew, good as new. I'm sure glad we don't have to worry about any light printing thanks to the Panasonic engineers," we shout with glee, as we put the toner unit back in and close it up.
If we've said the incantations correctly, the fax machine accepts our tribute and pretends everything is ok for a couple days, when the process is then repeated. Usually we perform the ritual twice successfully before it tires of our blandishments and insists the toner is out, despite the repeated evidence of our eyes. At this point we surrender to its whims and put a new drum unit in.
The drums aren't *too* bad, price-wise. I just have a minor philosophical objection to tossing them out when there's still clearly good toner left in them. But aside from that, it's a worthwhile machine.

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