Today I got crazy with server stuff at office. Everything looks mad, from the Internet Service Provider to 3ds Max on one computer. The main problem was the hardware firewall, SmoothWall, that wasn’t able to recognize and receive the DHCP from Fastweb. For thoose that doesn’t know, SmoothWall is a release of Linux that permits to create a strong and protected network with some simple steps (of course plus other features that I don’t need). So, if you have a service provider that recognizes and limits the number of MAC address connected, just use this on a old crappy computer, the result is guarantee 😉
From HERE you can freely download a release.
Of course you can use a full Linux release, such as Ubuntu Server Edition to do this thing, but SmoothWall is light, simple and works on lot of old computers. There is Windows Server 2008, everyone looks happy about it, but the price of a license is high; Linux is free.
Later, I got other troubles with CentOS server. It wasn’t able to receive the ip from the SmoothWall OS…strangely this problem solved by himself after 5 hours.
Last but not least, the 3ds Max of Mona, running on a shitty Vista SP2 started crashing after 20 minutes.
After some months spent writing articles and using Windows Seven I have to say that Microsoft did great improvements! Vista is the worst OS I ever used so, if you are in trouble with it, give a look at Seven.
This because 3ds Max won’t run on a Mac OSX 🙁