I just bought a new router and have this old Linksys WRT54GS just lying around now. But rather than ditch it, I'm going to give it some new life with new third-party firmware. Watch our video then refer to this story for all the steps.

Every router has software that runs on it. We're going to change that software from the factory default to an open-source version. Whether you're replacing your old router or just frustrated with your new one, there are a few reasons you might want to do this.

My Linksys can only act as an access point for turning my Internet into wireless. The Tomato firmware I'm going to put on here will let it act as a bridge, allowing machines in my house that don't have Wi-Fi actually access the network wirelessly.

It can also act as a site-survey tool, giving me the strengths of nearby networks, and it can let me know which frequencies they occupy. In a crowded neighborhood, this can help you reduce interference on your network tremendously. Tomato also has a bandwidth-usage monitor. If your ISP has a cap on bandwidth, this is indispensable in telling if you're close to the cap. There are also other features, like Wake on LAN, Static DHCP, and more.

How to do it
There are many third-party firmware options out there; some work better with specific
... Read more

Real Networks is suing the movie studios to license their RealDVD software. The studios are suing Real to stop the DVD-burning software form being sold. Meanwhile, there are hundreds of DVD rippers out there, and many claim to be legal. Why is Real under the microscope?

Watch the show on CNET TV.

Things we Crave

WiMax comes to Baltimore

Driveway ringer

First Look

LG 60PG60

Free Download of the week

Rockbox 3.0

Insider Secret

Buying a used car

Your calls

There are tons of good backup-software applications available on the Web. Brian likes Second Copy and Rafe recommends Carbonite.

HTC Touch Diamond, BlackBerry Curve, or Motorola Q9? If we had to choose, we'd go with the Curve.

Need help puttin' OS X on a PC? Well, keep in mind you might be breaking the law, but there's a Web site that can advise you. Head to the Osx86project.

Email us! Whether it's a regular text note, or a recorded video question, you can send it to cnetlive@cnet.com. Keep your videos to 15 seconds or less, post them to a Web site like Youtube and then e-mail us the link. Here's an example.

This week's Top 5 counts down the top tech ads. As promised at the end of the segment, here are the links to YouTube videos of all the tech ads mentioned one through 10. Watch the Top 5 to see what order they're in and get clips of all of them at once.

• IBM Charlie Chapman
• Don't copy that floppy
  
• Dude, Dell
  
• Verizon: Can you hear me now?
• Maxell
  
• Apple Mac
• Apple Switch (Feiss)
• Apple--I'm a PC
  

Dara O'Rourke from Good Guide chats with Brian Cooley about how to determine what products are good and good for you.

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Things we Crave

Unicycle-riding girlbot

SmartParts Wi-Fi picture frame

First Look

T-Mobile G1

Free Download of the week

IOBit Smart Defrag

Insider Secret

Track your bandwidth usage

Best of the Web

Five great Web 2.0 products

Your calls

YouTube Downloader will download and convert YouTube videos for you. Particularly for the Zune, is an IE plugin called Zunemytube.

Maximize DVD ripping by making a bit-for-bit copy of the DVD.

Sometimes you don't find out about a good TV show until partway through its run, or maybe you don't get a certain channel, or even worse, for whatever reason, your DVR fails to record your favorite show. Thanks to the Internet, there are many ways to catch up, and maybe even ditch cable. Watch our Insider Secret video to see some of our favorite ways to get TV shows online, and then come back here for the links.

There are still many popular shows that don't put their content online. At least not legally. And this ain't about piracy, so put The Pirate Bay down for a moment. Still, a large number of shows are available legally online. Here are some of my favorite resources to find them.

Step one, go to the network's Web site. More and more channels put full episodes on their site. Look in the video tabs and find a link, usually called "full episodes." That may be the best way right there. All the networks stream their shows with commercial interruptions.

Another resource is a video aggregator site like Hulu.com. Hulu was launched as a cooperative venture of TV networks to provide easy access to movies and TV shows. Although anything you find there is likely to also be at the networks Web site, it's convenient if you want to watch shows from multiple ... Read more

It's an all-call show as we gave away a free BlackBerry Curve. On eof the perks of watching the live version of the show every Thursday at 4 PM Eastern. However there's still lots of good info for the podcast and on-demand viewers. Here are the notes.

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Things we Crave

Plastic Logic eReader

Stealth helicopter camera

First Look

iPod Touch 2nd Gen.

Free Download of the week

BitMeter

Quick Tip

Speed up your Wi-Fi

Best of the Web

FotoNauts

Your calls

A few more ways to sync your iTunes across several computers, this week using an external hard drive. This forum shows a way to trick iTunes into thinking the main library is permanently on the external drive by pointing to the itunes.itl file.

With the iPhone you can Jailbreak and get voicemails off the phone and on to your computer. This Lifehacker article shows you how. For a Nokia or another phone, your best bet is to play the voicemail over the speaker into the computer as a recording.

A couple easy ways to speed up a Mac are to add more RAM or run Onyx, the optimizer. You can find a few more ways in this article.

Want ringtones on your iPhone but can't get them through the iTunes store? Check out Audiko.net as described here.

The Nokia N810 is probably the best Internet tablet we've found. Our caller was from the UK, so here's the CNET UK review.

In our latest Top 5 video, we (myself with the help of Download's Jason Parker ad Webware's Josh Lowensohn) give you our take on the top 5 best iPhone applications.

I know at least one of you disagrees, though. Or will. So watch the video, then come back and post your reactions on the blog. Next week we'll do it all over again with the worst iPhone applications.

Booting from CD is one of those computer functions that everyone seems to assume you know how to do. Watch this video, then read this quick tip, and you too will know.

You may be able to just boot from CD without doing anything. Put a bootable CD in the drive, restart the computer, and see. If it doesn't work for you, here's what to try next:

The BIOS is the part of a PC that boots up first and figures out where the operating system is. You can usually access it by pressing a function key during boot-up. Often the proper key will be noted briefly on the screen right after you power up. If you can't figure it out at all, do a search or visit michaelstevenstech.com's Access BIOS page.

Once you're in, different BIOSs will work slightly differently, but you want to find an option for boot order.

Then you'll be presented with some gobbledygook that represents all the different parts of your machine. This is a priority list of devices from which to boot your computer. The computer checks each device in order until it finds a device that has a bootable operating system.

A fair warning: you can really mess up your computer mucking about in the BIOS, so be very, very, very, very careful what you do here.

Try to identify which item ... Read more

A lot of our tips here at CNET require you to burn an ISO image to CD. Many of you have written in asking how the heck to do that. Here's the video on how. Watch that then come back for the steps.

An ISO file is a single file, usually with the extension .ISO. Sometimes, on Macs, they may be called .CDR. It's essentially all the data that goes on a CD, also called a disk image. When you burn the ISO to CD, you're essentially creating an exact copy of the CD the ISO was originally made from.

Here's how to burn one.

You'll need a blank CD of course.

And some software that burns CDs. For this example, I'll use a free program called CDBurnerXP.

Put the CD in the CD drive.

Launch the burning program.

You want a setting that allows you to burn data, not music. This is often called a data setting. CDBurnerXP has a special setting for ISO images.

Browse for the ISO file on your hard drive.

Make sure an option to finalize the disc is selected. In some programs you may need to select a bit for bit option as well.

Burn the disc.

If all goes well, you should have a perfectly usable disc.

One of the worst feelings in the world is a computer that won't boot up. How can you fix a problem if you can't even access the hard drive? A good preventative measure is to create a rescue disk for your computer. Watch our video then head back here for the steps.

Your computer may boot up into a safe or recovery mode all on its own--which is great--but if the power's fine and the dang thing just won't boot, you need a rescue disk. If you still have Windows or Mac OS X, your install disk acts as a recovery disc. Or you may have a special recovery disk from the manufacturer.

Put your system or recovery disk in the CD-drive and then boot from CD (we have a separate Quick Tip that shows you how to do that). It should take you to some sort of recovery screen that gives you limited access to the computer.

Depending on the problem, that may be all you need. However, what if you've lost your install disk? Or, as is sometimes the case with Windows rescue disks, what if the recovery program you have won't let you copy files or edit text. We have some help for you. Bootable Linux CDs, like Knoppix here, to the rescue!

I should note that Knoppix has trouble reading the Windows file system called NTFS. ... Read more