Category archives: Tutorials

How to Flash the WRT54GL with DD-WRT Firmware

**DISCLAIMER** The following instructions are provided without warranty of any kind. Flashing firmware does not come without risk. I will not be held responsible for any resulting equipment failure or otherwise undesirable results. Proceed at your own risk.

This tutorial explains how I successfully flashed my Linksys WRT54GL version 1.1 with the open source dd-wrt version 23 SP2 VPN firmware (generic). If you happen to have Linksys WRT54GL version 1 rather than 1.1 (you can tell by the serial number prefix of CL7A for version 1.0 and CL7B for version 1.1 per the Wikipedia entry and dd-wrt Wiki), you may have to follow slightly different instructions. The main difference is that you will need to flash to a smaller version of the dd-wrt firmware (the mini version) first due to a flash file size limit on the version 1.0 WRT54GL firmware before flashing to the standard, VOIP, or VPN versions.

As a bit of background information, I’m used a fully patched (as of April 6, 2007) Windows XP Pro with Service Pack 2 (SP2) and Internet Explorer 6 during the firmware upgrade process. The OS and web browser shouldn’t matter that much, but I have heard reports of Firefox causing some problems with the Flash for some people in the past though others have claimed to use Firefox without any problems–just a word of caution.

Before you begin, download the package and version of the dd-wrt firmware best suited to your needs though this tutorial walks through flashing to the open source dd-wrt version 23 SP2 VPN firmware. Once you’ve downloaded the file, go ahead an unzip the files. The zip package contains several files, you will only need the “dd-wrt.v23_vpn_generic” file. We’re going to be using the generic file rather than the wrt54g file because we’re going to be using the web GUI to upload the file. Continue reading

Google Maps API Tutorial

Before you go through all the complexities of this tutorial, I recommend that you check out a recent Google Maps development I’ve posted about. I think you’ll find it quite helpful!

In response to a post on the Godbit forum, I created this brief Google Maps API tutorial. I believe every Church website, and every business for that matter, should provide a map and directions. The Google API lets us take that concept to a new level.
After completion of this tutorial you should be able to:

  • Have your own interactive map (I guess that’s a given since that is what this tutorial is about)
  • Set the default zoom level
  • Locate your geo coordinates
  • Center your map on those coordinates
  • Place a marker on those coordinates
  • Have a custom pop-up with a form to get To Here and From Here Directions
  • Know where to go to learn more

Want to see an example before we start?
You can also see this on a site I created at Vance Auto Sales.
Continue reading