Firewall

Linksys BEFSX41 EtherFast Cable/DSL Firewall Router (4-Port 10/100 Switch / VPN Endpoint)
$79.99
Purchased this product as an upgrade to BEFSR41 so I can access VPN email from my company. When I did get it to work, the VPN transmission was smooth. However, the router kept on dropping the DSL connection (through my SBC) and I had to keep rebooting to get a connection. There was no information in the instructions to troubleshoot any of this, and customer service was of not much help either. I returned the product within one day and have lost all faith in Cisco as they are just milking their old products without improving them or providing updates for new customers to enjoy a better experience.

Firewall
$14.95
Perhaps it is because of a poor translation from Swedish that I do not appreciate Mr. Mankell's writing, but I couldn't get past page 85.
Yes, there is plot and character development, and there is gray and depressing atmosphere created, but the means by which these are achieved are so utilitarian that I found no pleasure from the book. You could also say that MacDonald's presents a menu.
I felt like I was being barraged by short staccato sentences which were nothing more than information blasts needed to push the plot forward.
Mankell goes into the same stable with Yanni and John Wayne. There is much good literature to be read, and for me life is too short to waste reading Mankell.

Firewall (Widescreen Edition)
$12.98
Like I mentioned in my Frantic review, Firewall I bought with Frantic as a bonus DVD Wal-Mart exclusive. I am here to explain why threw out Firewall and kept Frantic. Simply put, we have seen this cliche already with Ford as some sort of common man who for some reason knows how to fight like a marine.

Harrison Ford stars as Jack Stanfield, a security expert at a bank who's family is held hostage by Brian Cox (Paul Bettany). Cox needs to recoup his gambling losses so he forces Stanfield to rob the bank he works at.

Nothing in this film is really worth mentioning. There is some tension in the fact that Cox holds the family hostage while Stanfield is at work but like I said, we have seen this film before. You can call it Air Force One, Patriot Games, or The Fugitive. It's same old story with the same old sour puss Ford having a job that dosen't suggest remotely that he shouldn't have the fighting skills of an marine and yet he kicks [...] and take numbers. Take for example the fight at the end of the film. Ford is merely suppose to be security expert at a bank he gets into a very intense fight with a man old enough to be his son. He predictably wins and walks away with his bland family, dog and all, with a beautiful rainbow in the sky. *gag*

If you have never seen any Ford film during the 90's, you'll enjoy this. If so, get Frantic because it actually appeals to an audience with a brain.

Netgear FVS336G ProSafe Dual WAN GigaBit SSL VPN Firewall
$294.99
I have used two of these for about 6 months now, and for the most part I am very satisfied. I use them to tie two offices together via full-time VPN tunnel, which is easy to set up, using the VPN setup wizard. I am not using the 2nd WAN on either, but I may in the future based on bandwidth needs. The (essentially unlimited) SSL VPN is a great cost-saving measure - no need to buy individual client licenses like with a SonicWALL. The SSL VPN works well with Windows and OS X, and presumably Linux, although I haven't tried it. The only caveat is that the SSL VPN is not currently compatible with 64-bit Windows OSs, and Netgear hasn't said if they plan to make it compatible. (Not sure why one of the reviewers was having problems with Firefox - Firefox 3.0.8 connects well on both Win XP and OS X 10.5 for me.) The initial configuration of the SSL VPN gave me some grief, but through the Netgear forums and some trial and error, I got it working (it seemed like there was some hidden limit on the login page message which caused the VPN not to work, if the message is too long?)

The phone tech support for the ProSafe line is pretty good. I was having problems with one of the FVS336G's dropping the WAN connection, and the latest beta firmware cleared up the problem. I was able to install an SSL cert on one for tunnel access with a few hitches (line endings seem to be an issue), but it is working well now (previous firmwares made this feature all but useless, from what I read on the discussion boards.) And Netgear has a very good replacement policy, and next-day turn around if you buy that service option.

So bottom line: a little on the tricky side to get set up, depending on how many of the features you use, but after that it's been working well. I would buy more.