I bought the TP-Link WR-1043ND Ultimate Wireless N Gigabit Router since my supercharged buffalo suffered from a heart attack and died.

Guess why TP-Link calls it the Ultimate model?

Exterior wise, the TP-Link resembles the look of all its other wireless devices in the family.  It looks pretty good to me but I don’t really care because I don’t stare at the router at all.

The front panel has green/yellow LED lights to show the status of its POWER, SYSTEM, WLAN, ETH 1, 2, 3, 4 WAN, USB and QSS status. It goes *blink blink blink* till you get seizures. haha.

A side view of the router. Did you notice that there are NO vents at all on the top? The vents were situated at the sides and the bottom of the router. I don’t get why it was done like this but wouldn’t it cause the hot air to get trapped longer in the case? I’m using this router the other way round where the top faces the floor and the vents are at the top. You could easily drill a 12cm 90cfm fan on the top of the case and solve the problem too. [fan mod]

At the back of the TP-Link WR-1043ND .

RP-SMA antennas – The router comes with 3 antennas to enable MIMO wireless N connections

Power jack – Common sense

Reset button – Common sense again

USB port – This enables the router to function as a NAS (Network Attached Storage). You can plug in any flash drive or hard disk drive into it. This port also allows the 3G modem to be plugged in and it will pull the WAN connection off the USB port.

WAN port – Your internet connection goes here.

Gigabit ports – These ports runs at 1Gbps

The router comes with a TP-Link firmware but there is a DD-WRT build for it. I did not do any testing on the original firmware as I flashed it to DD-WRT the moment I started using it. However as this is a fairly new router, the firmware for this router is said to be unstable but currently I’ve been running it for 5days ++ without any hiccups.

Lots of things to play with as it has a 8MB Flash Mem and 32MB ram.

You might be slightly disappointed on the wireless performance as it is no where near the performance of the Buffalo WHR-HP-54G (built in amplifier). Wireless performance is still good on this router, but if you are planning to do long range connections ( 2-3km links) with stock antennas, I wouldn’t recommend this router. Nevertheless, all the other hardware specifications pawn’s the Buffalo and costs cheaper than it! It really depends on the purpose of getting the router. Another good choice is the Asus RT N-16 but the cost doubles.

Wireless “Repeater” mode is not available on routers which run on Atheros processors so you would have to do this to get the repeating function working in DD-WRT. (This should work on all Atheros based routers). “Repeater” modes are only available on Broadcom devices.

1. Set the ath0 as Client mode

2. Create a Virtual AP

3. You’re done!

The TP-Link WR-1043ND is a really awesome device considering its low price tag . I bought mine for RM160 and you can’t even get anything near these specifications from other brands with this price. Good job TP-Link.

So how well does this router perform? I’d give it a 4.3 out of 5 star rating.

It has been many years since I got hold of a Dell notebook. The one with me now is currently turning 8 this year and today I got hold of this red Dell Studio 15. W00t call me jakun or whatever, but I think the bag looks quite good. Though the bag capacity is rather limited, it can still hold a couple of things like your external drives and stuff in it and still look slim.

Here’s the Dell’s version of Targus notebook bag.

This thing looks gorgeous from the outside..

The inside, hmm.. not so good. Looks rather plain with the grey/silver finish. The keyboard was slightly on the “bendable” side because during typing you could actually see the whole keyboard moving slightly.

Call me jakun again but it look me a minute to figure out where the power on button was! HAHA!

As usual, the Dell Studio LED screen did not fail to impress me. Colors were vibrant and text was sharp. The blacks weren’t black enough though..

At a certain angle I could see some line scanning going on, I’m not sure whether this is a problem with the screen or it is meant to be like that. Anyway it is only visible if you really stare at the screen properly. Will check it out once the setup is complete.

Again! the 90w power adaptor has been trimed down to a size thinner than my phone. Nice one. It runs pretty hot though. The notebook itself runs quite hot during idle times too.

Overall, the Dell Studio 15 is a quite a powerful machine here. Equipped with the Core i5 2.4ghz , 4gb DDR3 ram, 1GB ATi HD5740, 500GB hdd, this notebook is perfect for watching my TVB dramas!! AHHAHA.

Special thanks to Ivy and Eddy for letting me molest their very new toy. I couldn’t resist myself from snapping photos of your notebook. It was simply a natural poser.

Windows Live Wave 4.

Microsoft have been doing their job recently and here’s a new “preview” of their new Windows Live Wave 4. Supposedly “redesigned, reinvented, re-everything.. LOL. Here’s the video of their new thing. Microsoft here, microsoft there.. blablabla. Oh yea, did I hear the word, iPhone? =P

Among the new features are :

Badges

Show your affiliation with an organization or social cause and have this show up next to your name when it fans out to your friends.

Games

More games in Messenger let you play with your friends, earn achievements and brag about your wins.

Video message

When your friends are offline, leave them a video message, similar to a voicemail but as a quick video that will be waiting for them when they sign in.

Integration of Bing results

Integration of Bing search results makes it easier to add photos and videos from across the web without having to leave the conversation window.

High-definition video chat

Meaningful conversations are enhanced by allowing you to see and hear your friends. The new Messenger now provides high-definition video chat, helping you experience video chats so you can share photos while chatting and see your friends’ reactions in real time and in full screen.

Tabbed conversations

You can manage all your chats in one location so you can juggle multiple conversations in one place rather than having multiple windows popping up.

and many more..

About the High Definition Videocall, we can’t even get smooth videocalls on standard definition here in Malaysia and now HD, oh you have to be joking..

Anyway, there are plenty of “beta” versions up on megaupload/rapidshare if you wanna check it out but I’ll just wait for the official release from Microsoft. We’ll see then whether I’ll have to put my status on “Appear Offline” more often, or rather not.

ZAGG is popular for its line of invisibleSHIELD and many other items which came after that. Although there are many.. yes many many other gadget protecting skins out there which are of the same quality and CHEAPER,  here’s a discount coupon/voucher/code for you if you insist on getting one. Discount code is valid till 31st April 2010.

They gave me this code and I’ve nothing to buy from them, so I’ll just pass it on then =).

The discount code is valid for a 20% discount store wide :  p8b1w4n

I’m currently looking for a cheap but good skin to replace my worn-out Sansa’s protector though

Few weeks ago I wrote a post regarding the Samsung T400 dissected and the screen was brought back to life. However as posted there, the keypad of the phone was slightly cranky and had to be modified a little. Well modifications don’t really match the quality of a real working unit.. The keys were still a little hard to press and each key would require different amount of pressure to make the input work.

Oh anyway, let’s get to the point. I managed to get the replacement unit for this phone at a local flea market. The phone was pretty much screwed up with its flipping parts broken into 2. LOL. The unit was from Vietnam though.. (says the firmware when it was booted up).

Ahh, the two keypads together. Look at the hinge where the other phone broke. *ouch*.

(“new” and old)(rev 3.3 and rev 3.2)

The two mainboards together. The keypad of the phone was actually soldered on the main board of the phone so it would be a little messy if the keypad was replaced. Instead, the easier way was to simply swap the main boards and plug everything back in. The “new” board was a rev 3.3 board while the original one was rev 3.2 . Didn’t notice any difference in performance though. I accidentally broke the volume button ribbon during the brain transplant. Such a waste, no more volume control for the phone but then the other functions works good. If there’s a need for the volume control in the future, I shall perform another surgery to transplant the volume control ribbon from the working unit.

Now the phone is working great. Time to get another sim card and get it back to duty.

Total cost of repair: RM2.