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.

w00t last post for the month.

It has been a real busy month and next month would be even busier. Oh damn I’m lovin’ it =).A couple of months ago I purchased some 500MB a month broadband from Maxis (here) and well, I did not have any phone to use it with! 2 months passed and finally I managed to collect enough money to proceed with the purchase of a used,  second phone to use the data plan with.

Here it is!  The Sony Ericsson Naite. I didn’t wanted to get Sony Ericsson again, argh.. but then the price was simply too wallet friendly.

This phone doesn’t come with much stuff though, only HSDPA, 2Mpix camera, 2.2″ 320×240 256k TFT screen, microSD card slot and those basic/standard stuff that you’ll get from most Sony Ericsson phones. The thing with this phone is that it was developed under the GreenHeart concept whereby the phone was designed to reduce the overall impact on the environment. Benefit is, the charger automatically reduces its power consumption when the phone is not plugged in thus saving some electricity.

Bad thing is, the back-plate of the phone looked pretty good but if you were to pry open the phone , the plastic feels cheap and easily breakable.

Software aspect, the phone feels slightly sluggish like most 320×240 Sony Ericsson phones. Uses the same firmware as the C510. Surprisingly, it supports the Microsoft Exchange protocol so syncing emails, contacts and tasks was absolute fun.

Size – Thickness.

The Sony Ericsson Xperia X1[left] and  Sony Ericsson J105i (Naite) [right]

Verdict:

Phone feels really good when it costs RM100 including postage.

It comes with Thorus warranty (4mths remaining).

Battery life – So far it has been running for 4days and still at 20%

Bad: Its a 2nd hand unit.

Fish.

More fish.

People chop chop fish.

Location: Tanjung Karang. =)

Presenting.. “old” stuff =)

From left, Nvidia GT 240 , ATi HD4670, ATi 2600 Pro.

Ahh, nowadays people are switching over to ddr3 rams and I’m buying these RMA-ed ddr2 800mhz value ram. hahaha.

Okay there was this event called the appreciation night, which was supposed to, well, appreciate their clients.

Organized by SiS Malaysia, I went over to attend this APPRECIATION event a.k.a Free Dinner with Reng Kwan.

I believe representatives from Apple, Belkin, Canon, Case-Master, D-Link, Garmin-Asus, HTC, Philips, QNAP, Samsung, SMC, Sony and Western Digital were there too. Didn’t manage to say  ” HI! ” to any of them though. T.T

Note: They couldn’t manage to spell night correctly. ( nite ).

Venue: One World Hotel

Registered guests were given these 2 pieces of paper, 1 HTC brochure, and ugh, one rubber band thingy.

There were around 15 tables occupied and here are some of the food served. I didn’t take photo of every single thing (takde camera, hanya cellphone).

The food was okay, good enough to make my tummy happy =). They could have made the variety more though.

Then there was this product showcase whereby the models came in in bicycles with this banner kinda thing or rather a moving advertisement.

Things were good..lol. The only thing that I missed out was the lucky draw! I didn’t manage to get anything out from it. HTC Wildfire, HTC Smart and many more goodies.

Posed with the board thing.. whatever its called.

Hey, SiS if you’re reading this, can you give me something? Haha. Do remember to invite me for your next events (or next year’s appreciation dinner) alright? I’d be glad to watch your moving adverts and also the many many promotional videos that you’ve presented again =). You can contact me at admin(at)yltan.com or just check back the lucky draw contestant number 2116. hahaha..

Thank you Reng Kwan & SiS. =)