Month: March 2012

General

Buffalo AirStation Nfiniti High Power and DD-WRT

By on Saturday, March 17, 2012

I was in the area so I invited James, Drawde, and Alex for lunch. James was unavailable but Drawde and Alex were. And as luck would have it, Drawde treated us to lunch at Seven Corners no less. Thanks Drawde!

As happens often when we get together, talk turned towards gadgets and electronics. Soon we were on the way to gadget-wonderland CD-R King where Drawde and Alex got mobile battery packs. After that, Edward had to run off somewhere. Alex and I went to CompLink where we discussed how to upgrade my home networking infrastructure.

Previously, I had cobbled  together a rag-tag bunch of devices providing different network services:

  1. Huawei D100 router with Huawei E1550 USB modem – for 3G Internet connection
  2. Tenda W311R+ – for Wireless-N
  3. CD-R King 5-port gigabit Ethernet switch

I eventually got rid of the Tenda because it was having connection problems which left me with:

  1. Huawei D100 router with Huawei E1550 USB modem – for 3G Internet connection and Wireless-G.
  2. CD-R King 5-port gigabit Ethernet switch

Unfortunately, it meant I had no more Wireless-N and I still had one too many devices for my network infra. Unsatisfactory.

Going through the available products, we saw the Buffalo AirStation Nfiniti High Power. It’s got both Wireless-N and gigabit Ethernet ports but no 3G USB modem support. However, Alex said since according to the packaging it has DD-WRT firmware available, I can probably enable 3G USB support. So I took it.

I got to work as soon as I got home. I found out that Buffalo had thoughtfully included a customized DD-WRT with the installation CD. I updated the firmware to that and found out that it doesn’t support a 3G USB modem. Hoping that a newer version would, I downloaded the latest customized DD-WRT from the Buffalo website. No luck either.

I tried looking for plain vanilla DD-WRT firmware at the DD-WRT router database but only found one for the WZR-HP-G300NH model which would have bricked my WZR-HP-G300NH2 model. It took a little bit more digging before I finally found the proper firmware. I updated the firmware to that and, voila, 3G USB modem support! A little more configuring and I got my dream one-device home network infrastructure. Thanks Alex!

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General

Diablo III Launching May 15

By on Friday, March 16, 2012

After years and years of wait, 12 years to be precise, listening to Blizzard telling us it will be released when it’s done, Diablo III finally has a launch date: May 15. Until then you can pre-purchase and rest assured that digital copies won’t run out on you :P

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General

Work-Life Balance

By on Thursday, March 15, 2012

We had a town hall meeting at work today. The CEO went through the usual stuff: future plans, operations, logistics, financials, and human resources. During the course of the discussion on human resources, the staff attrition rate was discussed. One factor identified for the high attrition was excessive work hours. He emphasized that they are aware of the issue and declared that everyone should go home on time. Normally, I would wave that off as management rhetoric. But I know for a fact that the policy is being actually put into practice. In fact, I always had a hard time justifying overtime. So here’s management that not only preaches but also practices work-life balance. Meanwhile, the staff can go home instead of rendering extra hours to make up or cover up for the mistakes of others and/or mismanagement. That’s refreshing.

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General

Why I Always Look Forward to Going Home

By on Wednesday, March 14, 2012

I usually get home when Jeanne and Gretchen are out playing. So when I enter the gate, I always purposely slow down and look around for them. This afteroon, sure enough I saw them on the rear view mirror. They have seen the car and Jeanne was excitedly pulling Gretchen towards the car. The sight of her doing that always gives me a warm fuzzy feeling. I stopped and waited for them for the next part of the routine: Jeanne gets on the car rides up the parking building with me while Gretchen packs up the stroller or bike and goes home. After parking, Jeanne and I then strolled hand-in-hand home from the parking building. Happiness.

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General

2013 Hyundai Santa Fe

By on Tuesday, March 13, 2012

Hyundai has posted teasers  of the upcoming 2013 Hyundai Santa Fe. I personally prefer sedans over SUVs. Sedans offer better handling and more practicality for the daily commute. But SUVs sure can be useful for hauling people and gear around. And looking good while doing that sure doesn’t hurt. The 2013 Hyundai Santa Fe certainly looks good enough for me to possibly consider. Maybe if and when baby #2 comes around. And if Hyundai gets its act together by then.

 

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