mixdev's posterous

Meh Modems - Buffalo AirStation Review

Bought a new Broadband wireless modem because my Airtel modem died after long years of proud service. 

 

Buffallo AirStation! Ever heard of that name? It's a cute little white thing with yellow color Ethernet sockets and stuff. Even the cables are minimalist & slim. Infact that cable was the thinnest ethernet cable I have ever seen. Ya, it is such a big matter if you're used to the blue toilet pipe cables that come with NETGEAR & Linksys. Also, the Belkin 1.5 meters cable costs bloody 250 rupees. The status LEDs are small and won't create much light pollution in the living room. 

 

Notably, there's a security LED. I have not figured out what's that for. Well, the security is so tight that even you will not be able to connect to it that easily. Not to mention the administration console don't work on Chrome! No, you guessed it wrong, it doesnt work well on IE either - it works on Firefox! After 3 hours of struggle, I kind of configured internet on it - with some reasonable doubt that I actually did. 

 

I said all these because I am seeing a lot of people are buying ADSL modems all of a sudden. I am a regular guy at Chroma to checkout everything from pendrives to washingmachines. I have certainly never seen such crowd at the the ADSL router shelf like today. Not to mention my collegue who has similar issues with Airtel/Beetel modem and currently contemplating what to do. 

 

Anyways, coming back to the point - if your modem has failed you, please don't buy Buffallo modems. Just go by apna regular Beetel wireless modems. Must be Rs800-900 cheaper and Airtel will support you in configuration. 

 

***Buffalo Wireless N150 High Power ADSL2+ Router with Modem WBMR-HP-GNV2****

 

Modem rearview. Usual ADSL input, 4 ethernet RJ-45s & the 12v power socket. Oh, wait, no power switch!

Pros: Looks, Huge Antenna which is bigger than the modem itself (you know what it means. no? Power! -30dBm in 10m radius). Can put vertically, sideways and what not?, Small form factor, Some spelling mistakes in the s/w & docu which you can laugh over, Android onclick connect, Hard switch for MAC/PC auto configuration that never worked for me. Firewall, Smaller LEDs. VPN Passthrough, Port Forwarding, A very nice rule based IP & protocol filter. Basic port & protocol forwarding. 150Mbps mode with 40MHz bandwidth. You can even use a syslog server to send router logs in realtime! Integrated support for dynamic DNS services like DynDNS & TZO without installing any software!

 

Cons: Config nightmare, Loads of features you don't need, Chrome incompatibility, Outdated documentation,  Average customer support forums. Trouble with Airtel's DSL details (If at all you are buying this, the admin is at 192.168.11.1, username is 'root' with no password - dont laugh, again), No power switch.

 

Alright. I messed up the pro-con list. Now, one point I have to make here. This beast is probably not a good fit for your home. You will most probably be paying for the nice features that you don't need. But if you are in office and stuff, you may need some of these features. 

 

 

Dualism

The fear of emptiness

If you are awake past midnight in Bangalore you can observe an eerie silence outside. The soft hum of the vehicles are almost missing. This is so part of our lives that our ears are trained to ignore it. But absence of these sounds will surely remind us that's missing. It is absolutely scary to look outside. It is not the darkness; it is the emptiness that intrigues me. Infact, everything is lit up. It is the same road that carried numerous people and barking dogs couple of hours back. The social animal inside me was contented. But where are these people now? They are absolutely safe in their hives. But my primitive mind is not logical in subconscious level and registers only the abnormality part of it.  Subconscious mind only sees fear, hate, lust, greed, anger and various other sub products of survival.  

  The fear of emptiness. This is humanity's most dark, and most dangerous, secret. Buried into everybody's collective subconscious, it is this fear that goads civilisations to run, to achieve, to desire, to declare war, in fact, to do anything but sit still and watch the clouds float in the sky. - Swami Chaitanya Niyam  

Not so private, please

Yeah, many support privatization - may it be education or health sector.  Privatization immediately, in most cases, raise the cost of living. With a country that is mostly poor, this will not go very pleasant. I asked many friends why they support it. They said that will improve the quality of the services. In that case shouldn't we oppose the people responsible for that bad quality in the first place?  Isn't that the real solution?  Allowing private sector will nullify the money India already invested for establishing the public sector counterpart. Right? Part of that money went from your tax payment -That's your money wasted. Means private companies makes you spend double for the products you buy from them. 

my savior died for me

The Gift

Waving back

Google Wave was an awesome collaboration tool even suited for aggressive, ad-hoc conversations. This video made me feel like I let a talented-somebody perish in my carelessness.  Real fatherly feeling. Google Wave is asking you: "Did I deserve to die?". Google's vengeance is upon you.

Light Pollution

HDR Tools

High Dynamic Range (HDR) photography is a technique that mimics the high sensitivity of human eye. HDR delivers awesome photos when done correct. The trick is taking multiple photos with under and over exposure versions of the same object and stacking them together to get a single photo.Unluckily, a super expensive DSLR alone can't bring out the magic all by itself. We need specialized software. When I was searching for softwares which can do HDR, I found these:-

Creating asteroids