Level One USB Wireless

Thanks to Slickdeals.net I just picked up the level one WNC-0301USB IEEE 802.11b/g USB 2.0 54Mbps Wireless Adapter up to 54Mbps Data Rates 64/128-bit WEP/ WPA-TKIP IEEE 802.1x authentication AES Encryption for $15.99, free shipping, and it has a $15 rebate (PDF)!

The specs on this are actually really good. It has a ZaDAS chipset which is fairly compatible and has drivers for more OS's than Level One indicates. Whether or not they work is another story!!! See ZyDAS chipsets based wireless 802.11a/b/g devices.

A Google Adwords link on that page caught my eye and found this really cool page on
MiniPCI chipsets. Not entirely sure about what they do, but they seem to have extensive drivers for minipci wireless chipsets, which is cool.

I also found another webpage purporting to have OS X (10.4+) drivers for this USB WLAN adapter:

OS X 86 Project Page about Drivers

They point to:

Link to Disk Image of drivers.


Also found these helpful pages:

Ralink Drivers

Zyxel Drivers

Airport Blog

I was able to install some drivers for Mac OS X 10.3, but they don't work very well. Lot's of errors, and unstable behavior.

Newegg.com versus Amazon.com

While some online retailers do win my loyalty from time to time, I don't tend to let that loyalty override simple finance logic. I found this deal on a 17" laptop at both Amazon.com and Newegg.com:

AVERATEC 7100 AV7115-EH1 NoteBook AMD Mobile Sempron 3000+ 17.0" Wide XGA+ 512MB DDR333 80GB DVD±R/RW ATI Radeon Xpress 200M Integrated - Retail at Newegg.com

Averatec AV7115-EH1 17" Notebook PC (Mobile AMD Sempron 3000+, 512 MB RAM, 80 GB Hard Drive, Dual Layer DVD Burner) at Amazon.com

As you can see, these are both really good deals, but the Amazon.com deal is much better, it includes free shipping, a rebate worth $50 more, and if you have the pi/2 discount, you are getting an even better deal.

So while you may really like a retailer (I like Newegg), keep your options open to other potential sellers.

POWMAX CP803-3 Computer Case

Wow, thanks again Dealnews! Just as I was posting about the Buffalo Airstation, I found this amazing deal on the POWMAX CP803-3 Computer Case. Its only $39.99 with free shipping from newegg.com (an awesome store), and it also has a $10.00 rebate, ending today.

Here are the links for the Newegg product listing for POWMAX CP803-3 and the Rebate .

BUFFALO WHR-HP-G54 for $49.99

I already have one of these, and I got mine with a rebate, but since this is a good deal with free shipping and no rebate hassles, I had to post it:

Buffalo Airstation for $49.99

I flashed mine with OpenWRT, and put QOS software on it for my VOIP setup. It works extremely well.

Almost forgot, thanks to Dealnews for the heads up!

Zonet USB and Firewire PCI Card

Newegg was selling Zonet card with a great rebate: $10 back from a $15 Zonet wireless PCI card, and an additional $5 off another Zonet product. I bought the Zonet USB / Firewire card. Its pretty good, but the only machine I have to use it with is my Dell Windows ME test machine.

First Ubuntu Install

I'm going through my first Ubuntu install - and I have to say I am wicked impressed. It rocks! I'm installing this in an old unused case, with the Ultra Power Supply, the PC Chips mother board, the socket 754 AMD 3200 chip, a 1GB ram stick, and an extra nic card.

I'd like to use this box as a desktop workstation at my office. I currently have a Toshiba laptop, and a Mac G5. Although the Toshiba is set to dual boot with Gentoo and XP Pro, I think I will just install Windows XP Professional on it.

Not sure if I want to run VNC with this machine, or setup a KVM of sorts.

Ultra Power Supply

Radio Shack had a deal recently with OnRebate where you could buy a $50 power supply and get a $50 rebate. Not bad! I just installed mine and I was really impressed with the quality. Its chrome so it looks great, has a lifetime warranty, and the cables feel strong and rugged.

Western Digital 160GB MyBook from Office Depot

I just purchased the Western Digital 160GB MyBook from Office Depot for $119, with free shipping. Massachusetts sales tax brought the total up to $125, but I used FatWallet which will give me a 1% rebate in a few months. In addition to that, the drive also comes with a $70 rebate, and since I used an Office Depot credit card, they will give me a $10 rebate with the purchase of $100 or more within the first 60 days. Not bad at all, grand total of $45 for the drive, which is a good tech deal if I say so myself!

Car stuff

Just bought some cool items from Amazon for my car:

• Air compressor - 12 Volt Portable 260 PSI Compressor W Case - $14.99
• Tire pressure gauge- Accutire MS-46B Digital Key Chain Tire Gauge - $5
• Power inverter - Recoton PI75 Direct Plug DC-AC Power Inverter 75 watt - $9.97
• Lighter extension cord - Metra AWPL20 Lighter Plug Extension - $6

I've been meaning to buy these things for awhile, and I'm psyched to finally get them!

$5 Air from Staples

Remember in the movie Spaceballs when Mel Brooks breathes the Perri-air? That was awesome.

Anyway, I just picked up two bottles of air from Staples for $5, which is actually a really good deal. This air is absolutely not for breathing though, its for blowing. (Yes sir, its megamaid - she's gone from suck to blow!) I mean for blowing away dust from dust sensitive devices, like camera lenses and computer parts. Should come in handy!

3 Way flourescent bulbs a bust

Going to return a couple of compact flourescent bulbs I got at Home Depot. They are so big they won't fit into any of the fixtures I have! Oh well.

Video cards and DVI cable

Just bought a couple of items from Amazon:

"Tripp lite 6FT DVI DUAL LINK TDMS ( P560-006 )"
Electronics; $10.60

"ATI Radeon 9200 Mac Edition PCI Video Card 100-436011"
Electronics; $119.99

"eVGA e-GeForce4 MX4000 60MB PCI 064-P1-NV91-LX"
Electronics; $37.72

All were good deals and came with free shipping, plus 0.157% discount. The ATI Radeon Mac edition has a $30 MIR. Sweet!

LCD Displays

Just picked up this great deal from PC Connection: 19" Hanns G LCD monitor for $99 + tax after rebate. I already have a bunch of LCD displays so this one is for a graphic designer I work with to use when he's helping me out.

I also picked up a RiData 2GB compact flash card from newegg, as well as a DVDR and a wireless USB adapter from newegg as well.

I should also mention that I've had to get an RMA for the AMD 754 socket processor I bought from newegg. They were cool with it, so I'll send it in on Monday. In the meantime, I've ordered another from Outpost as they have them at a competitive price, and it will arrive faster.

The SLUG Cometh!

The NSLU2 has rose from its grave. AWESOME! The Linksys NSLU2 is a really cool network attached storage device for connecting external hard drives to a network. Thankfully, Linksys does a good job of sticking to the legal implications of the GPL, and provides its source code to the world at large (I think).

Therefore, the tinkerers amongst us, myself included, can install Debian onto the NSLU2, nicknamed slug, to get a lot more bang for the buck. I had built mine a few weeks ago, but then I fscked it up by fiddling with the partitions. This time I only have one partition and its working very well.

I also bought a D-Link 7 port USB 2.0 hub for $27 from Amazon (free shipping of course) with a $10 rebate. I also get the 1.57% pi/2 discount, plus rewards on my Home Depot Mastercard, so it all worked out.

I had bought a USB 2.0 hub, (bus powered) from LedShoppe that wasn't recognized by the slug. It was only $5 shipped so I'll just use it with one of my Macs. Good enough.

I'm going to try and setup a media system with the SLUG. I'll keep you posted.

Newegg and PCs for Everyone

Both Newegg and PCs for Everyone have treated me and my business very well over the years. Naturally, I was upset to hear PCs for Everyone was closing its retail store business, and only selling online. However, that may improve their capabilities.

Newegg has always been online only - you can't even make an order over the phone! However, I called them today to see if they have any business credit offerings, and the representative said that they are making a lot of changes soon, and that might be one of them. Who knows what that means? Could be an IPO, could be some retail stores. Could be interesting...

Missed opportunities

It stinks when you miss out on savings. Here are two opportunities I recently missed out on:

* buybarracuda $5 off coupon code for newegg.com - could have saved $20.
* 3% savings at FatWallet for EpsonStore - could have saved $3.50.

I have to remember though its simply not worth beating yourself up over.

Epson Printers

Just picked up two Epson printers at Epson.com:

* Epson R320
* Epson PictureMate

These were a great deal. The R320 was $99, and there is a $50 rebate available also from Epson. The PictureMate was another good deal, because it is refurbished and had a $20 instant discount.

I got free shipping, and was able to find a 10% off coupon code, which added up to one heck of a bargain.

We'll be using the R320 mostly to print on CDs and DVDs for prospective client presentations.

Building a file server on a budget

Some specs on a new file server I'm planning to build:
* PC Power & Cooling 510 SLI-PFC ATX12V 510W Continuous @ 50°C Power Supply 90 - 264V UL/ ULC/ TUV/ CE - Retail
* Ultra Products ULT31825 Aluminus Blue High-Gloss Case

I plan to use the PCChips mainboard and AMD cpu mentioned earlier in the blog, but probably not the power supply. That will be OK for a workstation, but not a server.

These links helped me with my choices:
http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1697,1899928,00.asp
http://www.legitreviews.com/article/348/11/
http://www.pcpowercooling.com/technology/myths/

---

Turns out the PC Chips motherboard isn't all that. So I bought an Albatross board, which has two PCI-Express slots. I'll put a graphics card in one, and a 3Ware card in the other.

I also bought:

• PC Power & Cooling power supply


• 1 GB Ram chip


• 4 Seagate drives

This is going to be another great machine! Debian, Samba, and more.

Samba is awesome, but Windows password encryption is junk, so that is going to be one manageable hang up for the time being. Until someone comes out with a free sftpdrive equivalent, you have to deal with it.

Check out docunext.com for more on Samba password encryption and user authentication.

CompUSA clearance deals!

Following the news that CompUSA is closing 15 stores, it comes as no surprise that they are having some special clearance deals.

The only one that caught my eye was the APC UPS deal, because I think APC makes such quality uninterruptible power supplies (UPS).

Dang, just tried to get the link for that one for you, but their website is down!

CompUSA.com is closed?

No free new Apple Battery for me.

Just checked to see if my battery from my Apple Titanium 15-inch Powerbook is eligible for replacement, but unfortunately its not. Argh. Mine is a A1012 battery. I guess that is good as it will not magically catch fire, self destruct, or combust!

See the rendering of the Apple Macintosh Laptop Battery on fire for reference.

USB 2.0 Hub with my Linksys NSLU2

The NSLU2 is awesome, but I won't get into that right now. This post is about the USB 2.0 hub I bought at LEDSHOPPE, aka CCNOW.

USB 2.0 4 ports hub (CA4007)

The price was right, only $5 including shipping.

So I plugged it into my NSLU2 running debian and this is what I get in dmesg:

usb 1-1: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 8
usb 1-1: device descriptor read/64, error -71
usb 1-1: device descriptor read/64, error -71
usb 1-1: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 9
usb 1-1: device descriptor read/64, error -71
usb 1-1: device descriptor read/64, error -71
usb 1-1: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 10
usb 1-1: device not accepting address 10, error -71
usb 1-1: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 11
usb 1-1: device not accepting address 11, error -71
usb 1-1: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 12
usb 1-1: device descriptor read/64, error -71
usb 1-1: device descriptor read/64, error -71
usb 1-1: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 13
usb 1-1: device descriptor read/64, error -71
usb 1-1: device descriptor read/64, error -71
usb 1-1: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 14
usb 1-1: device not accepting address 14, error -71
usb 1-1: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 15
usb 1-1: device not accepting address 15, error -71

I installed usbutils, and that doesn't help any. I'm trying to reboot now.

That didn't help so now I'm upgrading everything on the NSLU2. Hopefully that will help.


While I waited, I found some good resources:

Linux and USB 2.0

device descriptor read/64, error -71