I decided to try and make my network bridge from my office to my entertainment center a little faster by upgrading from the Linksys WRT54GL to the wireless N capable Netgear WNR3500L. My first thoughts of the device were it is a small box but it does pack some power with a 453MHz CPU, 64MB of RAM, and 8MB of flash storage. The only drawback I see is the inability to attach an external antenna which really isn’t that bad considering my bridged devices are not terribly far from each other. Below is the first steps in initialing upgrading the firmware to DD-WRT:

***DISCLAIMER***
I am/will not be held liable for your mistakes or lack of knowledge that may cause you to brick your router. Nor do I offer any kind of support or technical assistance.

After doing much reading I found the best firmware version to use was version release 14929 of the NEWD-2 K2.6 DD-WRT firmware. The trick is a .chk file must be uploaded first before the actual .bin file. Below are some links to the said versions. I recommend the standard bin with USB and FTP support. I read the mega firmware is a no no and to stay away from it and evidently mega = big. So the firmware labeled big is actually the mega firmware. I had it on the router for a few minutes and changed some settings before I realized it was the same thing but it did not do any damage. I am also going to link to some of the sites I used to guide me through the DD-WRT install process.

First upload this .chk file using the Netgear GUI
dd-wrt.v24-14929_NEWD-2_K2.6_mini-WNR3500L.chk

Finally upload this .bin file to get more functionality
dd-wrt.v24-14896_NEWD-2_K2.6_std_usb_ftp.bin

Link to download many different files for firmware version 14929
Link to release 14929 of NEWD-2_K2.6

Link to Howto on DD-WRT’s website is here.

Recommendations that swayed my choice for which revision to install were found here.

To return your Netgear WNR3500L back to its factory firmware please follow these instructions.

And finally I’ll include a link to the instructions I’ve followed in the past to setup a wireless bridge with DD-WRT and unmatched routers.
DD-WRT Wireless Bridge

Hope this helps. More posts to follow and some screenshots of speed tests using jperf.

So Hulu Plus has finally been released to the Xbox Kinect Hub shortly after the release of Netflix. I believe I’m correct in quoting Microsoft once again from the original Kinect commercials “YOU ARE THE CONTROLLER”. This STILL does not apply after testing it out the basis of the newly added media hubs are pretty cool but if you want to do any kind of searching or even to look up your own queue guess what you need. Yes you guessed right a CONTROLLER. And just to rehash old wounds why aren’t facebook and/or twitter being added to the Kinect Hub? So again I would say Microsoft has dropped the ball on this and so I must continue to “be the controller” by using their controller. Below is an excerpt from WIRED.com.

Wired.com has been trying out Hulu Plus on Xbox 360, and while it’s a cool feature to have, the implementation is as half-assed as the most recent Netflix update for the console. Despite Microsoft’s promises of a controller-free Kinect future, the motion controller can only be used to browse through a small selection of “popular” shows on Hulu Plus. You can’t search or even view your own queue unless you pick up your controller.

Dexter intro music to play just click the link below. To save right click the link below and click ‘Save As’.

For iPhone users download the m4a and rename the file extension to m4r to use as a ringtone.

Dexter – Intro
Dexter Intro m4a

Finally, last night I launched the kinect hub for the first time in a week and there was the netflix launcher. Everything I had hoped and dreamed is now available via netflix…….almost. I am able to launch netflix using my voice. I played one of the movies listed on the suggested for me page and was also able to control the playback with my voice including pause, stop, rewind, and fast forward. It works exactly as expected. I will be doing some more testing today to find out what kind of searching I can do and how to navigate through the new netflix interface. Will post more once I’ve done a thorough review. Oh and a message to Microsoft. Where is HULU?

The popular online gambling website pokerstars.com has officially been seized by the FBI and the front page has the FBI and Department of Justice logos. Post your comments and let me know what you make of the situation.

Hulu seems to be working with some of the more popular cable networks now. The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and The Colbert Report indicate Comedy Central is now allowing certain content. Thankfully I can now enjoy Tosh.0 on Hulu. I also saw 1000 ways to die in the listings so I believe Spike TV is now starting to work with Hulu to get some of their content on the provider’s site. Hulu is definitely becoming a strong choice for those of us who have disconnected cable/satellite service and streaming videos to our televisions. Another upcoming tidbit is the Xbox Kinect spring update 2011 will have support for voice and gesture control of Netflix and Hulu. As a great singer songwriter once wrote, “Times they are a changing”.

Last thing, I see a lot of folks siding with either Netflix or Hulu and then slamming the other provider. Both services compliment each other as I can watch great movies with Netflix but I can watch the latest episodes of some of my favorite TV shows on Hulu. Let them co-exist and continue to compliment each other as they both have great things to offer.

I had a request for more IT Crowd ring tones so I made a couple more. The request was for Roy saying “Hello IT…..Have you tried turning it off and on again.” so that one I created from two excerpts from different episodes. The second ring tone is my favorite quote from the show so far. Below the links you can find instructions on how to add the file to an iPhone as a ring tone. If you do not use an iPhone I suspect you are smart enough to figure out how to use the audio file as a ring tone yourself. If you need help try…..turning it off and on again.

hello IT
Egg on your face

Download the .mp3 file to create the ring tone.

1) Put the .mp3 file in your iTunes library.
2) Find and right click the file in your iTunes library
3) Create an AAC file from the original mp3
4) Find the newly created AAC file on your hard drive by right clicking the “song” and clicking ‘Get Info’ then click the ‘Info’ tab.
5) Rename the file from [whatever].m4p to [whatever].m4r
6) Now double click the file and it will be automatically added to your ringtones in iTunes.
7) Finally, sync your iPhone with iTunes and you will have a custom ringtone option on your phone.

At the time of Ubuntu 10.04 “Lucid Lynx“, the Indicator Applet used for notifications in the Gnome panel’s system tray sorely lacks any configurability. While I imagine that soon enough you’ll at least be able to remove entries from it, it may be a while before it is truly user-friendly and offers a way to easily add more apps to it.

For those of us that don’t use the default email client Evolution, but instead use Mozilla’s Thunderbird, the notification area is less than useful. But there is a way to add Thunderbird to the Indicator Applet, and it only takes a few minutes.

First, you need to create a Desktop file for Indicator Applet, so enter the following into a terminal:

sudo touch /usr/share/applications/thunderbird.desktop

… then open it for editing:

sudo gedit /usr/share/applications/thunderbird.desktop

… adding the following text (if it doesn’t already exist):
[Desktop Entry]
Encoding=UTF-8
Name=Mozilla Thunderbird Mail/News
Comment=Read/Write Mail/News with Mozilla Thunderbird
GenericName=Mail Client
Exec=thunderbird %u
Terminal=false
X-MultipleArgs=false
Type=Application
Icon=thunderbird
Categories=Application;Network;Email;
MimeType=text/html;text/xml;application/xhtml+xml;application/xml;application/vnd.mozilla.xul+xml;application/rss+xml;application/rdf+xml;
StartupWMClass=Thunderbird-bin
StartupNotify=true

Note that you need to make sure you have specified the correct command next to Exec=, as for your particular version it could be something like thunderbird-3.0 %u (you can find out by right-clicking a Thunderbird launcher and choosing Properties). Once finished, save and close the file.

You now need to create another file for Thunderbird:

sudo touch /usr/share/indicators/messages/applications/thunderbird

… and open it for editing:

sudo gedit /usr/share/indicators/messages/applications/thunderbird

… adding the following line:
/usr/share/applications/thunderbird.desktop

All you need to do now is logout and back in again, and Mozilla Thunderbird Mail/News should be in the Indicator Applet’s mail menu.

If while trying to run sudo touch /usr/share/indicators/messages/applications/thunderbird you get the following error message:

touch: cannot touch `/usr/share/indicators/messages/applications/thunderbird’: No such file or directory

… it means you have uninstalled indicator-messages, so you need to reinstall it with this command:

sudo apt-get install indicator-messages

If your system tray is missing after this install, just log out and back in again, and it should be fine (you can try killall gnome-panel, but in my case the notification area was not restored until I had logged back in).

It is only right that I put this on here after my disappointment when I purchased the kinect. Thank you Microsoft for letting us know the functionality will possibly be here in the spring.

Xbox users will be able to access and control Netflix, Hulu Plus, ESPN, and their Zunes via Kinect.

Source: daemonstv.com