Joy of Gadgets

If you want mobile email on the go, but don’t want anything else–including basic phone functionality–Peek may be just for you.

Peek is an email-centric device. In fact, that’s all it does. No web browsing whatsoever. However, the reviews of the device have universally said it handles email fairly well.

The device is a tri-band GSM device (GSM 850/1800/1900) that operates at GPRS speeds only, meaning it will fetch data slower than dialup speeds. However, GPRS is pretty much available everywhere, which means it will work, just very slow.

While it doesn’t say so explicitly anywhere in the FAQ, it appears that Peek’s service does proxy the email before sending it to the device. Given the relatively pokey GPRS speeds, this probably a good thing.

The device will set you back $100 and the U.S.-based service will cost you $20 a month for unlimited data. However, if you take advantage of this special offer, you can get 3 months of service for half off!

Me? My email-only device right now is a Nokia E61i. It’s a bit more complex of a device, but unlike the Peek, it handles web-based email, SMS, and can make phone calls in a pinch.

Via Boing Boing Gadgets, Picture from Geeksugar

In my quest to get an upgraded DSL modem, I think I may have found the modem: the D-Link DSL-2540B ADSL2/2+ Modem with 4-Port Ethernet Router.

Surprisingly, I plugged the modem in and it was able to find my VPI and VCI settings through the configuration wizard! The configuration screens were pretty straightforward and I was able to get the modem up and running pretty quickly. It also, unlike the Zoom X4 5651 modem I had before, seems perfectly happy to have the same IP on the LAN and WAN interface so I can use my static IPs.

Of course, problems with CenturyTel’s treatment of my static IPs did not make the experience painless. CenturyTel doesn’t support this modem, but thanks to the ability to telnet into the modem and use a Linux command line to do some troubleshooting, I was able to clearly identify the problem as being with CenturyTel’s network.

The DSL modem is one of the nicer looking modems I’ve seen. And, unlike every other DSL modem I’ve had, it has an off switch. Not that I use it much, but it beats unplugging the modem

I need to replace my DSL modem. I didn’t “lease” my DSL modem from Centurytel. Basically, I need a modem that supports ADSL 2/2+, so I picked up the Zoom X4 5651 from Amazon.

The modem worked fine enough for what I would consider a “basic” user, but anyone who knows me knows I am anything but that. In fact, the sole reason I have a DSL connection (in addition to cable) is that I pay extra for a block of static IPs. Multiple static IPs on Cable modems are more expensive and more painful.

Anyway, I did what I do on every other DSL modem/router out there and the configuration didn’t work. I spent two or three evenings trying to trick the modem into a working configuration that didn’t involve allocating two of the six static IPs I am assigned.

I brought this to the attention of Zoom’s support staff through their website. To their credit, I did get a response within 24 hours. The answer was “this is not a supported configuration.” Pity, because I have an older Zoom modem here that does support that very configuration quite nicely.

As a result, the modem went back to Amazon. I’ve got a D-Link TR067/069 coming to see if it fares any better.

The folks at Joiku, makers of the awesome JoikuSpot for S60 now offer a similar program for Windows Mobile devices: WMWiFiRouter. Both of these programs turn your mobile phone into a WiFi hotspot!

The theory is that the program uses the data connection on your mobile phone–which is hopefully 3G. That data connection is made available over WiFi as a regular access point to other WiFi-enabled devices. Sort of, at least on S60, as it is only able to use an AdHoc network type, not infrastructure. This limits you ability to use it with, say, a Nintendo DS or Sony PSP. However, it works great with computers.

JoikuSpot is also currently 40% off: 15 Euros instead of the normal 25! While that’s still a lot of clams in U.S. Pesos, it’s still a nice investment. Where else are you going to get a portable WiFi router for that price?

A while ago, I had purchased a Linksys WTR54GS as a travel companion. Not to be confused with the legendary WRT54GS, which is a desktop router, it is a fairly serviceable router that slides into a nice little compact carrying case complete with an Ethernet cable to jack in a computer or to something else.

The main problem I had with the WTR54GS? The firmware. Linksys never bothered to update beyond the initial shipping version, and the firmware is crap. The router’s web interface was slow and frequently experienced weird glitches. A problem with nearly every Linksys router since they switched to using VxWorks instead of Linux.

The folks behind DD-WRT figured out how to liberate this device from a life of running VxWorks. I followed the rather convoluted steps for getting DD-WRT onto the router. One small hitch I ran into was that the referenced Sercomm utility crashes under XP. However, a quick Google search resulted in finding an update to Sercomm that would make it run under XP.

After about 10 minutes, the WTR54GS was running DD-WRT. The web interface worked and was nice and peppy. All the functionality of DD-WRT is now in my travel bag, ready to convert WiFi to Ethernet or vice-versa.

Now if only Linksys would drop this VxWorks crap, their current routers might not suck so bad.