There is an automatic firmware upgrade function embedded in this router. After I setup the internet connection, it upgrades the firmware automatically.

It shows the following after upgrade:

Hardware Version WNR2000v2
Firmware Version V1.0.0.40_32.0.54NA
GUI Language Version V1.0.0.40_2.1.9.1

The speed test result from Speedtest.net is:

download speed: from 17Mbps to 30Mbps
upload speed: 1Mbps steady

The signal range of this Netgear WNR2000 wireless router is kind of average. I would say it’s  just a little bit better than my old Netgear wireless-G router, WGR614v9.

The Wireless Repeating Function is very interesting. I use this WNR2000v2 as a base and my old WGR614v9 as a repeater, transfer the internet access from the base to the repeater over the air. Then wire my network printer and network media player to the WGR614v9 repeater in another room. It works great and pretty steady so far. This is a great way to extend the wireless broadcast range and transfer the internet access to different locations through the air for some “must-wired” devices.

I will post a review for setting up wireless repeaters later.

I saw this Netgear WNR2000 on sale for less than $20 on tigerdirect.com the other day. But I didn’t buy another one. I should have bought one more since my old wireless-G repeater slows down the download speed a lot. Now, the price is going up fast. Price tag $35, shipped over $40.

Related posts:

1. Samsung TL350/WB2000 Digital Camera Firmware Upgrade

New Lenovo N5901 Wireless Mini Key and Trackball Remote < $30

Lenovo Mini Wireless Keyboard N5901 < $30

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=260719079894

Flat Screen HDTV

Take advantage of the Thanksgiving holiday hot sale. It’s time get a slim LED, regular LCD or a plasma 1080p HDTV.

*** Toshiba 40FT1U *** 40″ LCD HDTV   $450 after coupon

http://www.fatwallet.com/forums/hot-deals/1051504/m15447700/#m15447700

*** LG 42LD450 ***   $499.00 + free shipping     => great price!!!

42″ / 1080p / 60 Hz / LCD HDTV

pretty good end user reviews,     => important

30 lbs,     => light

2 HDMI,     => limited

1 USB, photo and audio format only,  can’t play video,     => so so

4 ms,     => just OK

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0039RRC7U/ref=pd_luc_mri?ie=UTF8&m=ATVPDKIKX0DER

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16889005137

…

*** Samsung LN40C500 ***   $499.99 + free shipping     => not bad

40″ / 1080p / LCD HDTV

1 HDMI,    => not enough

http://www.samsung.com/us/video/tvs/LN40C500F3FXZA-buy

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16889102447

…

*** Sony KDL-40EX400 ***   $549 + free shipping + no tax   => good!

40″ / 1080p / LCD HDTV

4 HDMI,    => this is what I want

1 side USB port for photo/video/music playback,    => convenient

30.7 lbs,     => light

http://www.crutchfield.com/p_15840EX400/Sony-KDL-40EX400.html

Related posts:

1. My wish list: Solid State Disk (SSD)
2. My wish list: P3 Kill A Watt Electricity Load Meter and Monitor

ZOOM H1 Handy Recorder, click to see more

It comes with a 2GB microSD memory card. Nice!

I put my 8GB microSDHC memory card in it. Works fine. Great!

This recorder is very light. It takes only one AA battery.

The handhold part looks too plastic for me. The battery cover feels cheap!

______

Later on, I find out some problem in the recording test.

Problem:

1. Use Windows XP to format a 8GB microSDHC memory card as FAT32.

2. Put this card into ZOOM H1. Then power ON.

3. Takes almost 1 minute to start up. The screen says “card access” and can NOT save a recording file.

Solve:

1.  Hold the “delete” button. Then power ON to format the card by ZOOM H1.

2. Turn OFF and turn ON again. Everything works as it should be.

Conclusion:

Always use ZOOM H1 to format the microSD card. (Hold the “delete” button to power ON)

Read the little yellow paper in the packing. It says,

“To ensure optimum performance, be sure to format the SD card in the ZOOM product.“

ATTN:

There is no error handling on ZOOM H1. Even if there is no memory card in it, it still shows recording “correctly.”

• Make sure to format the micoSD card using ZOOM H1.
• Check if the microSD card is in ZOOM H1 every time before use it.

______

Despite the little bug. ZOOM H1 performs really well in terms of acoustic guitar music recording.

Very clear sound.

No background noise.

Long battery life.

______

2 road side sound samples recorded in  WAV original file, 44KHz/16bit.

ZOOM0005.WAV 2,339,072 bytes

ZOOM0006.WAV 4,242,176 bytes

Music recording: classical guitar duet. Input level: 60; WAV: 44KHz/16bit.

Siciliano_ duet_2_ZOOM0009.WAV 36,850,432 bytes

See the video reference of this recording.

______

How about comparing ZOOM H1 to big daddy Rode NT4?

Handy ZOOM H1 & big daddy Rode NT4, click to see more

Here is an example: use ZOOM H1 as a digital recorder and line in Rode NT4 as microphone.

Rode NT4 + ZOOM H1 + Samsung TL350/WB2000, Classical Guitar Music Recording Test

Related posts:

1. Rode NT4 + ZOOM H1 + Samsung TL350/WB2000, Classical Guitar Music Recording Test
2. Prelude from BWV 999 in D minor (J.S. Bach), Classical Guitar Solo
3. Etude Op.6 No.11 in E (Fernando Sor)_1, Classical Guitar Study

See my photo and video gallery:
http://gallery.JoeNo1.net/Samsung-TL350-WB2000

Samsung TL350 / WB2000 photo sample

Samsung TL350 / WB2000 photo sample

Samsung TL350 popping water balloon slow motion capture

Here are some Pros, Cons, Tips and Other Thoughts for Samsung TL350 / WB2000 camera.

Pros:

• 1920 x 1080 @30p HD video;     — Record vivid color full HD video. Each frame is a beautiful picture. No streak!
• MP4 container (Video : H.264,  Audio : AAC);     — Smaller video file size. 1920 x 1080p HQ video writing speed < 2MB/s. A regular 1GB SD card can do the job. Not to mention class 4, 6, 10 SDHC. Original MP4 file can be uploaded to YouTube or Vimeo directly.
• up to 1000fps slow motion video;       — No matter how fast is your fan running. I can clearly see each fan blade.
• high speed photo up to 10fps;     — Moving too fast? Take 10 pictures in one click. Capture the split second moment.
• auto power-on interval photo shooting;     — Auto power on & off. Take a picture, say every 15 minutes to see the change from sun raise to sun set. Make a nice time elapse video.
• Dual Capture in full size;     — Take 10.2M pixel pictures while recording 1080p HD video.
• 5x optical zoom while shooting video;     — Watch it closer in HD!
• 24mm wide angle lens;     — Much wider angel than my Canon 1080i DVD camcorder.
• take panorama picture;     — Hold the camera. Turn a 360 degree. Get a amazing panorama picture. Just that simple & easy!
• 3″ AMOLED display;     — Best camera screen ever!
• decent internal stereo microphone;     — It’s good even for music recordings.
• embedded a handy software to preview pictures and videos;     — Shows up a read-only drive when connected to a PC. It does some simple editing too.
• ultra compact “camcorder;”     — Treat it as a camcorder. It’s a ultra small size one. Better video quality than most 1080p camcorders out there.

Cons:

• No 60fps video;     — Samsung opts out 1280 x 720 @60p. This is my single biggest disappointment!!!
• No external microphone jack;      – Can NOT connect  a external microphone to improve sound quality. No way to avoid the lens zooming noise.
• 20-minute video recording time limit;     — ONLY 20 minutes per video file regardless resolution. Yes, press a button to start a new recording.
• No manual focus while shooting video;     — There are auto focus and smart scene detect function. But we don’t have manual control.
• No HDMI cable;     — Buy a  Samsung HDMI cable if you want to connect your camera to you big screen TV.
• No separate battery charger;     — Battery is out? Too bad! Don’t go anywhere. Charge the battery with the camera.

Tips:

• Don’t use the POWER button if you just want to see the photos and videos. Press PLAY button instead to turn it ON and OFF. This will turn on the screen ONLY, not the lens.
• Press OK button to pause and continue a video recording. Keep it in one MP4 file.
• Copy and paste the embedded software in this camera to a local drive and run it locally. It’s portable. Green!
• Microphone is OFF while zooming by default. Turn it ON!

Other thoughts:

• Battery life is not impressive. Buy a backup battery. It’s better buy a separate charger too.
• OK low light video performance. Not much noise. But it could be much better. I hope the new version can get close to Panasonic Lumix DMC-ZS7/TZ10.
• More than 10x optical zoom would be nice.

I ordered this digital camera, Samsung TL350, from crutchfield.com on Monday. $299.99 shipped. I got it on Friday.

Before I bought this camera, I did some research. To compare TL350 with Samsung’s previous release TL500, check this comparison chart, http://snapsort.com/compare/Samsung_TL350-vs-Samsung_TL500 We can actually compare any two given cameras on snapsort.com. It’s very useful and powerful.

The clarity and color of the 3″ AMOLED screen is simply amazing! The best digital camera screen I’ve ever seen. It’s obviously better the Sony DSC-T90 I bought more than a year ago. Note that this is NOT a touch screen.

Can’t wait to share some photo and video samples.

Take a close look to the window screen.

Samsung TL350 photo sample. Click to see the full size picture.

The scene is like this. I take the picture right at this window. There is a tiny little dot sitting at the middle of the windows screen. I can’t detect it with my naked eyes.

Samsung TL350 sample. Click to see the full size picture.

Highest video quality test.
* Full HD 1920 x 1080p HQ 30fps.
* MP4 video file (Video : H.264,  Audio : AAC). Upload original file, SAM_0014.MP4, to YouTube directly
* File size: 837,523,891 bytes, about 1.8MB/s

The “1920x1080HQ” is the highest video setting on Samsung TL350. I think “HQ” stands for “High Quality.” Try a 7:30 minutes long video recording on a 8GB SDHC card (class 6). No lagging! Pretty good. Very sharp picture quality. Actually, it looks too sharp, almost unreal for me.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Take a 10M-pixel picture while recording 1080p full HD video.
* full HD 1920 x 1080p 30fps
* 5x optical zoom
* picking up music from my car stereos and noise from the len while zooming in or out
* taking 10M-pixel picture (3648×2736) while recording video
* MP4 video format. Upload original file, SAM_0023.MP4, to YouTube directly
* file size: 29,612,503 bytes, about 2MB/s

The “1920x1080p” is the 2nd highest video setting on Samsung TL350. I’m surprised that the file size per second rate of this video is slightly higher than the “1920x1080HQ” setting. I guess that the MP4 video compress rate depends on complexity of each frame in video. In the first video, the background is very simple and stable. So the compress rate should be higher.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Samsung TL350 photo sample. Click to see the full size picture.

What if a car pass by? Check out this video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Based on these 1080p samples, the full HD video file size is around 1.7~2M/s. Use 1.8M/s to calculate.

• 1.8M/s x 60s = 108M per minute
• 1.8M/s x 600s = 1080M, which means about 1GB/10 minutes
• 1.8M/s x 3600s = 6480M, which means about 6.4GB/hour

A empty 8GB SDHC card (typically counts 7.6GB) can handle 1 hour and 10 minutes 1080p HD video.

Maximum video recording time limit

30fps (1920×1080, 1280×720, 640×480, 320×240):20 minutes regardless resolution
240fps (432×320)    :     5 minutes:40:00 slow motion play back at 30fps
480fps (224×160)    :     3 minutes    :48:00 slow motion play back at 30fps
1000fps(192×64):    10 seconds  : 5:33 slow motion play back at 30fps

I took video samples for each video setting up to their time limits. The follow MP4 file size data are base on real world samples:

30fps
1920×1080 HQ,   2,117,128,839 bytes,     approx.   1.97GB/20-minute
1280×720,            1,238,573,062 bytes,    approx.   1.15GB/20-minute
640×480,                330,181,109 bytes,     approx.   314MB/20-minute
320×240,                109,304,325 bytes,    approx.   104MB/20-minute

240fps (432×320),   348,842,589 bytes,   approx.   332MB/5-minute
480fps (224×160),   293,127,813 bytes,   approx.   279MB/3-minute
1000fps(192×64),      11,583,384 bytes,   approx.     11MB/10-second

More picture:
Impossible to read this sign from where I stand. But the camera does a good job. Click on the picture to see the full size original one.

Samsung TL350 photo sample. Click to see the full size picture.

Downtown Los Angeles, 5PM, August 4, 2010
Here is a Panorama SCN mode picture. I hold the camera in my hand. I’m sure my hand shakes a bit. But the picture comes out OK. Honestly, I don’t know how to take a panorama picture. This is my first try.

Samsung TL350 photo sample. Click to see the full size picture.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Barnes Park, 5:40PM, August 5, 2010
Try Panorama SCN mode in Barnes Park, Monterey Park, California.
1. This shot is more than 180 degree.

Samsung TL350 photo sample. Click to see the full size picture.

2. Start from the dark side, left side. The shadow under the trees looks good, but the sunshine part is overexposed.

Samsung TL350 photo sample. Click to see the full size picture.

3. Start from the bright side, right side. The green grass, blue sky and hazy mountain are pretty good. The tree shadow is too dark.

Samsung TL350 photo sample. Click to see the full size picture.

Conclusion: To take a good panorama picture, start from a point where is not too dark and not too bright.

Check out this park on Google map, http://www.panoramio.com/user/joeno1

Hollywood Boulevard, August 7, 2010

240fps slow motion video sample. Resolution: 432×320

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

In door low light HD video test. It’s a huge touch screen wall inside Hard Rock Cafe, Hollywood.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Water balloon in slow motion (Samsung TL350/WB2000 high speed video recording)

Recording speed: 240 fps. Video resolution: 432×320

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

See Also:

• http://vimeo.com/joeno1

Specifications from Samsung’s official website

• http://www.samsung.com/us/consumer/photography/digital-cameras/compact/EC-TL350ZBPBUS/index.idx?pagetype=prd_detail&tab=spec

Clear pictures of Samsung TL350 / WB2000

• http://www.dcresource.com/news/newsitem.php?id=4094
• http://www.digitalcamerainfo.com/content/Samsung-TL350-First-Impression-Digital-Camera-Review-21549.htm
• Where to buy?

I just found a professional end user review.

• http://www.flickr.com/groups/tl350/discuss/72157624654473650/

Related posts:

1. Samsung TL350/WB2000 Camera 1080p HD Video Frame-by-frame Snapshot
2. Samsung TL350/WB2000 Digital Camera Firmware Upgrade
3. Samsung TL350/WB2000 720p; Guitar Duet: Siciliano

Key features:

12.1 megapixel (Max: 4000 x 3000)

4x optical zoom lens

3.0″ touch screen LCD

720p HD video.

This camera is small and slim. About the size of my cell phone.

Slide the cover to turn the camera ON or OFF. Very quick startup. Ready to take a picture in a second.

Connect this camera to a computer is a bleeze. Use a multi-function USB cable to connect, plug & play. No driver is needed.

Sony Cyber-shot® DSC-T90 Digital Camera

More reviews, to be continued…

Sony DSC-T90 official site,
http://www.sonystyle.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/CategoryDisplay?catalogId=10551&storeId=10151&langId=-1&categoryId=16201

Related posts:

1. Samsung TL350/WB2000 Digital Camera Firmware Upgrade
2. Samsung TL350/WB2000 Digital Camera 1080p HD Video And Photo Sample
3. Setup Printer Server, A Step-by-step Tutorial

Calculate electrical expenses by any period while checking the quality of your incoming power by monitoring the voltage, like frequency and power factor. Now you’ll know if it’s time for a new appliance, or whether new items touted as “energy saving” are actually doing their job.

$15.99 + $5.99 Shipping + $1.48 tax, checkout $23.46 

This is a intresting piece of electrical instrument.  It might be a Thanksgiving gift for myself

No related posts.

Country Code: US
Transaction Date: 04/18/2009
Transaction Type: Purchase
Amount: $12.00
 

I found out this charge on my credit card account this morning. I called to ask for refund. The reception said it was some sort of membership charge and metioned the name “Buy.com”. I don’t really care where this charge is from as long as I get my money back. If the refund is not posted to my VISA next week, I’ll call my credit card company to dispute this charge.

Watch out folks! Check every credit card transaction carefully. People are crazier than ever.

No related posts.

Sequential Access  Read/Write: 230/135 (MB/s)

$119+Free Shipping (+9.25% tax, checkout $130)

 
$4/G. Not cheap! I’ll wait for the price drop.

I hope some of my friends see this. It might be my Christmas gift:)

Related posts:

1. GSI 2009 Classical Guitar Blowout Price List