PETER DAVEY : Sonic Resonance Boiler

Peter Davey, 92-Year Old Sax-Player Uses Resonance to Boil Water Inexpensively.

HOT PROSPECT: Peter Davey, a 92-year-old Christchurch inventor and saxophone player, says he has used his love of music to come up with a device that boils water rapidly, in just the amount required.

Inventor and saxophone player Peter Davey has come up with a device that he claims boils water in no time.

He calls it the "sonic boiler" because he claims it uses the power of sound. How the heater actually works has confounded experts.

The device looks oddly like a bent desk lamp, with a metallic ball at the end instead of a lightbulb. When plugged into the power supply, and the ball is lowered into water, it boils the liquid within seconds -- even as little as a tablespoonful.

"Everybody boils twice the amount of water they need so I decided I would find a way to boil water and make steam more economically," said Davey, a former Spitfire pilot.

"This boils exactly what you want to drink."

Davey, who lives in a tumbledown two-storey historic homestead called Locksley in Dallington, has been using the boiler to make hot drinks for 30 years.

He said he first came up with the concept 50 years ago and it took him half of those years to figure out how to make the device.

"The principle is beautiful. I have cashed in on a natural phenomenon and it's all about music," he said.

"If I hadn't been playing the saxophone, I probably wouldn't have come up with the idea."

Davey noticed as he played the saxophone at home that everything resonated at a different frequency.

"The glasses will tinkle on one note. Knives and forks in the drawer will tinkle on another note and I realised that everything has its point of vibration," he said. "In the same way, a component in the ball is tuned to a certain frequency."

Davey said it took years of trial and error to get the device to where it is now. He has made a number of prototypes using the same principle, including a steamer.

Friends dropping by over the years have urged Davey to make them a sonic boiler and that got him thinking commercially.

Davey, who turns 92 today, is now looking for a manufacturer who will buy the technology and make the devices for the mass market.

"Nowadays, with the economy of water and electricity, I think it could be even more important than when I conceived the idea," he said. "They could sell a million of the things in China."

Davey estimated boilers could be made as cheaply as $9 each. He could imagine cafes using them as a gimmick to make express tea and coffee.

"I cannot wait to explain the principle to somebody who wants to take it on," he said.

The Press invited a retired Canterbury University engineer, Professor Arthur Williamson, to look at the boiler and he was stumped.

He watched Davey boil various quantities of water, took notes of the energy used and temperatures reached. He left scratching his head.

"I don't know enough about sound to know whether you can transfer that amount of energy via soundwaves. I doubt it," said Williamson.

He did remember an alternative kettle years ago that had two perforated metal plates inside. The power ran between the plates, through the water. "The resistance through the water provided the load. I wonder if it isn't working like that? Without taking it to bits, you can't tell."

The kettle was specially designed to prevent people getting a shock from touching the boiling water.

Williamson's verdict of the sonic boiler? "It is an interesting gimmick, irrespective of how it works. I would probably buy one as a gimmick. I think more homework needs to be done."

Also queuing up for a boiler, after first seeing one in the 1960s, is Stu Buchanan, leader of the Garden City Big Band and a friend of Davey.

"It's rather spectacular. I don't know why it has never taken off as a utensil for people. I think it's a class act," said Buchanan.

Davey was born in Hamilton in 1916. During World War 2 he flew Spitfires for the 602 City of Glasgow Squadron of the Royal Auxiliary Air Force. The squadron operated along the south coast of England, escorting bombers to Holland and Belgium, doing convoy patrols and fighter sweeps into France.

After the war's end he married and had two children. He bought Locksley in 1964. Davey shares the top storey of the homestead with his 55-year-old son, also called Peter, and a grey tabby cat called Santa. The ground floor is let to lodgers who help pay the bills.

Video: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1527526922275986120&hl=en

Revolutionary Sonic Boiler Probably Not A Scam!
(January 31, 2008)

Well, we don’t really know how quickly Peter Davey’s “sonic boiler” is supposed to be working. The article says it boils the water “within seconds”, which is a bit of a fuzzy definition. I’d like to see exactly how fast it actually does boil it.

And if you want to transfer energy to a liquid, hitting the resonant frequency of that amount of liquid in that container is actually not a good way to do it. That’ll just spray water up the walls. And talk of “resonances” is of course practically diagnostic of crackpottery.

But, making the usual allowances for scientific illiteracy in the popular press, it’s possible that someone could have come up with a way to dump energy into water faster than your normal immersed heating element can do it.

Immersed elements are already pretty darn good, though.

The “2200-2400W” electric jug in my kitchen will bring half a litre of water to a good enthusiastic boil in about eighty seconds, and it draws as much power as you can get from the maximum ten-amp-per-socket current rating of 220-240V countries like Australia and New Zealand, where this inventor resides.

The sonic boiler could be running at 15 amps or more, but that’s cheating; 15-amp sockets are special equipment (used for things like air conditioners), and anybody can boil tons of water in half a second if they’re allowed to use as much electricity as they like.

About 500ml is the minimum amount you can put in most electric jugs without leaving some of the heating element hanging in the air to overheat. It’s also two mugs worth of liquid. So, as Peter Davey says, people certainly do often boil more water than they need. But making an electric jug of conventional design that can heat one mug worth of liquid is not a great engineering challenge. Let’s do the sums and see how fast such a jug could perform, in Physics Experiment Land where pulleys have no friction and cows are spherical.

The (physics, rather than dietary) calorie is the amount of thermal energy necessary to raise the temperature of one gram of water by one Celsius degree. So if you start with 250 millilitres of water at 25°C (which means almost exactly 250 grams of it) and need to raise it all to 100°C, you need 75*250=18,750 calories, which is 78,450 joules.

A joule is a watt-second. So if you’ve got a 2400-watt heater that transfers heat with perfect efficiency to water, you must run it for 32.7 seconds to do this job.

Taking that into account, my electric jug is, clearly, not that far from the theoretical maximum water-heating efficiency.

Assuming its element could be fully submerged in only 250ml of water, that water would boil in about forty seconds, which is only 1.22 times the Physics Experiment Land time for the job.

Given that the element has to heat up from the inside out, and that some energy is lost through the walls of the jug, and that some more is lost to internal evaporation and sound and so on, this electric jug is clearly working about as well as it even theoretically could, when you take real-world limitations into account. Some other 2400-watt heater, built in such a way as to be less limited, could only possibly do the job in 82% of the time, unless it was magically getting energy from nowhere. And Peter Davey does not appear to be making any such claims.

(I’m also assuming that he’s not cheating by pre-heating the boiler before it’s dipped in the water. It’s not hard to boil water “instantly” if you drop a red-hot rock in it.)

So I say good luck to this bloke. He may well have come up with a genuinely new and interesting heater element design, which may have advantages over existing bare immersible heaters, which are generally rather dangerous things. And his heater may work very nicely with even small amounts of water, which in itself is a step forward; you can get electric kettles with the element built into the baseplate which work with arbitrarily small amounts of water, but they take longer to heat up in the first place because of all the extra metal around the element. There may indeed be a niche for this sonic heater, if it performs as advertised.

But there ain’t no such thing as a free lunch. If the sonic heater works very much faster, in seconds-per-gram terms, than any old discount-store electric jug, then it’s another perpetual motion machine, which would have a few applications beyond just making a quick cup of tea.

9 Comments »

1. Technically, you could change the pressure of the water to make it boil at a lower temperature. That’s cheating, though. (This actually might be how the device works; it also gives a reason for the talk of resonance.)

Comment by evilmrhenry — January 31, 2008 @ 7:24 pm
2. Well, the picture doesn’t give any indication of a pressure vessel, and a device that lowered the air pressure in an unsealed container filled with water would act as a straw and draw the water out.

The thing about resonance is that its main useful property in an application such as this would be to transmit mechanical energy- and given that converting electrical energy to mechanical energy is not as efficient as converting electrical energy to thermal energy, then even if your mechanical->thermal conversion is 100% efficient, you’ve used more energy than you would if you converted electrical energy directly to thermal energy, which is bloody close to 100% efficient as it is.

Unless there’s something weird like sonoluminescence going on (possible I guess) I can’t see how this is more effective than an straight resistive element job.

Comment by dabrett — January 31, 2008 @ 9:07 pm
3. Out of curiosity… what’s the energy coupling like of a microwave oven? Does a 1000W microwave heat up water as fast as a 1000W kettle would? I’m assuming that the 1000W lable is the power available within the cooking area, as the magnatron is hardly 100% efficient.

Comment by jaws_au — January 31, 2008 @ 10:46 pm
4. About your water heating math…been along time since I was in high school chemistry, but isn’t getting water to the boiling temperature the easy part of boiling? I seem to recall that there’s a “transition energy” you need to pump in to actually make the transition from very hot water to steam.

Comment by opus7600 — February 1, 2008 @ 12:31 am
5. I wonder if this device includes one of those ultrasonic transducers that atomize water like those “cool mist” vaporizers. You turn it on and the water immediately starts bubbling and you get a mist out of it. The water isn’t getting any warmer, but you get the illusion of boiling. The fact that the inventor is using his bare hands to hold the glass of boiling water gives me pause. Even though glass is, in general, a good insulator, it isn’t that good.

So, take the ultrasonic transducer out of a vaporizer, add a traditional resistive heating element, and you get a device that makes water appear to boil right away, and you can stall any skeptics until the regular heating element actually heats the water.

One other thought came to mind: a small-scale reverse-cycle air conditioner, which has been mentioned by Dan on several occasions. Assuming you could get the dimensions of such a device small enough, you could put a whole lot more power into the water than just the energy from the wall socket.

Comment by Mohonri — February 1, 2008 @ 1:15 am
6. You can see in the picture that the person just out of the shot is holding a temp probe in the water. So I doubt he’d be fooled by simulated boiling.

Comment by Jax184 — February 1, 2008 @ 8:03 am
7. Well, he does mention sonics and heat pumps are great for cheating thermodynamics - maybe he has built a very small thermoacoustic heater. If you squint hard enough that bulb might even be a Helmholtz resonator - although I am not sure that such would be useful in this application.

If the device is a mini-heat pump (rather than an immersion heating element that does not need to be fully submerged) then that is a terrific achievement - whatever the technology.

Comment by aLUNZ — February 1, 2008 @ 1:16 pm
8. Actually, no this is not really that new. This technology and immersion ultrasound horns/plates/cups are already used by many researchers in the fields of chemistry/physics/health. However, it will never be used for this reason, there is no way. Look up Sonochemistry in google. Back to the drawingboard… or your day job. Interesting but bad idea.

Comment by Sonochemist — February 2, 2008 @ 12:07 pm
9. Oh I forgot to add….Depending on the frequency the temperature of the bulk solution and the temperature of the solution during ultrasound could be different. Also, it doesn’t take much energy to get the “boiling” effect you see when ultrasound is induced on an aqueous medium. Less than 10W.

More on the Sonic Boiler
Esa Ruoho (February 3, 2008)

The photos shown to date reminded me of a website I found a couple of years ago describing a similar thing. Here are my notes from that find;

"As a sensitive musician Mr Davey noticed, that there was such a frequency of the motor and propeller buzzing, when the aeroplane cabin and his body were getting into a resonance. At this unique resonance frequency he always was experiencing an influx of heat in his aeroplane cabin. He did not know yet, that in future this phenomenon will be utilised in ultrasonic weapon systems for effective and undetected killing of people. But he decided to test whether the same phenomenon is to appear, if a metal hemisphere which simulates his pilot cabin is submerged in water and is excited into a resonance frequency. So he found two tops from old bicycle bells, joined them together, tuned one of them to 50 Hz frequency, attached electricity wire to each one of them, and thrown them into water. Surprisingly, water started to boil extremely fast. So he made his first heater patent based on this observation. This patent was already registered in 1944. After a hero return from the war, he had a device, which repetitively proved to everyone who measured it, that it has the efficiency decisively exceeding 100%. Realising this, he believed that the world is going to pounce on the opportunity of production and use of this technical miracle. After all, people are full of declarations about apparent saving on energy, resources, about protection of our natural environment, etc. However, the reality turned out to be completely opposite. Immediately after it was experimentally confirmed that the device has unexplainably high efficiency, the heater and the inventor fell into disfavour of various institutions that are interested in selling electricity and that protect the monopoly on electrical power. In the result, this extraordinary invention received an extraordinary treatment! Namely authorities were doing everything in their powers to disallow the production and sale of this heater in New Zealand. One of legal tricks that were used against this heater, was that it was declared officially to be "unsafe to health and life of users". (Please notice that practically every electrical device working on 220 Volts can be declared unsafe, if someone in the position of authority wishes to put it down.) In turn in New Zealand it is impossible to undertake the production and sale of anything, that is not officially approved by the government. In the result, Mr Davey was fighting for almost 50 years to receive a permit for the industrial production of this heater. And during these almost 50 years, the permission was continually refused to him, no matter what research outcomes he submitted to please authorities, and no matter how hard he tried. But it is interesting, that in Australia an electric jug with a heating element of the design very similar to the Davey’s heater was put in mass production (this Australian jug most probably is produced in there still even today). This Australian jug is working on the principle of electrical resistance of water (i.e. not telekinesis as the heater of Mr Davey does). Water that it heats is a resistor, in which heat is generated because of the electric current flows through this water. This Australian jug is exactly the same "dangerous to the health and lives", like the telekinetic heater of Mr Davey. Only that it did not encountered in Australia similar bureaucratic resistance because the energy efficiency of it is "normal". When I met Mr Davey for the first time in 1990, he still was appealing to authorities, and still had a hope to receive a permit for the production of his heater - in spite of these almost 50 years of lost battles with bureaucrats. He was even showing to me a large stock of components he gathered to start a production immediately after the permit is granted to him. However, he gave up the experimental production of research copies of his heater.

The design of the Davey's sonic heater is extremely simple. It actually is composed of two major parts only - see Figure K8 (3) from monograph [1/4]. The most important out of these two parts is a resonating hemispherical bowl (1) made of a sound inducing metal plate. The second part is a buffering hemispherical bowl (2) almost identical in shape to the bowl (1). This second bowl has the radius around 4 mm larger than the resonating hemispherical bowl (1). Both bowls are assembled symmetrically one around the other, means the hemispherical bowl (1) is placed inside of the hemispherical bowl (2). Coin is 32 mm wide = 1.25984 inches / Big bowl approximately 1.75 inches wide and .75 inches thick / Small bowl approximately 1 3/8 inches wide. Of course, apart from these two bowls, the heater also includes a long rod, nuts, washers, and electrical wires. These are to hold it together, to supply electricity to both bowls, and to allow the heater to be submerged into water that it heats. But these other parts are marginal additions only. The major parts are the bowls. During experimental production of this heater, the resonating hemispherical bowl (1) usually is made from an old cover for a bicycle bell. The dimensions of this hemispherical bowl are not important. It is only vital that it falls into a sonic resonance at the frequency of 50 Hertz, and that it has the outer surface which is parallel and equidistant from the external buffering hemispherical bowl (2). To each of these two bowls a different wire of the household electricity supply (i.e. 220 V, 50 Hz) is connected. The heater must be submerged in water that it heat. It brings water to the boiling point extremely fast. More details about the design and operation of this sonic heater is provided in subsection K3.3 from volume 10 of monograph [1/4]. After being constructed, the Davey's telekinetic heater must be "tuned" in two different manners. The first tuning depends on providing the hemispherical bowl (1) with such frequency of the own oscillations, that makes this bowl to resonate acoustically when a sound of the frequency 50 Hertz is emitted nearby. The second tuning of the heater depends on appropriate selecting the distance "L" between both bowls (1) and (2). On this distance depends the formation of the standing wave between both bowls. Thus it decides about the energy efficiency of the entire heater. From the information that the inventor repeated to me, I gather that the measurements carried out by New Zealand scientists suggested that this heater may consume even less than the equivalent for around 5% of the energy that it generates in form of heat. This would indicate, that the electrical efficiency of this heater is around 2000%.

Shocking History of Revolutionary Boilers...

The design of the Davey's telekinetic heater is extremely simple. It actually is composed of only two major parts - see "Fig. #B2" below, or see "Fig. K8 (3)" from monograph [1/4]. The most important out of these two parts is a resonating hemispherical bowl (1) made of a sound inducing metal plate - the inventor always uses stainless steel bowl. The second part is a buffering hemispherical bowl (2) - almost identical in shape to the bowl (1). This second bawl has the radius around 4 mm larger than the resonating hemispherical bowl (1). Both bowls are assembled symmetrically one around the other, means the hemispherical bowl (1) is placed inside of the hemispherical bowl (2). Of course, apart from these two bowls, the heater also includes a long pipe (8) which holds remaining parts together, two nuts (5) and (3) which fix both bowls in their proper locations, a washer (4) which allows to regulate the mutual distance "L" between both bowls, and electrical wires (6) and (7) which supply electricity to both bowls and allow the heater to be submerged into water that it heats. But these other parts are marginal additions only. The major parts are the bowls. During experimental production of this heater, the resonating hemispherical bowl (1) usually is made from an old cover for a bicycle bell. The dimensions of this hemispherical bowl are not important. It is only vital that it falls into a sonic resonance at the frequency of 50 Hertz, and that it has the outer surface which is parallel and equidistant from the external buffering hemispherical bowl (2). To each of these two bowls a different wire of the household electricity supply (i.e. 220 V, 50 Hz) is connected. The heater must be submerged in water that it heats. It brings water to the boiling point extremely fast. More details about the design and operation of this telekinetic heater is provided in subsection K3.3 from volume 10 of monograph [1/4].

Tuning of the heater:

After being constructed, the Davey's telekinetic heater must be "tuned" in two different manners. The first tuning depends on providing the hemispherical bowl (1) with such frequency of the own oscillations, that makes this bowl to resonate acoustically when a sound of the frequency 50 Hertz is emitted nearby. The second tuning of the heater depends on appropriate selecting the distance "L" between both bowls (1) and (2). On this distance depends the formation of the standing wave between both bowls. Thus it decides about the energy efficiency of the entire heater.

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How-To Screen Shot On Any Android SmartPhone

Many of my affiliates ask me how to make screen shot or print screen with their Android smartphones. So today i will share my own experience how to do it, at the same time try it for your own android devices if it works or not. Screen shots or print screen mostly used to save images taken by online streaming or real-time task, like gaming. Some users do this specially in Android games, like the "Flappy Bird" they always want to print screen when ever they got a high score and using this for making reviews or bench marking.

How to Screen Shot Print Screen in Android Phone

Option 1:

1. Long press POWER and VOLUME DOWN buttons for 3-4 seconds until you hear the shutter sound. (On-Screen)

2. Screen shot/capture or print screen are saved on Screenshot folder (ex: Cherry Mobile Life) when you plug it your PC or laptop you will see the folder name "Screenshot"

3. Screenshot taken also auto stores via gallery. If screenshot has no image (blank image), Just free some phone memory.

4. Done!

Option 2:

1. Long press and hold down POWER and MENU buttons for 3-4 seconds or

2. Long press and hold down POWER and HOME/BACK button at the same time.

Option 3:

Download this Android app! (Works for Android 2.1 and up)

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Philippines Telco 3G/GPRS Internet Setting

How-To Activate Phone And Sim 3G/GPRS Internet Setting in the Philippines

Globe
Send SMS » GO (Phone Model),,1234 - Send to 2951

Smart
Send SMS » SET (Phone Model) - Send to 211

Sun Cellular
Send SMS » SETTINGS - Send to 2300
Send SMS » ACTIVATE - Send to 2300
B. Manual Configuration

GLOBE
Name: myGlobeInet
APN: http.globe.com.ph
IP: Leave It Blank
Port: 0

Name: myGlobeConnect
APN: www.globe.com.ph
IP: 203.177.042.214
Port: 8080

Name: myGlobeMMS
APN: mms.globe.com.ph
IP: 192.040.100.020
Port: 8080
HomePage: t.globe.com.ph

Smart
Name: SmartInternet
APN: INTERNET
IP: Leave It Blank
Port: 0

Name: SmartGPRS
APN: smart1
IP: 10.102.61.46
Port: 8080

Name: SmartMMS
APN: mms
IP: 10.102.61.46
Port: 8080
HomePage: wap.smart.com.ph

Sun Cellular
Name: Sun INTERNET
APN: minternet
IP: Leave It Blank
Port: 0

Name: Sun MMS
APN: mms
IP: 202.138.159.78
Port: 8080
HomePage: wap.suncellular.com.ph

Red Mobile
Name: Red Internet
APN: redinternet
IP: Leave It Blank
Port: 0

Name: Red MMS
APN: redmms
IP: 10.138.3.35
Port: 8080
HomePage: wap.redmobile.com

Touch Mobile (Working FBT)
Name: Touch Mobile(TM)
APN: mms.globe.com.ph
IP: 192.040.100.020
Port: 8080

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UNICEF : Appeal for 2.2 billion dollars to help 59 million children

For Syria and the surrounding area calls for $ 835 million to provide life-saving assistance including vaccinations, water and sanitation. Appeal for $ 2.2 billion to provide humanitarian assistance in 2014 to 85 million people, including 59 million children, who face conflicts, natural disasters and other complex emergencies in 50 countries, addressed the UNICEF.

The call "UNICEF Humanitarian Action for Children 2014 'highlights the daily challenges faced by children in humanitarian crises, the support needed to help them survive and prosper and the results can be achieved even in the toughest conditions.

For Syria and the surrounding area, UNICEF calls for 835 million U.S. dollars to provide life-saving assistance including vaccinations, water and sanitation, education, child protection and to support social cohesion and peace building for a more sustainable future.

UNICEF is working to address a wide range of humanitarian crises including malnutrition in the Sahel region, the lack of safe drinking water and adequate sanitation in Yemen, cholera in Haiti, increased attacks on children in Afghanistan, drought in Angola.

The resources of the call will also assist UNICEF to strengthen preparedness for future crises, conflicts or natural disasters and to enable the organization build on the work of 2013, during which achieved the following results:

• 24.5 million children were vaccinated against measles.
• 20 million people gained access to clean water and sanitation.
• 2.7 million children gained access to improved education.
• 1.9 million children were hospitalized for severe acute malnutrition.
• 935,000 children have been helped with psychological support.

However, the funding gap in some countries such as Angola, Eritrea, Lesotho and Madagascar-as well as inadequate access to humanitarian aid, insecurity and the difficult operating environment, means that many needs are not covered.

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OpenWRT : Installing Adblock with Pixelserv

There’re many ways of doing this. The scenario and configuration is flexible enough, depending on what you want to achieve.

The easy way

https://gist.github.com/teffalump/7227752

My review : Provide the simplest method, poisoned DNS record will be redirected to 127.0.0.1. Longer page load due to no content served in 127.0.0.1 (wait until connection timeout). However this script let you manually control on white list and black list domain.

https://gist.github.com/aarmot/5730468

My review: The script will attempt to create another interface alias and run pixelserv (simple webserver serving 1×1 pixel transparent gif) on that interface. However, you’ll not be able to manually control on white/black list as previous script.

My method

Again, this might not be the best way, but it served my requirements. I’ll be using the same script except that i tweaked it to suit my environment.

Step 1: Create interface alias

I need my pixelserv to run in different ip address (let say my LAN ip is 192.168.1.1/24 i want pixelserv to run on 192.168.88.1/24) so that my uhttpd can listen on 192.168.1.1:80 for LuCI. Add below interface to /etc/config/network

#nano /etc/config/network
config interface 'lan2'
 option ifname  'eth0'
 option proto 'static'
 option ipaddr  '192.168.88.1'
 option netmask '255.255.255.0'

Restart network interfaces
#/etc/init.d/network restart

Verify new interface alias created

root@OpenWrt:~# ifconfig
br-lan    Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 08:00:27:9A:88:DD
          inet addr:192.168.1.1  Bcast:192.168.1.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:629 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:661 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
          RX bytes:73752 (72.0 KiB)  TX bytes:393608 (384.3 KiB)

eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 08:00:27:9A:88:DD
          inet addr:192.168.88.1  Bcast:192.168.88.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:633 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:769 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
          RX bytes:82836 (80.8 KiB)  TX bytes:528224 (515.8 KiB)

eth1      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 08:00:27:9C:1E:FF
          inet addr:10.0.3.15  Bcast:10.0.3.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:157 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:138 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
          RX bytes:15482 (15.1 KiB)  TX bytes:13962 (13.6 KiB)

lo        Link encap:Local Loopback
          inet addr:127.0.0.1  Mask:255.0.0.0
          UP LOOPBACK RUNNING  MTU:16436  Metric:1
          RX packets:16 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:16 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
          RX bytes:1648 (1.6 KiB)  TX bytes:1648 (1.6 KiB)

root@OpenWrt:~# route
Kernel IP routing table
Destination     Gateway         Genmask         Flags Metric Ref    Use Iface
default         10.0.3.2        0.0.0.0         UG    0      0        0 eth1
10.0.3.0        *               255.255.255.0   U     0      0        0 eth1
192.168.1.0     *               255.255.255.0   U     0      0        0 br-lan
192.168.88.0    *               255.255.255.0   U     0      0        0 eth0

Step 2: Pixelserv setup

We already have a web server installed on the router (serving LuCI), we just need to configure a new uHTTPd server instance.

mkdir /www_pixelserv
wget -O /www_pixelserv/blank.gif http://probablyprogramming.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/tinytrans.gif

Edit /etc/config/uhttpd

config uhttpd 'main'
list listen_http '0.0.0.0192.168.1.1:80'
list listen_https '0.0.0.0:443'
option home '/www'

config uhttpd 'pixelserv'
list listen_http '192.168.88.1:80'
option home '/www_pixelserv'
option error_page '/blank.gif'

Restart uhttpd

/etc/init.d/uhttpd restart

Step 3: Adblock for dnsmasq
Follow installation instruction at https://gist.github.com/teffalump/7227752
For adblock.sh, add following lines to 127.0.0.1 with 192.168.88.1

....
#Download and process the files needed to make the lists (add more, if you want)
wget -qO- "http://adaway.org/hosts.txt"|grep "^127.0.0.1" >> /tmp/block.build.list

#Replace 127.0.0.1 with 192.168.88.1
sed -i 's/127.0.0.1/192.168.88.1/g' /tmp/block.build.list
#Add black list, if non-empty
[ -s "/etc/black.list" ] && sed -e 's/^/192.168.88.1\t/g' /etc/black.list >> /tmp/block.build.list
...

Update:

Above mentioned method (creating interface alias) is valid for interface that do not have vlan tagging. For my case, eth0 is tagged with vlan500 and vlan600 (eth0.500 and eth0.600) and I cannot find any documentation for creating alias for tagged interfaces. As workaround, I’ve changed the pixelserv uhttpd to listen to 192.168.1.1:80, while for router web ui (LuCI) listened to port 443.

This is my modified adblock.sh

!/bin/sh   
#Put in /etc/adblock.sh

#Script to grab and sort a list of adservers and malware

#Delete the old block.hosts to make room for the updates
rm -f /etc/block.hosts

#Download and process the files needed to make the lists (add more, if you want)
wget -qO- http://www.mvps.org/winhelp2002/hosts.txt| sed 's/0.0.0.0/127.0.0.1/g' |grep "^127.0.0.1" > /tmp/block.build.list
wget -qO- http://www.malwaredomainlist.com/hostslist/hosts.txt|grep "^127.0.0.1" >> /tmp/block.build.list
wget -qO- "http://hosts-file.net/.\ad_servers.txt"|grep "^127.0.0.1" >> /tmp/block.build.list
wget -qO- "http://adaway.org/hosts.txt"|grep "^127.0.0.1" >> /tmp/block.build.list

#Replace 127.0.0.1 with 192.168.88.1
sed -i 's/127.0.0.1/192.168.88.1/g' /tmp/block.build.list
#Add black list, if non-empty
[ -s "/etc/black.list" ] && sed -e 's/^/192.168.1.1\t/g' /etc/black.list >> /tmp/block.build.list

#Sort the download/black lists
sed -e 's/\r//g' -e 's/^192.168.88.1[ ]\+/192.168.88.1\t/g' /tmp/block.build.list|sort|uniq > /tmp/block.build.before

if [ -s "/etc/white.list" ]
then
    #Filter the blacklist, supressing whitelist matches
    sed -e 's/\r//g' /etc/white.list > /tmp/white.list
    grep -vf /tmp/white.list /tmp/block.build.before > /etc/block.hosts
    rm -f /tmp/white.list
else
    cat /tmp/block.build.before > /etc/block.hosts
fi

#Delete files used to build list to free up the limited space
rm -f /tmp/block.build.before

References:

• http://jazz.tvtom.pl/adblock-w-openwrt-gargoyle/
• https://gist.github.com/teffalump/7227752
• https://gist.github.com/aarmot/5730468
• http://sfxpt.wordpress.com/2011/02/21/the-best-ad-blocking-method
• https://forum.openwrt.org/viewtopic.php?id=35023&p=2

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OpenWrt : Installing Privoxy with Adblock filters

I’ve been using OpenWrt on my TP-Link WL740N for a while now. It’s lovely and with all the additional software you can install on it it’s even better.

I’ve got for example Privoxy installed on it. Privoxy is a (non-caching) proxy with filtering capabilities. So it basically means that Privoxy can filter out malware, ads & other junk from the webpages you visit.

What I’m going to show you is:

• how to install Privoxy on OpenWrt
• how to configure the firewall on your router to make the proxy transparent
• how to feed Privoxy with AdBlock rules and automatically keep them up to date

All the bash commands below are ment the be executed on the router. Preferably via a ssh connection (ssh router).

Install Privoxy

Let’s first install Privoxy on the router:

opkg update

opkg install privoxy

cd /etc/privoxy/

Then make /etc/privoxy/config look like this:

confdir /etc/privoxy

logdir /var/log

filterfile default.filter

logfile privoxy

actionsfile match-all.action # Actions that are applied to all sites and maybe overruled later on.

actionsfile default.action # Main actions file

filterfile user.filter

listen-address 192.168.5.1:8118

toggle 1

enable-remote-toggle 1

enable-remote-http-toggle 0

enable-edit-actions 1

enforce-blocks 0

buffer-limit 4096

forwarded-connect-retries 0

accept-intercepted-requests 1

allow-cgi-request-crunching 0

split-large-forms 0

keep-alive-timeout 300

socket-timeout 300

permit-access 192.168.5.0/24

debug 8192 # Errors - *we highly recommended enabling this*

Make sure to replace the 192.168.5.x addresses with ones that match your network setup.

If everything is ok, start up Privoxy with /etc/init.d/privoxy start. Check if it’s running by doing ps | grep -i privoxy

And to make sure everything is running fine: tail -n20 /var/log/privoxy.log
Configure the firewall

Next up we’re going to adjust the firewall on the router so Privoxy becomes our transparent proxy.

Add this rule to /etc/config/firewall:

config redirect

option proto 'tcp'

option target 'DNAT'

option dest 'lan'

option _name 'transparent-proxy for HTTP'

option src 'lan'

option dest_port '8118'

option src_dport '80'

option dest_ip '192.168.5.1'

option src_dip '!192.168.5.1'

Again, make sure you adjust the ip addresses properly.

Next up, restart the firewall: /etc/init.d/firewall restart.

You could also do this via the OpenWrt webinterface (LuCI):

Automate fetching and updating of Adblock filters

We’re going to use a script made by Andrwe that automatically downloads and converts adblock filters to privoxy filters (their format is different).

First install the dependencies for this script:

opkg install coreutils-install wget bash sed

Then install the script itself:

cd /etc/privoxy

wget https://raw.github.com/Andrwe/privoxy-blocklist/master/privoxy-blocklist.sh --no-check-certificate

chmod +x privoxy-blocklist.sh

sed -i s/^SCRIPTCONF.*/SCRIPTCONF=\\/etc\\/privoxy\\/blocklist.conf/ privoxy-blocklist.sh

Create a configuration file for the script:

touch /etc/privoxy/blocklist.conf

And make it look like this:

# Config of privoxy-blocklist

# array of URL for AdblockPlus lists

# for more sources just add it within the round brackets

URLS=(

"https://easylist-downloads.adblockplus.org/malwaredomains_full.txt"

"https://easylist-downloads.adblockplus.org/fanboy-social.txt"

"https://easylist-downloads.adblockplus.org/easyprivacy.txt"

"https://easylist-downloads.adblockplus.org/easylist.txt"

"https://easylist-downloads.adblockplus.org/easylistdutch.txt"

# "https://easylist-downloads.adblockplus.org/easylistdutch+easylist.txt"

)

# config for privoxy initscript providing PRIVOXY_CONF, PRIVOXY_USER and PRIVOXY_GROUP

INIT_CONF="/etc/conf.d/privoxy"

# !! if the config above doesn't exist set these variables here !!

# !! These values will be overwritten by INIT_CONF !!

PRIVOXY_USER="root"

PRIVOXY_GROUP="root"

PRIVOXY_CONF="/etc/privoxy/config"

# name for lock file (default: script name)

TMPNAME="$(basename ${0})"

# directory for temporary files

TMPDIR="/tmp/${TMPNAME}"

# Debug-level

# -1 = quiet

# 0 = normal

# 1 = verbose

# 2 = more verbose (debugging)

# 3 = incredibly loud (function debugging)

DBG=0

Then run the program for the first time to check if everything is working:

/etc/privoxy/privoxy-blocklist.sh

The scripts adds actionsfile entries to the /etc/privoxy/config file. When I upgraded my OpenWrt router from Attitude Adjustment to Barrier Breaker this broke for me. That’s why I added some actionsfile entries myself:

...

actionsfile match-all.action # Actions that are applied to all sites and maybe

overruled later on.

actionsfile default.action # Main actions file

filterfile malwaredomains_full.script.filter

filterfile fanboy-social.script.filter

filterfile easyprivacy.script.filter

filterfile easylist.script.filter

filterfile easylistdutch.script.filter

filterfile user.filter

actionsfile malwaredomains_full.script.action

actionsfile fanboy-social.script.action

actionsfile easyprivacy.script.action

actionsfile easylist.script.action

actionsfile easylistdutch.script.action

actionsfile user.action

listen-address 192.168.5.1:8118

...

Restart Privoxy again and check /var/log/privoxy.log to make sure everything is still allright.

You could also check http://privoxy.org/ in your browser to see if Privoxy is running ok.

To keep your filters up to date add this to your crontab (crontab -e):

@weekly /etc/privoxy/privoxy-blocklist.sh

Via vanutsteen

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Huawei's MediaQ M310 : World's Tiniest Media Player Hub

BARCELONA, Spain--Chinese tech manufacturer Huawei normally makes smartphones, but now it wants to take control of your TV with its tiny MediaQ M310.

This black box is a truly minuscule media hub, measuring only 14mm thick. It's so light you could almost forget you were holding it, and it would easily slot behind your TV, out of sight.

Inside is a quad-core processor, the same chip that's powering Huawei's newest flagship phone, the Ascend P2. That should give the M310 enough grunt to chew through graphically testing games or high-definition movies. That chip is backed up by 1GB of RAM.

The box is both Wi-Fi and Bluetooth capable, and comes with 32GB of storage and a microSD card slot, in case you need even more space. An optical audio port and two HDMI ports round off the connectivity nicely.

One of those HDMI sockets is an input; the other is an output. That means you could connect your set-top box to the MediaQ, and then hook up Huawei's box to your TV, potentially creating a central hub through which many services are controlled.

I say potentially because Huawei doesn't seem entirely sure what the M310 is for. Basic tasks could be playing video stored on the device on your TV, but I also saw an Android tablet-mirroring app, so you could play games or use apps on the large screen, for instance. The M310's software itself is a modified version of Android, I was told, so downloading apps directly to the box could be a possibility.

To be honest, there's nothing I saw that can't be replicated by many modern smartphones, tablets, or by Samsung's new HomeSync media hub.

I suspect the M310's best chance of standing out from the crowd is a low price tag. If it's very cheap, this flexible gadget could attract Android enthusiasts who enjoy tinkering with their home cinema setup, in the same vein as the extremely cheap Raspberry Pi microcomputer.

There's no word on pricing yet, but the M310 will be available around May or June. Huawei is also cooking up the MediaQ M210, an HDMI dongle that has a single-core processor, less RAM, and only one HDMI port. The thinking is that you'll plug this dongle into your TV to play video, though details were a little thin on the ground when I saw it.

Via Cnet

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How-To Huawei Echolife BM623m Change MAC Address

Many of fellow Netizens and forumers alike are really eager to tweak of their new Huawei BM623m 4G WiMAX broadband wireless modem. Such curiosity is the default username and password of the admin likewise the user account also. The greatest login that we are really longing is to be able to gain the telnet access for such to manage and change the MAC address of this CPE.

The Huawei Echolife BM623m is identical to BM622m it is also power by MediaTek processor and likewise loaded with Redboot just like the Green Packet CPE such as the myBRO DV235T. The advantage of BM623m is that it is equip with built-in internal WiFi there is no need for additional wireless router.

Here's the video on how-to change the MAC address of Huawei BM623n 4G WiMAX wireless broadband modem, first is you have to enable the telnet on the GUI just use firebug or web developer.

More features of Huawei Echolife Bm623m on my next post the pros and cons, specifications, manual, likewise tutorial and also update firmware manual via web gui or via winspread.

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Unbrick TP-Link TL-WR703N 3G Wireless Router

If you are like myself you push the thing a little too far, you should find this useful ;)

If nothing is responding anymore on your router !!!

Locate the GND, TX and RX on the board :

Solder some wire on it, this is very difficult, because it is really small and the solder doesn't stick well on it. Once it is done, glue everything and let some easy access wire, that could be useful after.

Plug a 3.3V TTL serial adapter (pl2303, ftdi, ...etc.) on the wire and open a serial terminal (minicom, realterm, docklight, ...) @ 115200/8/N/1/XON-XOFF.

Power on the wr703n and quiclky send "tpl" followed by enter to the terminal, this will make the wr703n enter in rescue U-boot hornet.

Install a small tftp server on your computer (ex: http://tftpd32.jounin.net/) and plug an ethernet cable between your computer and the wr703n.

Configure the IP adress of your computer to 192.168.1.100 and put the file
openwrt-ar71xx-generic-tl-wr703n-v1-squashfs-factory.bin on the tftp server.

On the serial terminal enter the following lines :

code :

hornet> tftpboot 0x81000000 openwrt-ar71xx-generic-tl-wr703n-v1-squashfs-factory.bin

hornet> erase 0x9f020000 +0x3c0000

hornet> cp.b 0x81000000 0x9f020000 0x3c0000

hornet> bootm 9f020000

wait until it has uploaded and another extra couple of second before reset.

unplug the power, wait a bit, replug, the system should be freshly working...

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Prepare To Bug Your Enemies While Hoarding Food In Bug Heroes 2

Bug Heroes 2 (Free) by Foursaken Media is the sequel to the original Bug Heroes [Deluxe] RPG. This release comes three years after the original version, and given this, it should be worlds better, right? If that is what you have been expecting, you're in luck.

The idea of Bug Heroes is that you must fight against other bugs to compete for food (which are actually human food remnants) during the day when the house is vacant. In Bug Heroes 2, your options have expanded to places such as the kitchen, living room, and front lawn. The at-home feeling that you get with this, just like in the first version, makes the game feel much more serious and less like a fantasy.

The new release of Bug Heroes allows players to have a much more intimate relationship with the game. There are two views that can both be utilized for their own benefits; one is more of a bird's-eye view while the other is more up close and parallel to the ground. Also, if you are embarrassingly bad at aiming (or is that just me?), the nifty auto-aim and auto-firing options make the game a breeze to play. However, if you are looking for more challenge, turn these features off and you'll find some.

Bug Heroes 2 includes single and multiplayer modes. In the single-player category, you have the flexibility of choosing between three modes: Endless, where rounds require you to to protect your food stash, Missions, where specific levels with objectives are to be completed, and Skirmish, where you must switch between protecting your own food and hunting for others'. All of these modes have their own unique challenging aspects to them, with some allowing you to select difficulty levels to further customize the game for you. Also, should you prefer to play in the company of a friend, you can compete over Game Center in co-op, one-on-one, or two-on-two missions.

Overall, I found Bug Heroes 2's gameplay to be significantly better than that of the first. The auto-aim and shooting options are extremely helpful, and the controls seem to be much more tactile and responsive than in the first version. Along with this, the graphics have vastly improved and are much more vivid and rich.

Since Bug Heroes 2 is a freemium title, things cost money. While I wish that the game didn't have more than two different currencies, with only one available via in-app purchase, I have yet to run into any roadblocks with the price model. All in all, the game's new playing elements, controls, visuals, and modes make Bug Heroes 2 a clear improvement over its predecessor, and for this reason, you should download it for free in the App Store as a universal app.

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TP-Link TL-WR703N Reflash With English Firmware

Looking for English interface for your TP-Link TL-WR703N router? The wait is over.

Disclaimer : Before u go ahead with the steps, let me make it clear that I am not responsible for any bricked devices so please do it at your own risk. I’ve tried my best to make it as easy as possible to understand and follow but if u still have any query u can leave comments.

It works with v1.5 and v1.6 (these have been tested).
See pic below to find out which version of router you've got.

Pre-requisites :

• LAN/RJ-45 cable (don’t re-flash your router wirelessly huh!!)
• New bin File… Click here to download
• WinRAR or 7Zip or any other software to extract the files.

Known issues:

Since we are flashing modded bin of TL-WR3020 to TL-WR703N(both have the same hardware except number of LED's) the only issue till date is that LED won’t blink when connected through a DSL modem but that doesn’t affect the functionality(I don’t think that’s a deal breaker as you r gonna get an English interface) and who keeps looking at the LED all the time?

LED works just fine if you use it with any USB dongle and Of course you always have the option to go back to the stock firmware.

Procedure :

1.]  First extract the zip file you just downloaded.

2.] Connect ur router to ur computer through a LAN/RJ-45 cable,

3.] Open your web browser(preferably Internet Explorer). In the address bar type 192.168.1.1 and hit enter.

Username : admin

Password : admin

4.] Now you need to select the bin file for flashing.

How to know where to click to select the bin file? Check screenshot below (Click on image to enlarge).

Click on appropriate options as shown above and select upload bin fine and click on OK

Wait for 2-3 minutes, router will auto restart Just wait n watch you’ll have the English interface in front of you.

If after flashing you are not able to access your router using the default IP(192.168.1.1) then access it using IP - 192.168.0.254

Do NOT turn off the power or remove the Ethernet cable during the upgrade process

Not happy with the new interface? Wanna go back to old Chinese interface?

Click here and download the Original .bin file and simply follow the aforesaid instructions to flash and you’ll have the old interface back again.

Hope it helps... Please don't forget to leave Comments

Happy Flashing :)

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TP-LINK TL-WR703N - a tiny Linux-capable device for under $23

Update June 2012: As many have noted in the comments, TP-Link sadly decided not to release the TL-WR703N in Europe / America. The TL-WR702N looks identical and is available internationally, but it will not work (it only has 2MB flash)! The closest alternative is the MR3020. This has the same internal hardware as the TL-WR703N, but its case is a little bigger (7.4cm x 6.7cm).

Unless you've been living under the geek equivalent of a rock for the past six months you'll have heard of the Raspberry Pi project. The embedded device they are building will offer incredible power for the $25 it is projected to cost when launched in November 2011. A slightly higher specification 'Model B' (with more memory and a 10/100Mbps Ethernet interface) will cost around $10 more.

The prospect of having a well specified device the size of a credit card, consuming minimal power, that can run Linux is tempting many (including your author).

Patience is a virtue waste of time

But what if you can't wait? There are plenty of options available today that can run Linux:

• Intel Atom based devices: Intel's low power CPUs dominate the netbook market, but have failed to dent the mobile/embedded space. You can find plenty of Atom-based mini-ITX (17cm square) boards and enclosures out there, and there will be plenty of options to use big disks, add more RAM, and so on. All of this comes at a price - not only financially, but also in power consumption and physical footprint.
• PC Engines Alix: A little known Swiss manufacturer, PC Engines has been producing high quality x86 boards for many years now. The Alix series utilise the AMD Geode CPUs. These are starting to look a little long in the tooth now, and the price is relatively high (around $100 for the board alone, without enclosure, power supply, etc).
• Linksys WRT54GL: No list of embedded devices that can be hacked to run Linux would be complete without a reference to the WRT54GL. Sadly this device is looking very dated now - it only has a 200MHz Broadcom CPU and it peaks at around 30Mbps WAN throughput.
• Modern routers: The Linksys WRT160NL, Buffalo WZR-HP-G300NH, Netgear WNDR3700, TP-LINK TL-WR1043ND (and others) all utilise Atheros chipsets and are supported by OpenWrt (an embedded Linux distribution discussed below). Whilst these are all great devices, they don't have the low cost and small physical size that gives them the 'wow factor' of the Raspberry Pi.
• Ubiquiti NanoStation: This tiny little device is the only one mentioned that I've not experimented with myself. Whilst its footprint and OpenWrt support are appealing, its 180MHz CPU and relatively high cost ($79) leaves me wanting more.

All of these are either far more than $35 (I'm assuming we all want network connectivity), physically too large, have too little grunt, or a combination of the aforementioned.

So is that it then? Should we pack up our things and just wait until November/December for a tiny, lower power device that can run Linux? Not just yet.

And in the red corner...

TP-LINK is a Chinese consumer networking equipment manufacturer that many of us in Europe and America would not have heard of a year ago. Today they boast of being the largest broadband CPE manufacturer in the world (by market share), but this isn't why we're interested in them.

In early September 2011 TP-LINK launched a new device in China snappily dubbed the TL-WR703N. This device is designed to be a portable 3G WiFi router; plug in a USB 3G dongle and the device will broadcast the Internet connection via Ethernet and WiFi. But again, we're Linux enthusiasts, we're not fussed about what the devices was intended to be used for.

Let's take a look the specifications:

• Atheros 400MHz MIPS CPU
• 32MB RAM
• 4MB flash
• 10/100Mbps Ethernet interface
• 802.11b/g/n wireless interface with one internal antenna
• USB 2.0 port
• Micro-USB power socket, approximately 1W power draw
• 5.7cm x 5.7cm x 1.8cm dimensions

There's no video output of any form (nor would you expect there to be on a 3G router!), so this is not going to be playing Quake 3 any time soon. That said, this is perfect hardware for a headless Linux box. And you needn't buy an extra case, wireless card, Ethernet module, power supply, etc - they're all included.

And the cost? It's not available outside of China yet, but you can order it from volumerates.com or some Alibaba sellers for about $23 (US) including delivery. I'm told it will start being sold in the US and Europe over the next few weeks.

Show me some pictures!

And now for a brief visual interlude from all this text:

The box has a very Apple-esque feel and the device is clearly aimed as a competitor for the Airport Express

In the box: Some manuals, a USB to micro-USB cable, a Chinese USB to wall plug adapter, and the device itself

The size of the RJ45 port provides a sense of scale. Also pictured: micro-USB power, reset button and power LED.

The device uses the Atheros AR9331 SoC

OpenWrt: An embedded Linux distribution

OpenWrt, for those that are not aware, bills itself as "a Linux distribution for embedded devices". It's entirely free, entirely open source and actively maintained. It's aimed primarily at users wishing to reflash their wireless routers with something far more powerful than the manufacturer's firmware. Such devices typically have very limited flash storage, RAM and processing power, so OpenWrt needs to be very frugal with its resource usage. Hundreds of common Linux applications are available via their packaging system, and if what you want is not available then the tools are provided for you to build it yourself.

But OpenWrt will not run on every wireless router. A list of supported devices is published here. But when you consider how many router models are out there, the number of supported devices is quite limited.

TP-LINK has a very positive reputation inside the OpenWrt community due to their almost exclusive use of Atheros chipsets (which have strong open source support). So when I first saw this device I knew there was a very strong chance that OpenWrt could run on it. Less than a week after donating my TL-WR703N to the project, the OpenWrt developers had incorporated full support for it. Success!

Installing OpenWrt on the TL-WR703N

Installing OpenWrt on the TL-WR703N is very straightforward. To summarise the steps involved:

1. Connect a network cable between your PC and the TL-WR703N, and set a static IP on your PC of 192.168.1.2 (subnet mask: 255.255.255.0)
2. Head to the TP-Link admin interface on http://192.168.1.1. Login with user "admin" and password "admin"
3. Find the Router Upgrade link on the left-hand menu (or go directly to http://192.168.1.1/userRpm/SoftwareUpgradeRpm.htm)
4. Upload the latest OpenWrt snapshot for the TL-WR703N
5. Wait 4-5 minutes for the firmware to upload and the device to reboot. The blue LED will be lit solid when it's finished.
6. You should be able to telnet to the device on 192.168.1.1 and receive an OpenWrt prompt (no password required)

If you want a web interface on the device then you should:

• Set a password on the device (use the "passwd" command). Note: once you've done this you will need to SSH to the device, telnet will be disabled.
• Configure /etc/config/network with an IP address, gateway and DNS servers that allow the device to access the Internet. Either reboot the device or run "/etc/init.d/network restart" to apply the settings.
• Run "opkg update" and "opkg install luci" to install the web interface.

Living with the TL-WR703N

So what can you do with this tiny $23 Linux device? If you've read this far then you've probably got some ideas already (I'd love to hear them), but here's a few thoughts:

• The USB port needn't be used for a 3G dongle (the original intended purpose). For example: Plug in a USB hard disk, install Samba, and you've got yourself a tiny little NAS.
• It's easy to forget the device has a WiFi interface. You could run a tiny wireless access point / bridge, or a wireless network scanner, or IDS, or ...
• The fact that it can be powered by micro-USB means you can power it from nearly anything that has a USB (host) port. Your existing router perhaps? Your monitor? An in-car USB power adaptor?
• Mobile phone battery packs (which typically have micro-USB connectors, now that they are the standard) could be used to power the device for portable use.
• The CPU and Ethernet interface are surprisingly powerful - if you configure it properly you can easily saturate the 100Mbps interface (I've tested this with iperf both in TCP and UDP modes).

Just as importantly, here are some key limitations (these apply to many OpenWrt-based devices of course):

• You're not going to have much luck running large application suites on this device. For example, a full Apache / PHP / MySQL stack is not going to be viable (due to RAM and storage limitations).
• The wireless antenna is a strip mounted on the PCB, so don't expect wonderful coverage.
• Don't keep writing to the root file system (a flash overlay): repeated writes will wear out the flash chip. Use /tmp if you can live with temporary storage, or attach additional storage via USB. This applies to most OpenWrt supported devices.

Conclusion

The TL-WR703N running OpenWrt is a formidable embedded device. It has a solid feature set, a tiny form factor and a low price tag. What's not to like?

I've written this post in the hope of sharing my enthusiasm for this device. Almost everyone I've shown the device to has been staggered by its form factor and every person has a different idea for how to use it. I think it has the potential to become an extremely popular device and I'm really looking forward to seeing what people do with them.

Further reading

• The TL-WR703N wiki page on OpenWrt.org. If you have additional insights/comments that might be useful to others, then please register and contribute to the wiki!
• The OpenWrt forums are a good place to start for questions or issues. Be sure to search the forums and wiki before posting.
• If you're a Chinese user, right.com.cn has a dedicated OpenWrt section and has a lot of recent threads on the TL-WR703N.
• Further photos at a higher resolution are available in my Picasa album.

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