How to Open the Case of the Netgear WNR3500L Router

In the following video, I show you how to open the case (i.e. enclosure) of the Netgear WNR3500L Wireless-N Gigabit Open Source Router.

Why would you want to open the case of the WNR3500L anyway? As you may have learned from watching my recent unboxing video, the WNR3500L is an open source router, which allows you to install third party firmware on it such as dd-wrt, TomatoUSB and OpenWrt.

Sometimes, however, things can go wrong when Continue reading » How to Open the Case of the Netgear WNR3500L Router




Unboxing the Netgear WNR3500L Router

In this video, I unbox the Netgear WNR3500L Wireless-N Gigabit Open Source Router.

My new WNR3500L router should be an excellent upgrade over the venerable Linksys WRT54GL. Some highlights of WNR3500L include:

  • Wireless-N networking
  • 4 Gigabit wired ports
  • 64 MB RAM
  • 8 MB Flash
  • Fast CPU (for this class of router)
  • USB 2.0 port
  • Support for 3rd party open source firmware
  • Community website

The best things in life are free

Ever had one of those weird moments when you check out what’s stuck in your wallet and compare it with that of your buddies? I’m not talking about how much money you have, but all of the other things – receipts, drivers license, club cards, gym memberships, packs of sugar, …? (Think George in that old episode of Seinfeld)

Well, this post is all about what’s stuck in your development environment. Perhaps one of the biggest lessons I have learned over the past few years is that some of the best development and I.T. tools out there don’t have to cost you an arm and a leg. There was once upon a time when we subscribed to a different model: the pay-as-you-go model, where every time we ran into a problem, we’d call up our favourite vendor and “discover” what next big purchase we would need to make to solve the problem. Continue reading » The best things in life are free