Wi-Fi SD cards are becoming more democratic with some decent Class 10 around 45€. I've tested 2 of the most affordable ones on the market.

I was watching this Blu-Ray player for a few months and after having compared the features and prices with other Samsung and Sony players, it ended up as the logical choice. It took less thant a week to arrive from a German eBay shop that beats my usual providers (Amazon, Komplett, Pixmania) in terms of price and stock availability.

The installation was surprisingly easy and quick: after about 15 minutes, the unit was Network-connected, Region-hacked, and Firmware-updated ! Never mind the user manual was only in German (I downloaded the EN version from lge.com), it was really not necessary!

The little rural village where I live in Ireland has been blessed two years ago with the arrival of the 3G, and the national operator couldn't do anything against it this time (they're still making so much money with all the dial-up users!).
Some competition finally took off, and viable wireless solution became available in this Internet black spot.
So it's only in mid-2007 that I got an internet access with a usable bandwidth (and stop laughing, will you!).

This gave at last some justification to invest in a wireless router and wifi-enabled gadgets.

Thanks to that, I've been close to adopt a rabbit.

At that time, I read a lot of related articles and reviews and it appears that many customers are complaining about the randomly accessible server and the few services that actually work.
What holds me as well is certainly the price tag of the Nabaztag (€200).
The only potential competitor seems to be a wireless (not wi-fi) penguin (€150) built around the same idea, but more Linux developer than final-user friendly.

This product will certainly evolve and may become more attractive with time. So I keep it in my whish-list.

Known alternatives:

- Tux Droid penguin.

- Chumby.
- Your next TV ?

I must confess that I bought this item by mistake: I expected this tiny wireless storage to be the perfect companion for my DVR (Digital Video Recorder). But I neglected to ensure that it would have a USB Host type of port, and it's not the case. So it cannot act as a flash drive for the DVR, if you follow me.

Still, it's a nice device: small enough, using a 6.3cm (2.5") hard drive, and running on a mini linux OS (telnet access to it can be enabled). Mine came as a SMC WAPS-G flashed with the latest WMU-6000FS firmware from Ovislink. This brand offers a convenient download manager (BitTorrent, HTTP and FTP) as part of its embedded software and while it's not exempt from bugs and typos, it does the job quite nicely, sending you an email when the download is done. Last seen just below €50.- (without the hard drive).

The site macsat.com and its wiki are the places for push the limits further with custom firmwares. However, you should decide if you really need those additional features and make yourself familiar with the recovery techniques (jtag) beforehand as it seems quite common to end up turning that wi-fi storage into a useless brick.

Pros:
+ affordable storage solution
+ mini Linux kernel on board
+ highly tweakable (source codes are available from some manufacturers)

Cons:
- Official development abandoned (latest fw dated 2007/12/07)
- Disputable reliability
- Some bugs

See also: Hacking MGB100

Other known clones:
Level-One (WAP-0007), Comet Labs (MGB100), Conceptronic (CHD2WLANU), Micronica (MGB100), Safecom (SWSAPUR-5400), Pearl (PE6643)

I've been searching for a wireless camera solution to second my troublesome and unreliable X10-based alarm system. This dial-up central is very sensible to interferences and so always called me following a false alarm. Having a way to confirm visually an intrusion would be a good thing for the day this alarm would really go off for a good reason.

Below is a compilation of the frequently asked questions on IP cameras subjects found on this site.
While they initially apply to the model fi8908w from Foscam, they are susceptible to be of interest for other models and brands.