{"id":6270,"date":"2012-02-03T12:18:09","date_gmt":"2012-02-03T18:18:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sportsfirings.com\/?p=6270"},"modified":"2012-02-03T16:34:13","modified_gmt":"2012-02-03T22:34:13","slug":"i-heartily-endorse-this-event-or-product-7-in-a-series","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sportsfirings.com\/?p=6270","title":{"rendered":"I heartily endorse this event or product. (#7 in a series)"},"content":{"rendered":"

ThinkPenguin.<\/a><\/p>\n

Back in May of last year, I wrote about upgrading my wireless router to a dual-band Netgear WNDR3700<\/a>, and the problem posed by the lack of a dual-band wireless adapter in the Project e netbook<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Since then, I’ve been looking for a dual-band 2.4GHz – 5GHz 802.11N USB adapter that was fully supported by Ubuntu out of the box; no NDIS wrapper<\/a>, just straight plug it in and have it work. I actually bought and returned one adapter that ended up not meeting those requirements. I kept looking, and kept beating my head against a wall.<\/p>\n

The last time the issue came up, I noticed a mention of ThinkPenguin on the Ubuntu “WifiDocs\/WirelessCardsSupported” page<\/a>. “Okay,” I said to myself. “Why not check to see what they have?”<\/p>\n

Sure enough, ThinkPenguin offered a dual-band USB wireless 802.11N adapter that they claimed would work right out of the box with all current versions of Ubuntu. It was a little more expensive than the 802.11N adapters that you find on sale at Fry’s, but by this point I was willing to pay a few extra dollars for something that would Just. Freaking. Work. So I placed an order.<\/p>\n

I picked up the adapter last night, booted up the netbook, plugged it in, and…<\/p>\n

…It. Just. Works. Right out of the box. Ubuntu had no problems recognizing the device, I had no problems connecting to my 5 GHz network (even without external antennas; more on this in a moment), and I’m getting the expected substantial speed improvement. If I get a chance, I’ll see if I can post some direct speed comparisons between ThinkPenguin’s adapter and the Asus built-in one.<\/p>\n

I’ve also had occasion to communicate with ThinkPenguin support, and I was extremely impressed with the speed of their response; using their online support form, I got a response back to my questions in less than one hour. I consider that outstanding.<\/p>\n

I will concede, as I said above, that ThinkPenguin’s offerings are a little more expensive than the stuff you find at Fry’s. I paid $64 for the adapter I ordered (plus about $6 for priority mail shipping); dual-band adapters at Fry’s typically seem to run about $40 (plus local tax of 8.25%) for name brands. The thing is, my time is worth more than $20\/hour to me; I’m willing to pay for stuff that works right away, and does what I want it to do without limits.<\/p>\n

If that’s the way you feel, I recommend you check out ThinkPenguin<\/a>.<\/p>\n

(One other point: you’ll note that I didn’t offer a specific link to the adapter I bought. That’s because, according to ThinkPenguin support, they’ve dropped that adapter from their catalog. TP states they plan to introduce a new adapter in the next month or two, as soon as they can raise funds to get the adapter produced. In the meantime, while the adapter I ordered is not listed on their site, TP still has a small stock available, and you can purchase it by contacting them through their website or calling 1-888-39-THINK (84465). Please note that I haven’t received any freebies from TP; I’m just a very satisfied customer.)<\/p>\n

(Edited to add: Also, if you’re going to order an adapter that supports external antennas, just a note: it is easier to order both the adapter and the antennas at the same time. TP will still sell you the antennas as a separate item; they just don’t have them cataloged, and it will require an email\/phone call.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ThinkPenguin. Back in May of last year, I wrote about upgrading my wireless router to a dual-band Netgear WNDR3700, and the problem posed by the lack of a dual-band wireless adapter in the Project e netbook. Since then, I’ve been looking for a dual-band 2.4GHz – 5GHz 802.11N USB adapter that was fully supported by […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,12,25,24,27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6270","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-endorsements","category-geek","category-linux","category-netbook","category-project_e"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsfirings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6270","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsfirings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsfirings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsfirings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsfirings.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6270"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsfirings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6270\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6288,"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsfirings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6270\/revisions\/6288"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsfirings.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6270"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsfirings.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6270"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsfirings.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6270"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}