Nucleocide.net

I’m often asked by people what the best wireless card for hacking is, especially if the card is something that can be used in their laptop. It used to be that you could only get an awesome card if you hunted down some expensive Orinoco PCMCIA card or bought one of the $200 PCAP cards. But, thanks to a company called Alfa, cheap cards with full “hacking” support are available.

The awesome part is you can get one from Amazon for $25: 1000mW 1W 802.11g/n High Gain USB Wireless G / N Long-Rang WiFi Network Adapter – Dongle

Specifically, the feature you are looking for with a good wireless card is one that can go into “Monitor” or “Promiscuous” mode. This is what lets the card sit back and report every packet it finds to the operating system. Most cards discard packets which are intended for other clients, unless a driver exists for it to prevent this, but that only happens if the hardware manufacturer releases their drivers open source.

Another awesome thing about this card is that it supports “Master” mode, which allows it to function as if it were a wireless Router. This happens to be the reason I bought the card, so that I can have an all in one home server / router solution.

For $25 you’d be crazy not to buy this thing! The one I got has an attractive semi-transparent base, blue LED, and some floral patterns on it. It comes with a small antenna, which gives it a farther range than an internal card and most other wireless cards. Also, the antenna port is standardized, so you could do something even cooler like plug in a cantenna for very far range. I was able to get the card working out of the box (no drivers needed) in monitor mode under both Linux and OS X, and I’m sure it will run under Windows with no issues as well.

My M-Audio Studiophile AV 40′s arrived in the mail from Woot a few days ago and I’ve been using them ever since. These things kick ass, let me tell you. For only $100 they were an amazing deal and I’m glad to finally get rid of my old amp and speakers. With an amp built right into the speakers, these are a great space saver for any music producer or audio aficionado. The Woot sale is long gone, but you can purchase these for a similar price over at Amazon: M-Audio Studiophile AV 40 Powered Speakers

The first thing I should let you know, these aren’t as good as their expensive studio monitor counterparts. But, unless you’re mixing for big bands, you will not notice the difference.

On the front of the speakers are headphones out and a line in, both 1/8″, and a volume knob. Turning the knob all the way down will not power off the speaker, to do that you’ll need to use the switch on the back of the speakers. The device has RCA inputs, and outputs to run to the second speaker on the right. There is also a bass boost switch on the back of the speakers, which seem to contrast with the purpose of the speakers.

In order to get the optimal sound out of these speakers, you’ll want them to be standing vertically, and in a triangle with the position of the two speakers and your head, with the three items being 6 feet apart. If you don’t believe me, go ahead and move these things around, you will notice the difference.

These things also come with a double male 1/8″ pin (for the line in), a wire to the second speaker (of course), and an 1/8″ pin to RCA cable. I thought this was a nice touch, a lot of hardware manufacturers refuse to ship these sort of cables, especially when not all clients would need them. Thanks M-Audio for being awesome!

I do a little bit of music production, though not as much as I used to. These will be replacing my old speakers and will primarily be used for listening to music and for video game audio. So far they do an amazing job. They can get very loud and keep from distorting.

There are a few drawbacks to these speakers, although the drawbacks only apply to someone not using these for audio mastering. The bass isn’t the best on these things (the graph depicting frequency response for these has a big drop off near the bass end). Consumer level speakers do a little bit of internal EQing to boost the bass and trebble and dropping the mid’s so that the music sounds a little better, these speakers do not do that. If you leave the speakers on all the time, they will get pretty hot in the back and suck power out of the wall. The power switch is on the back, so they can’t be hidden and forgotten somewhere on your bookshelf.

Conclusion: If you are an audio nut looking for a good deal and who doesn’t mind a little inconvenience in exchange for sound quality, grab these! If you’re a casual listener and don’t plan on doing any music production, there are better speakers out there for you.