NetComm Wireless Modem Router

A couple of days ago my F5D7230-4 Belkin wireless router stopped working. I was hoping that it was an adaptor problem, so I went to the electronics shop and tested it with a new adaptor, but unfortunately it still did not work. I've had this router for more than 3 years and I actually like this wireless router as it had been providing me with excellent signal strength.

Now, the way I set up my home networking was by using a modem router given by my ISP, NetComm NB9W. The "W" is supposed to give me wireless support as well but I was not satisfied with the range. It was so hopeless that when I moved to another room, which is not so far away, the signal was extremely weak. That is the reason why I used my Belkin wireless router on top of this modem. I just switched off the modem's wireless option.

I was a man on a mission to get a new wireless N router/modem. I searched online, ebay, and went to a few computer shops. Initially, I was a bit sceptical about "x" in one devices since essentially a wireless router modem is a 3-in-1 device (a modem, a wireless router, and a switch), hence the reason why I used two separate devices. When one goes wrong, I could just replace the faulty one instead of the whole thing. I then went on to see different reviews of different products on the net, including NetGear, NetComm, Linksys, Belkin, and D-Link. I wanted to get another Belkin since it had been proven as a good performer in terms of its wireless signal. I was also told that the NetComm modem that I have is actually one of the lowest ranges, hence the bad quality. In the end, I purchased the new shiny NetComm NB6Plus4Wn, installed it, and surprised on how easy it was to set it up and also it had good signal strength. I have to admit that it is pretty good so far. Here's a picture of my new 11n wireless modem router in action:

Maven Plugin Dependency Duplication

Maven is a great build tool, and it has saved me from taking care of all the libraries and dependency hell, but it is not perfect, at least not in the version that I used (2.0.6). I wanted to use a newer version of one of the hibernate libraries, so I specified the new version in my project pom xml. The problem was that in the final war file, I had both the new version and the old version of the library. One of the plugin dependency actually depends on an older hibernate library, hence Maven automatically included both libraries. It is actually a known bug in 2.0.6 (see MNG-2972) and it's fixed in 2.0.9, so upgrading my Maven to 2.0.9 did the trick.

Transaction Pitfalls

Just thought that I need to post this very useful article about common transaction mistakes in Java platform. It's just so easy to assume that transaction works and then in the end (or worse, in production), you find out that it does not work as intended. The classic "Transaction Rollback" mistake is surprisingly common. I've seen this again and again as people assume that this would work automatically.