Common Wireless Internet Problems

Here's the situation: your PC reports "Excellent" signal strength to the wireless router, but your PC is unable to connect to the internet.

As usual, to better understand the possible solutions, we must first address the possible problems.

Some background information:

There are actually 3 connections in this scenario:

1. From the PC to the wireless router
2. From the wireless router to the modem (cable or DSL)*
3. From the modem to the internet

* In some cases, the wireless router and the modem have been "combined" and placed in the same box. In this case, you can just assume that the connection between these two is made and has no problems. If the problem is here, you're in trouble!

When the PC reports "Excellent" signal strength, it is simply referring to connection #1. If you just plugged the wireless router into power, and nothing else, and turned your computer on, it would report "Excellent" signal strength. The PC simply assumes (and we know what that makes it) that if it can connect to the wireless router, then it can connect to the internet. But wait, it is assuming that there are two more connections present and working!

Usually, in this situation, the problem is simply the wireless router and the modem are out of sync. Here's why:

Situation #1:

Every computer in the world on the internet has to have an IP address. It's like a house address for mail delivery. If you don't have an address, you can't get on the internet.* (* This isn't 100% true, but for the purposes of this article, it is.)

The wireless router is in charge of getting the address from your Internet Service Provider (ISP). Well, we could quickly run out of addresses if we just handed them out and they had to be valid forever, so we give them a "lifetime". Usually this is about 1 day. So, every 1 day, the wireless router will talk to the ISP and say, "Hey, my IP address expired. Can I have another one?" At this point, the ISP will say, "Sure, here it is."

Now, to keep things "simple", the ISP will normally give you the same address over and over and over. BUT, if they did that, you could take advantage of that and setup servers and do other things that the ISP doesn't really want you to do because it uses the connection pretty heavily.

This is precisely where the problem comes in. Somehow the wireless router gets out of sync with the ISP. At this point, the wireless router continues to try to use the old IP address and the ISP won't accept it because it just handed out the new IP address and expired the old IP address.

So, your PC is connected to the wireless router with "Excellent" signal strength; the wireless router is connected to the modem; and the modem is connected to the internet -- but the last two connections aren't valid because the wireless router and the ISP are out of sync.

Solution:

1. Unplug the wireless router from the power.
2. Unplug the modem from the power.
3. Count to 30 (60 if you have the time and patience).
4. Plug the modem back into the power.
5. Count to 30 (60 if you have the time and patience).
6. Plug in the wireless router into the power.
7. Wait for your PC to reconnect to the wireless router.

** Also see "Notes for Steps 4 & 5" below!

Situation #2:

Your computer is reporting "limited or no connectivity".

Your computer was unable to get an IP address from the wireless router. (It probably has an AutoIP address of 169.254.xxx.yyy which isn't much good in our situation.)

Possible Problems:

1. The "key" that was entered to connect to the wireless router was input incorrectly.
2. The wireless router has "MAC address filtering" enabled, and your computer isn't on the approved list.
3. The wireless router is out of IP addresses to give out (this isn't very likely).

Again, let's try to understand the process a bit better. When a PC connects to a wireless router, it goes through a few steps:

1. The PC "associates" with the wireless address. This is basically when the PC says "Okay, wireless router, I'm choosing you to connect to, so when I say things, you need to pay attention!"
2. Once this "association" takes place, the PC then tells you that the connection has been made and the signal strength as "Excellent".
3. It then does all the crazy encryption and "key" stuff to encrypt the connection.
4. *It then asks the wireless router for an IP address.
5. *If it cannot get an address, it will notify you that the connection has "limited or no connectivity."

Notes for Steps 4 & 5:

Very seldom you will come across a situation where the IP address has been set manually on your computer. This means that every time your computer connects to the wireless router, it will use the same IP address. This is a bit more technical and requires a small bit of technical know-how, but it's do-able. IF THIS IS THE CASE: then it will skip steps 4 & 5 and just try to use that IP address. If that IP address isn't one of the IP addresses that the wireless router can communicate with, then the PC and the wireless router simply just won't be able to talk to each other. At this point, the computer will not list the connection as having "limited or no connectivity", it simply won't work.

Moving from headless to modded-NAS

So, in an attempt to de-clutter my office area with my webserver, I did some digging.

Seems like most of the older Western Digital MyBook World Editions come preloaded within linux, and have a pretty hefty following for modding the flash to support various features.

I dig it.

And by the way, did I mention that it comes with a gig-ethernet port, and USB port? We'll get to why both are handy in a sec...

So, I purchased a 500GB one, pretty cheap actually. Just do some checking around on Google -- the one I found was refurbished, and ran about 80$.

A good go-to guide.

Looks like it could solve my issue of having a stranded USB printer in my closet upstairs. Assuming this doesn't put out too much heat, I can put it up in my pretty-airy closet upstairs next to the printer, and then use a modded WRT54G to connect it down to my wireless router downstairs.

Spiffy!

Active Desktop of Slowness...or NOT!

I have always LOATHED Active Desktop in Windows. It always made the PCs so SLOOOOW!

But, I found another use for it today, and I have to say, I'm very impressed.

Check this out!

My G1!!! (Updated January 3, 2010)

So, as you probably have guessed, I got myself G1.

It has surpassed my dreams and I could probably go on about it's awesomeness for the rest of this post, but enough drooling -- down to business.

My favorite apps (alphabetical order):

	Babbler ($1.49): Facebook app that beats the "real" Facebook app.
	Babbler Lite: Free version of Babbler.
	Barcode Scanner: Scans regular and 2D barcodes, like the QR codes you see to the left.
	Bloo ($0.99): Facebook. Better then Babbler after the last Babbler update (they made it green and very slow).
	Bloo 1.4 Beta: A free version of Bloo. I haven't tried it yet, but I'm going to.
	Bubble: A level (just really cool).
	DailyStrip: Comic strip viewer.
	FlashLight: It took me a while to find a good flashlight app.
	Google Goggles: Just awesome.
	Google Maps: Because it has Latitude.
	Google Sky Map: I love the stars, this gives me a real-time view of the stars. I can hold it up to the sky in front of me to see where things are.
	Key Ring: Stores all of my key-chain cards (Dillons, Kroger, Dick's Sporting Goods, etc.) so the store just has to scan my phone. Haven't used it yet, but I'm anxious.
	Listen: A Google podcast manager with pause/resume capabilities.
	Locale: Really cool app. I don't use it, but it makes the list.
	Movies: A fantastic app that lets you look up movies, see information, watch trailers, find showtimes (for theaters around your location) and even manage your Netflix queue.
	Note Everything: A nice notepad which includes the ability to draw pictures.
	Shazam: I've been a fan for a long time, now I have it!
	ShopSavvy: Another barcode reader, but with many more features dealing with finding the best price(s) both online and locally as well as reviews.
	Silent Time: I originally used Locale but it turned out to be overkill since I just wanted my phone to automatically turn off my ringer when I went to sleep and turned it back on when I woke up.
	SnapPhoto: A replacement for the default camera app that includes stability and some effects.
	SnapPhoto Pro ($0.99): Paid version. This is my next purchase.
	TaskPanel: A great task manager with auto-kill and ignore lists.
	Toggle Settings: This is a nice app. It has replaced Silent Time and given me a bit more control.
	Weatherbug: I have always hated WeatherBug with a passion because the version for regular computers is full of spyware and junk software that slows your computer down. This version is the complete opposite; it is a fantastic app.
	WeatherBug Elite ($1.99): Paid version with no ads and animated RADAR. I bought this.

Anybody else have any good ones?

A Visualization Study for MANET Performance Metrics

I thought I'd post my presentation(s) from my summer internship over here; It was a really cool summer at MIT Lincoln Laboratories. And since my work was all unclassified... Have fun checkin' it out!

C Lydick. "A Visualization Study for MANET Performance Metrics."

Basically: I ended up taking the PCAP and GPS data from one of the Dartmouth Experiments on Crawdad and extracted the metrics in an attempt to find underlying multivariate relationships between network metrics. I think we did. :-)

Let me know if you've got questions/comments. I may end up posting the memo that accompanies this presentation -- we'll have to see.

Roadtrip & Latitude Part 2!

OK, since it was such a success... and really helpful for those who were curious about where I was...

I'll post this again.





BTW... The icon looks funny. I'm going to see if I can adjust that...

I just cleared my cookies...oh, wait...I missed some!

I'm not one of those uber-paranoid people that wipes out my cookies each time I close my browser. Quite frankly, I just don't care that much.

But little did I know, that little "Clear Cookies" button can miss a few here and there.

According to this article it is possible for websites to use Flash-based cookies to track you, and they aren't cleared out with the normal button.

You actually need a Firefox Add-on like BetterPrivacy, or even an extra application like CClearner.


Yet another bit of proof that the best way to ensure security is to not rely on the "comfort" of the Erase button.

Oops...I forgot how to Administer

Forgotten administrator passwords can be a pain -- especially in Windows.

Here's one method for resetting it if you've forgotten it.

Remove Unhelpful Help

I hate that stupid "Help & Support" option on the Start Menu.

• Click Start->Run and type 'Regedit.exe'


• Navigate to the following location:
  
  HKEY_CURRENT_USER \ Software \ Microsoft \ Windows \ CurrentVersion \ Explorer \ Advanced



• In the right-pane, create a new REG_DWORD value named 'NoStartMenuHelp'


• Double-click 'NoStartMenuHelp' and set it's value to '1'


• Close Regedit.

Thanks winxptutor.com for the help!

ROADTRIP and Latitude!

So, I'm only going to have the following code active for a few weeks... For obvious reasons. So, here it goes:

*edit* Now I've posted the image as of Monday June 22 -- no longer will it update my status!!



This is my location from my G1 - and this way anyone/everyone can track me as I take my trip across the US from Seattle to Boston. :) I was glad to see that I didn't have to hack anything on the Google Latitude page -- they made it pretty seamless to integrate Latitude into your blog via their badge feature. Cool, huh?

Disable Auto-waste-your-time

In light of the Conficker virus, and because I was sick of my computer looking for something to "run" every time I plugged in my USB drive, I wanted to post this awesome guide on Disabling AutoRun

This shows you the Policy Editor -- which is an extremely powerful tool that all in-depth users should get to know. Be careful with it!

"Live" Social Networking

I'm not sure if "Live Social Networking" is the right term for instant messaging and status updates from Facebook and Twitter, but that's what we're going for.

There was a time where I would startup my PC and load AIM, Yahoo Messenger, MSN Messenger and ICQ. Four programs to manage four chat services!

I then switched to gAim, which turned into Pidgin because AOL didn't like the name. I was a fan of Pidgin for a long time, favoring it over Trillian because it was totally free and had no pay-version (like Trillian Pro). With Trillian (free) they just advertise Trillian Pro all the time, and I found the program to be unnecessarily obese.

Within the past year I began having trouble with Pidgin (crashes, slow operations, etc.), so I decided to give it up and move on.

Enter Digsby.

There were many features that I found alluring, but I really liked the Twitter and other Social Networking interfaces.

I also liked how it had the tabbed IM windows like Pidgin.

So while I'm sitting at my desk, I can be connected to my IM clients (several services) and watch my Twitter feeds (even the ones that don't update via mobile). This is a fantastic feature in my opinion, and I only wish they had a version for my Nokia n810!

Keeping Up with Everything

For a long time I used Bloglines to keep up with my RSS feeds.

I attempted to switch to Google Reader, but found it frustrating because I was so used to Bloglines and because of a few "quirks" so I gave up.

After becoming frustrated again a few months ago, I switched to Google Reader and was able to see just how much more superior it is to Bloglines. Here's why:

1. Speeeeeeed! Bloglines updated maybe 1 time in 30 minutes. Which was good and bad, but mostly bad. Google Reader updates very often!
2. Easier to keep track of items of interest. With Bloglines, you would have to keep an item "as new", so it would show up every time you viewed the feed. With Google Reader, you can star items (like in Gmail) and it's much easier!

What do you think?

Don't Forget the Moo Juice!

I've been using Remember the Milk for a while now, and I've got to say, "it's fantastic!"

I have to be honest, I have put "milk" on there more than once, but I mostly use it for other items, especially ones that are recurring.

At first I thought I wouldn't use it because I really don't take advantage of alot of the functionality (like the ability to share my to-do lists with others, or email in items, or have things relate to locations, etc. I also thought I wouldn't like it much because I thought it would basically be a more complicated way of doing things that I could already do with Google Calendar.

As it turns out, it is extremely useful. Having the items on my Google Calendar would work, but there are a few things that I can't do:
1. I can't setup an item to recur based on the last time I did it. For example, if I need to water one of my plants every 3 days, and I miss by a day (sorry Mr. Plant), Google Calendar would have me water it again before 3 days, whereas RTM simply sets the next due date to be 3 days from the day I marked the item as "complete".
2. I have alot of things on my Google Calendar, none of which are items that I actually need to accomplish, they are simply things that I am doing that day, not necessarily items that I need to do.
3. With Google Calendar there is no way to create a to-do item without a due date. Also, RTM allows items to float. For example, if you assign a due date to an item and you miss it, it simply stays on your to-do list (bolded and underlined). With Google Calendar, the item would simply pass by and you would either be forced to move it to another date, or just forget about it.

I highly recommend you give it a go, as it's a fantastic utility, especially when you can utilize the Gmail addon or the mobile interface.

Rootin' the G1

I found the perfect walk-through for getting root access on the T-Mobile G1. You should check it out; and make sure to read all of the warnings before you go through it -- it's very well explained, and the steps are very clear, but you just need to know what you're getting into when you do something like this to your phone.

Especially if you don't want to break your warranty!

Also, I had discussed this with the other 01 Nerd today: the G1 Developer Phones cannot download applications in which a cost is associated with it... Namely because:

"A couple of developers have theories about the issue behind the move. Tim at the Strazzere.com blog discovered that protected applications are automatically downloaded into a private folder on Android phones. Most phone users can't access that file but users of the Developer phone can.

"That means a Developer phone user could buy an application, copy it from the private folder, return the application for a refund and then re-download the application to the phone, the developers say. The Android Market allows anyone to return an application within 24 hours."

You can read the discussion in its entirety here.

Diffie: The Crazy Mathematician!

Here is a quick refresher on how Diffie Hellman works.

Man this stuff is cool.

Meet Lechner

I am amazed by the quality of the pictures that we have on television, and even more amazed at the pictures we get from BlueRay DVDs.

But how many pixels is too many? How many do we really need? How close can two points be before the human eye can't distinguish between them?

Lechner has a theory, and a fancy chart about TV sizes.

It is amazing to me how close you need to be, or how large the TV needs to be, in order to see ALL the details!

Bing kinda-Unveiled

It seems like Bing has been up and running for a while now, but last night I walked up to Kerry Park to get a few photos of the Space Needle -- you see, Microsoft was lighting up the Seattle Center (which includes the Space Needle and the Pacific Science Center) with orange lights and a spotlight. It was pretty neat -- but seemed less "severe" of a change than I had expected.

And, half the photos I took have this jankety helicopter in it! Ugh :)

Open Doors with your Blue Tooth

I have no idea why I haven't been doing this for a while, it sure would be nice!

The Wikipedia Game

My friend Nikki brought this up as something she'd done from time to time, and I thought, "How have I not done this before?!"

You see, I can spend HOURS clicking through Wikipedia, going from one random article to another to another. How did I not see the potential game involved! Here are the rules, but let me quickly explain:

You click a "random article" on Wikipedia, jot that down. Click the "random article" link once more, and manage to find a path from the two articles ONLY using hyperlink clicks. If you're doing this in parallel, the winner is the one who does it the fastest and/or the one who finishes first.

Here's one I just did:

Begin: North Branch Correctional Institute
End: Brazilian science and technology

My Path:

1. North Branch Correctional Institute
2. Maryland
3. National Institute of Standards and Technology
   
4. United States Department of Commerce
5. International Trade Administration
6. World Trade Organization
7. Brazil
8. Brazilian science and technology

Enjoy!

LED LCDs Explained

Thanks to Gizmodo for the great explanation!

Command-line remote windows restart/shutdown

If you're running a windows machine and would like to restart (or shutdown) a remote windows machine, just type the following at your command line (Start-> Run -> "cmd" [enter]):

• shutdown -r -m \\xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx

where '-r' reboots the machine (remove that to just shut down the machine) and replace the xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx with the remote machine's IP address.

Alternatively, you may connect to the machine through Remote Desktop Connection, and run the following from the command line:

• shutdown -r -f

You can also obtain a list of commands by typing the following from any windows command line:

• shutdown -?
  

Access to Royalty-Free Images.... Legally.

Also wanted to share this link, knowing all too often we snag images from Google or various parts of the Internet -- and that can end up getting you into trouble. It's unlikely, but if you wanna be sure you're using some images legally, there are a few options...

The one I like to use is: iStockPhoto.

A few things:

1. They have Photos, Illustrations, Vector-Formatted images, Flash animations, Audio files, etc.
2. Pricing is pretty reasonable -- you can download a small image for around a buck. And that gives you pretty much free reign on use. Unless you wanna print it an indefinite number of times.
3. If you do some digging yourself, you'll find that the images are pretty easy to search for. For instance, if you search for something like "Computers Green" you'll get quite a few images, most of them all with computers and with a large green component... So if you're trying to match stuff, it could be pretty easy.
   

I recently spruced up my website on campus, and my own blog with a few images -- and it was so cheap. :-) Guaranteed not to get a letter from someone's lawyer down the road, "You need to stop using those images..."

Email Aliasing

In an attempt to reduce spam... and because I'm tired of giving out my regular Gmail email address, I stumbled across this site.

LiquidID

Seems to work pretty well; though I'm gonna try out a couple other sites, and see how I feel.

Macbook iSight green light issues -- EASY FIX!

That is, if it's not actually broken.

So, I was really freakin' out for a moment when my Macbook's iSight froze up for the 2nd time. The green indicator light (which says the camera is on or broken) came on as the computer booted, and then when I tried to open an application that uses the iSight, it gave me a black screen.

The first time, I just removed the battery for a few hours, and upon reboot, it was just fixed. I thought it was some fluke.

This time, I began to worry -- why was this some kind of recurring issue? Well, seems like you can pretty easily fix the issue by resetting your PRAM (parameter random access memory) and your NVRAM (nonvolatile random access mem). There's an apple.com post here describing how to do just that.

Wheew!

They've got an app for that!

Can I just say... why are there so many cool apps for the iPhone?! I mean, I know there are some awesome ones for the Android phones, but ... come on!

http://lifehacker.com/5256519/

Like most inventions and ideas, it makes perfect sense once someone's come up with it. This one lets you see what's going on "through" the phone (using the phone's camera) while you're typing out emails or text messages... Multitasking at its best!

But, I still don't advocate texting while driving!!! Infact, it's illegal in many many states!

Rebranding: Give Nokia back their phone!

For those of you who may not know, I am a bit of a good golfer. Being a nerd as well, I wanted to see if I could somehow meld the two. GPS location for different landmarks on each hole seems like the best way to do this.

I found a couple of apps for my phone, and I have a bluetooth GPS unit, so it was pretty easy to get the pieces. After installing the software I quickly found that my biggest hurdle was yet to come.

Q: What was it?
A: T-mobile

When I attempted to connect my GPS unit to my phone, it worked just great, the pairing happened in a flash. After launching the application, I was notified by my phone that the application was not allowed to access any external data sources (like bluetooth or the internet). This frustrated me, so I went where I always go: Google.

After Googling for a bit, I found that many others were having similar issues, mostly with Google Maps Mobile, Gmail Mobile, and Opera Mini. They all said the same thing, "go to the applications menu, and select the application and give it access."

And they all had the same response: "the menu item for granting access is grayed out" -- which was true for me.

A bit more digging, and I found that this was referred to as a "security measure" by T-mobile. They did not allow unsigned applications (applications which ran with certificates that were not installed on the phone and approved by T-mobile) to access the data sources.

At first glance, this seemed reasonable (albeit frustrating)...but then I found something interesting. All of these suggestions to "give the application access" had to come from people who were able to do so, how were they able to do it? The answer to this ended up being unlocked phones. I didn't have an unlocked phone. I didn't want to kill my warranty, and possibly end up with a brick by trying either.

But wait...T-mobile said it was a security measure. Why do people with unlocked phones get to get around it? How secure is it if some people are still allowed to do it?

T-mobile's stance began to make less and less sense.

Finally, after much more searching, I found that there are actually 2 levels of "unlocking" for a phone like mine (Nokia 5310 XpressMusic Orange):
1. Full Unlock
2. Rebranded

Full Unlock indicates that you can do whatever you want with the software, you can even run Windows 3.11 on it if you want.

Rebranded means that it is no longer T-mobile's software on the phone, but Nokia's.

Since fully unlocking was alot of work, required special equipment, and could break my phone, it was out.

Rebranding on the other hand turned out to be pretty simple:
1. Update my phone's firmware to the latest T-mobile firmware.
2. Run NSS and change a number inside the firmware (easy*).
3. Re-update my phone's firmware. This time the phone update software let me choose a newer version because it was looking at firmware from Nokia instead of T-mobile.

*Note: I think I used the code for the blue 5310 instead of the orange 5310, because the themes I have now are all blue, and they used to be all orange...oops!

Viola!

Now I have a Nokia-branded 5310. I can use whatever applications I want, and connect to whatever I want from inside those applications.

The GPS did not lend itself like I wanted, so I wrote my own app for my Nokia N810. It has built-in GPS, so it's much better. (More about that in later posts.)

I have a scorecard application that I use now. See it here at Wireless18.

It lets me keep score, and post my score during my round, so you can watch my score live as I golf!

Cooliris

So, I stumbled across this while creating a gallery for my other blog today...

Initially I thought, "OK, I'll try it out, but it's likely that I'll uninstall it."

I haven't uninstalled it just yet. I've been kinda pleased with this app actually.

Cooliris claims that their software takes 2-D images and videos and makes a 3-D environment for you to look through them. What's cool is that Facebook (and now my own blog), Google Images, Youtube, all include the plugins to activate this feature when you're feeling adventurous.

Anyway... If you've got some spare CPU processing and a few minutes to install it, you may think it's worth it.

Logitech and XBMC

I recently picked up a Logitech Harmony 520 remote for about $40. It is FANTASTIC!
I highly recommend it.

Anyway, I have been getting it working with my devices, which took about 2 minutes, except for the Xbox, which took a little bit longer because I have a modded Xbox with XBMC.

With a little Googling, I found this site, which got me all straightened out.

Man this stuff is cool.

Somebody's Listening...shhh...

If you were looking for a better way to listen in on something in another room, this might be your answer.


If you're not, I suggest you check out that link anyway, just in case someone wants to spy on you.

Just remember: think before you speak.

Tinfoil Boosters

Got any wireless devices that need a little boost?

Tinfoil may be your friend.

Here's how to extend the range of a wi-fi router.

Here's how to extend the range of a remote control.

Have fun, be safe, and think before applying power!

Convert Docs => ...Other formats

Here's a great tool for converting documents to other (50+) formats.

Automated File Transfers

Here's one way (not my preferred way) for automating file transfers.

I prefer to use rsync over SSH.

What do you think?

3...2...1...Shutdown!

Looking for a way to run programs or perform other actions at specified times?

Here is your answer!

This one's for the Kids!

Got any old PCs lying around, and maybe some children too?

Here's a harmless OS for kids that lets them play without messing anything up! Best of all, it only requires a 400MHz processor with 256MB of RAM and no harddrive space if you want to run it from the CD!

Let me know if you give it a go!

Run Linux Inside of Windows

Here's how you run Ubuntu inside of Windows:

Please let me know if you try it, I haven't yet, but it looks AWESOME!

Interestingly Valid C Code

Here's a snippet of C that I did not know was valid:

int a;
int b;
a = 5;
b = 7;
a +- b;

Apparently it is the equivalent of a NO-OP.

TweetDeck

So I came across this the other day; and it may just be the saving grace to keep me using Twitter.

I've been conflicted, because I already use Facebook more than I should -- and I really only used Twitter to update my status on Facebook through my phone. That's one bad thing about T-Mobile, well they don't work well with Facebook.

Anyway, here it is if you've not seen it yet. http://www.tweetdeck.com/beta/

*insert witty cupcake reference here*

I was at a restaurant yesterday and playin' with my G1, and some guy walked up and asked if I had the new Cupcake 1.5 firmware... Kinda cool :) Nerds unite!

Anyway, I'm waiting for my update; but I'm slightly disappointed with the 1.5 update: yes, it's fixing some really pressing issues with the phone and the OS -- but COME ON.

1. When the hell are we gonna get a flash-based browser?
2. Am I going to have to try to put together a hack/program to get wireless tethering (or bluetooth tethering for that matter... God, I'd be happy with USB even!) through my phone without root access?

Those are my big complaints.

Aside from that, I really do love my phone; I'm keeping my eyes peeled.

Using Matlab within Opnet

Because this applies to my current work at the UW... Thought I'd share. I'm making all the connections now, so I'll let ya know how it works.

http://www.cse.psu.edu/~venkates/index_files/opnet_tips.html

Disabling the FreeBSD "beep"!

After about a day worth of searching and modifications that did nothing, I finally found a way to disable the beep in FreeBSD:

`set nobell`

I have verified that this works for csh (barf!) and I put it in my .cshrc file so I never get that stupid beep again!

Delete Folder Contents with 2 Clicks

Here is a quick registry hack to add a "Delete Folder Contents" item to the context menu.

Enjoy, but click safe!

Batteries and how (not) to charge them

Here is an EXCELLENT article about rechargeable batteries. It details how (and why) you should charge and discharge each type of battery in order to get the most out of them.

If you have anything with rechargeable batteries (and who doesn't?) I highly recommend you give this a once-over.

Bluetooth Rocks!

So I have been meaning to read up on this article I came across with Bloglines about 3 and 1/2 months ago (yeah, it's been a little while!)

It's a way for me to control my PC via my N810. I can control my mouse, keyboard, presentations, even media.

Here's the link to the site/article.

Create your own DVD

A friend of mine had a few videos and wanted to play them on a DVD player. The last time I researched how to do this, I was very disappointed to see that there were really no viable solutions (i.e. there were no solutions unless you wanted to drop $300 on software).

Well, now I have some good news. There is a FOSS application called DVD Flick that rocks.

This app will walk you through creating the menus and even does some more advanced stuff (like advanced video editing, subtitles, etc.)

It will also burn it to a disc for you, if you wish.

My favorite extra feature is that while it is encoding, it has three buttons: "Cancel", "Minimize", and "Entertain Me". The "Entertain Me" button launches a Tetris game that you can play while the DVD encodes. Why isn't this in Outlook?!

A PDF here, a PDF there...everywhere a PDF

So you've got all these PDFs and you want to shove them all together into one big one eigh? Well, MergePDF is your tool. I love freeware!

I'll track mine, you track yours

Wait, that's not how it's spelled, it's got one of those "mac-ie" names...gross.

iTrackMine is a cool little app that allows you to keep track of all of the media you have, without having some crazy proprietary database or some ugly spreadsheet. Might be worth a look.

Lights, Camera -- wait, no camera, Action!

Have you ever wanted to show someone how to do something on a computer, but you are forced to do it over the phone for some reason? It can be pretty tough.

ScreenToaster is a great app that allows you to record what you're doing (with audio if you wish) and then save it all for someone else to watch later. I know this could be great for me. Now if I could just get people to watch the videos... ;-)

Dust off that ol' jukebox!

Got an old computer?
Want a music server?

VortexBox is here to save the day!

It's a great app that you can use to turn an old machine into a music server. Once this is installed, just pop your CD in the drive, and it rips it automatically!

Who Crashed?

"This program has performed an illegal operation...here's a bunch of debugging data that only makes sense to the nerdiest of nerds: 0xBLAH 0xBLAH 0xBLAH"

Sound familiar? I thought so.

Well, now you can make sense of all of that debugging mumbo jumbo with "WhoCrashed".

RFID is not secure...surprise surpri--- oh, wait.

No surprise here, RFID chips are not a good place to store secure stuff.

At least, that's what I get from this post.

He claims to have ripped off 2 passports in 20 minutes, and with a device that has a range of only 30 feet!

Keep those things in a Faraday cage!

My N810 Review

Here is my Nokia N810 review.



And a couple of links about it:
Nokia USA
Wikipedia

Paint yourself secure

Are you paranoid about whether people are getting on your wireless network?
Are you worried that your wireless signals might be killing the birds outside?
Do you really like the color "neon green"?

Then this paint might be for you!

That's right, it's a new paint that keeps your wireless signals from leaving the house!

20 Petaflops is a LOT!

Here is a link to the new supercomputer that IBM is building.

Just a couple of points:

• 20 petaflops = 20,000 teraflops = 20,000,000 gigaflops = 20,000,000,000 megaflops
  
• Over 1.6 million processors (how many does your computer have...1, maybe 2?)
  
• 1.6 terabytes of memory = 1,600 gigabytes = 1,600,000 megabytes (a little more than your 1 or 2 again)

It's a good thing we're all about "going green"... :-/

Unix in Windows

I hate being in the "DOS" prompt and typing `ls` only to see:
"'ls' is not recognized as an internal or external command,
operable program or batch file."

Here's my answer: UnxUtils

(and yes, I did write batch files at one point, but this is much easier IMHO.)

Open With Notepad

I'm tired of having to select which program to open a file with in Windows. Also, I'm sick of accidentally associating '.yourmother' files with Notepad. I don't want a file association -- I want Notepad!

Thanks HowToGeek.com for this solution.

G1 Review... From my perspective...

Questions:
Q. 350+ KBps or Kbps ?
A:

Q. Does it do 802.11?
A:

Q. Can you use regular headphones?
A:

Q. Is the bluetooth stack worth anything (i.e. can you do FTP transfers, or is it just for contacts)?
A:

Q. Can you watch movies on it?
A:

Q. Can you listen to music without the headphones? If so, does it sound good?
A:

Live CD Booting

I've been trying to come up with a solution to the failing hard drive problem that haunts the every-day computer user.

The first solution was a bootable USB flash drive. Pretty nice, especially if persistent data storage can be achieved.

I ran into a problem with this solution when I attempted it on an old machine that could not boot USB flash drives. This lead me to the "persistent storage" feature of Knoppix, which allowed me to boot the OS from the CD and then load the data from a flash drive. This worked well, but either I did it wrong, or I misunderstood it, because I can't get the persistent data to persist.

My next adventure led me here where I found that you could make a bootable CD which allowed you to boot from the flash drive.

That is where I am now, hopefully we can see some positive results from this one...

Facebook, Twitter, Jaiku, etc.

This post is about Facebook, Twitter, Jaiku, and the like.

A few weeks back I seriously considered switching back from Jaiku to Twitter.
I originally joined Twitter, and it was good.
I then switched to Jaiku because it had a location feature that I thought would be a lot cooler than it turned out to be. I thought it would allow me to update it via GPS, but it turned out that it doesn't really do a whole lot of geographical mapping at all.
I also liked the RSS feature, which allows you to import RSS feeds (like the feeds from my Picture of the Day blog). So it generates a Jaiku entry automatically when I post a picture.

The feature that I immediately missed about Twitter was the "sleep" feature. This feature allows you to tell Twitter to not send you (SMS) updates between two specific times. This means that you can tell Twitter not to send you messages from 11pm to 8am so you can sleep.

As I said before, I almost switched because it wasn't updating the SMS stuff or the feeds. Right before I switched, they fixed it all.

I still miss the "sleep" feature.

Facebook seems to be the deal breaker. (Wow, I never thought I'd say that!)
Facebook used to have a Jaiku app, but it was recently taken down. The owner/manager said that it was "the project that had the least interest, but required the most support". Facebook does have several Twitter apps, including one that allows you to update your Facebook status when you update your Twitter.

So now, if I switch back to Twitter, I can update my Twitter via SMS and it also updates my Facebook status.

Now to get all my friends on to Twitter...