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The Tech Help Thread

Discussion in 'Technical Board' started by rei, Oct 19, 2009.

  1. scootah

    scootah
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    Depending on how stupid the monkeys at your ISP are, you could just try Changing the port in Vuze. If your ISP guys are decent, it won't work - but lots of ISP comms guys only half ass blocking torrent users to shut their boss up so you might get lucky. If that doesn't work - you're pretty much screwed.
     
  2. Nettdata

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    FYI, Bell is smart. Way smarter than I gave them credit for initially. Other than a straight-up VPN, nothing you do on your end will mask what you're doing. Encrypted peers and exchange protocols, etc., are quickly sniffed out and shaped. Change your ports, and within 60 seconds it's detected and shaped. I was actually quite impressed with their detection and squashing abilities.

    My parents were on Bell when I went back for a couple months to help dad recover from some heart surgery. (In London, Ontario).

    I did all sorts of kick-ass and cool tech crap to try and circumvent what they'd done, and it didn't help much.

    I even called them up and asked if I could pay to have the caps/limits lifted, and pay extra for the ability to torrent. No such luck, unless I wanted to step into a year-minimum full-on business solution which was stupidly expensive.

    In the end, I just paid for the cancellation fee and got new service through a small independent who guaranteed me no shaping or dynamic performance adjustments (I told them straight up what I wanted to do).

    Worked like a charm.
     
  3. rei

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    Yeah, I'm switching to Teksavvy cable next month, was waiting forever for it to be available in my area.
    seeing as independants aren't really solid if they're DSL these days
     
  4. bigtom0404

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    You guys are going to hate me because this might have been asked before, but I did a quick search and came up with nothing. I just got an iPad and want to put some downloaded movies on it. Does anyone know how to go about doing this?? I know they have to be mp4 format?? but does anyone know how I go about taking any downloaded movies I would usually watch in VLC and make it into the mp4 to put on this thing?? Any help would be great...


    *EDIT* - What I am really looking for in short terms is a recommendation for a free program that converts any video files to mpg4 that the iPad needs to be in to play it
     
  5. Nettdata

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    You didn't say what OS.

    For mac, I use Handbrake. It'll convert an avi or some other downloaded format, or it'll read/rip most DVD's.

    <a class="postlink" href="http://handbrake.fr/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://handbrake.fr/</a>

    It's got presets for iphone and iPod touch, and I just use that.

    Even easier, I also use AirVideo.

    I host video content on a Mac server, and the Air Video client (on iPhone and iPad) can stream and on-the-fly convert the video to be played on the iPhone or iPad.

    There's an option to have the Air Video server convert the video to a native iPad or iPhone format so you can then load it with iTunes.

    Air Video server is free, and I think the iPad client is a buck or two. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

    <a class="postlink" href="http://www.inmethod.com/air-video/index.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.inmethod.com/air-video/index.html</a>
     
  6. Vanilla

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    Why don't you just download VLC for the iPad and play your files without conversion?
     
  7. bigtom0404

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    Sorry, meant to say I'm using windows, and I didnt realize you could download VLC straight to it... I found a program called Format Factory that is so far pretty good and has been working well for a free encoder.

    EDIT: Damn the amount of things capable with these things can get overwhelming quickly. But I damn sure loving the battery life on this, 3 hours later I have used only 20%.
     
  8. Dcc001

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    Alrighty. All of a sudden, I am unable to access Facebook. I am redirected to a website called Mediaplex, and I cannot get rid of the problem.

    I have:
    - rebooted
    - deleted all cookies and search histories
    - Run malware/virus programs (SpyHunter found 4 Mediaplex cookies; this did not fix the problem)
    - Restarted my wireless Linksys router

    Google searches reveal that this is either a browser hijacker or a problem with the Linksys router. Any thoughts, everybody?
     
  9. Binary

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    In Internet Explorer, click Tools > Internet Options > Connections > LAN Settings, make sure "Use a proxy..." is unchecked.

    Navigate to My Computer > C:\ > Windows > System32 > Drivers > Etc (the directory name really is "etc," it wasn't an instruction), right click on "hosts" and click "Open" or "Open with..." and select Notepad. It should only contain one line that doesn't have a # in front of it, and that line should say something like 127.0.0.1 localhost. If it contains more lines, paste them here.

    Download <a class="postlink" href="http://www.malwarebytes.org" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.malwarebytes.org</a> Anti-Malware, run it. Make sure it comes up clean.

    If all of that comes up clean, you can reset your Linksys router back to factory defaults by using a paperclip or a ballpoint pen and holding in the "Reset" button on the back of it for 30 seconds. You'll have to log into it and set up the wireless network/passwords/etc. again.
     
  10. Dcc001

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    That last line is a problem, right? I've run several malware scans and they all found issues and deleted them. I tried using the Mediaplex Cookie Remover and it found nothing after two hours of scanning.
     
  11. Nettdata

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    Last line is fine.
     
  12. Binary

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    Did you check the proxy setting?
     
  13. Nettdata

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    FYI, seems that DCC's Linksys router has known issues, and it's a DNS/DHCP hack at her router level.

    Currently walking her through how to update firmware and specify DNS servers in her DHCP settings, as that seems to be the thing that works according to my Google Fu.

    Seems that using default DNS settings in the DHCP settings is problematic. I just specified Google's public DNS (8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4) and that should fix things.

    The Linksys/Cisco WRT310N has some issues as it appears to use a DNS proxy service, which is being hacked.
     
  14. Binary

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    Huh, interesting. In all the work I did contracting for small businesses, with all of the insecure/default passwords on routers, I don't think I ever saw a router get hijacked by malware.

    Glad it's sorted.
     
  15. Nettdata

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    Yep. Turns out that it's some stupid DNS proxy service.

    If you manually set the DNS server on the computer, or manually override the DNS server settings in the DHCP configs on the router (default they're blank, having the DHCP clients use the router for resolution), it works.

    You will have to clear the cache in Firefox as well.

    Basically, don't let the clients use the router as the DNS service, and it's all good.
     
  16. Dcc001

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    Slightly off topic, but reading that last exchange reminds me of a problem we had at work two weeks ago. Evidently, someone hacked into our voicemail system and used it to route over 24 hours of calls to Kyrgyzstan (at least that's where the charges were coming from - god knows where the service was really going) over a weekend. Our IT guy had us all reset our passwords, and he also sent some helpful hints about what passwords NOT to use. It came to light that every single person in our office was doing at least one of the things that he advised against. 1234, 2222, the last four digits of our phone extension, etc.

    Moral of the story? Just don't let clients pick passwords.
     
  17. Binary

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    The problem with selecting passwords for people is they end up writing them down.

    The best way to handle password selection is to have some good policies in place which protect against the easy passwords, but aren't so crazy that people have to start writing them down. One place I contracted at had the policy of 10+ characters, one uppercase letter, one lowercase letter, one number and one special character, rotated every 2 weeks. Probably half the company had a sticky note under their keyboard with their password on it. So what good did all that security do?

    A good IT admin will both have good but reasonable policies, and will give users helpful hints on selecting passwords. Of course, there are precious few good IT admins around...
     
  18. Nettdata

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    Moral of the story?

    Get someone to properly configure your PBX.

    The first thing I used to do was remove remote outbound calling, which allowed you to log into the system and place outbound calls.

    Very, VERY rarely have I seen a realistic business case for this feature, and it's usually enabled by default. Even then, we'd only enable it on the specific lines/accounts that really needed it.

    Also, I'll bet you big that it wasn't a user account that was hacked, it was a default admin or test account that was left with default password settings.

    Toshiba, who have a huge market share in phone systems, had some of the shittiest default configs in their systems, ever. Odds are if you're a small company, you're using a Toshiba phone system.

    It was a hacker's wet dream.
     
  19. Dcc001

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    It's crapped out on me again. I tried to post the error message I receive when going to <a class="postlink" href="http://www.facebook.com" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">www.facebook.com</a>, but it causes an error on the board software.

    I get this warning:
    Followed by error messages saying "All access to this object has been disabled."

    Thoughts?
     
  20. Nettdata

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    Wrap the error message up between the CODE tags, and it should be good.