Martin's Random Notes

Mainly geeky stuff. I hope some of it is useful.

Saturday, 29 March 2025

Bread maker recipe for Heygates Malt Crunch flour mix

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We eat a lot of bread in our family, baked with a Panasonic bread maker, which is excellent. I buy flour in 16kg sacks by mail order from  H...
Saturday, 3 February 2024

Bad packet length 1144391034. ssh_dispatch_run_fatal: Connection to x.x.x.x port 22: Connection corrupted

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In the last few days, I've started getting this message when connecting with SSH from Ubuntu 22.04 to Oracle Linux 8 systems.   Fix:    ...
Wednesday, 8 April 2020

HOWTO: Stop "Finish your Chromebook Setup" pop-up from displaying

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I recently added a new sign-in account to our Chromebooks for the kids. They had been using "Browse As Guest", but I've disabl...
Sunday, 9 February 2020

FIXED: Ford Focus engine won't stop when switched off - and loud clicks from one loudspeaker

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In case it helps anyone else... Here's how I fixed two weird faults that had appeared at the same time on my wife's 2013 Ford Focus ...
Thursday, 14 November 2019

Automatic Patch And Reboot on CentOS Server 6 7 or 8

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CentOS seems to lack easy commands for automatically patching a server and then rebooting it if anything needs restarting. Basically I wan...
Wednesday, 13 November 2019

HOWTO upload a Centos8 image to Digital Ocean

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So you'd like to run Centos 8 on Digital Ocean... But the Cloud version of Centos 8 has not been released yet, so therefore Digital Oce...
Monday, 30 September 2019

Fixed: Saeco Intuita coffee machine - water coming from steam wand only

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At the weekend I decided it was time to decalcify my coffee machine - a Saeco Intuita bean to cup machine that's served us well for 5 ye...
Tuesday, 30 April 2019

Fix: Windows 10 update stuck at 0% via HTTP Proxy

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My new network requires my Windows 10 PC to sit behind an HTTP Proxy.  Normally this is no problem - the proxy settings configured in the br...
Sunday, 14 April 2019

FIXED! MacOS 10.14.4 Update Breaks Gmail in Apple Mail

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Like many Mac users, after taking an automatic update to 10.14.4 in early April 2019, my dad found that Apple Mail could no longer send or r...
Thursday, 14 February 2019

Fix for SSH login takes 90 seconds!

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So...  We type: ssh user@host.example.com and it hangs for ages before it lets you log in. On older distros, you got a delay of ...

SCP the config from a Cisco ASA

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The syntax you're looking for is: scp user@myfirewall.myfqdn.com:system:running-config myfirewall.txt Or indeed: scp user@myfirewa...
Sunday, 26 August 2018

Ubuntu 18.04 - how to lose 127.0.0.53

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I dislike this automatic 127.0.0.53 DNS server you see by default in /etc/resolv.conf.  Whilst it works most of the time, it makes it hard t...
Tuesday, 26 December 2017

Linux script to cleanse unwanted MP3 tags

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After making a copy of my CD collection converted from FLAC to MP3, I found it failed to play in a 5-year-old car stereo on a USB stick... M...

Linux script to convert FLAC to MP3

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Found this somewhere on the net but have lost the source - apologies if you are the author! Nice clean script to convert FLAC to MP3. Nic...
Friday, 30 December 2016

IPTABLES refresher

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Needed to activate iptables on an Ubuntu server on DigitalOcean.  Found some excellent write-ups on the DO site, to solve an initial problem...
Thursday, 17 March 2016

Win7 clean installs - fixing Windows Update breakage

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For the second time in recent months, I did a clean install of Win7 x64 Enterprise and got a solid hang in Windows Update.
Tuesday, 16 June 2015

FIXED: VMware Workstation Shared Folders don't work

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The current release of VMware Tools fails to compile its Shared Folders (HGFS) module on Ubuntu 14.04 guest VMs. It seems that VMware has ...
Monday, 11 May 2015

Installing & Recovering Ubuntu Server 14.04 using BTRFS

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Our new servers are all running Ubuntu Server 14.04 LTS.  This was chosen because it's free, it's fairly mainstream, and it's su...
Thursday, 15 January 2015

FIX: Ubuntu 14.04 Software Updater hangs with message "Querying Software Sources"

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Had this problem today. Fixed after some head scratching ....
Saturday, 27 December 2014

UK OS Paper Maps are safe!

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Contrary to press reports, there seem to be no plans to stop printing the Ordnance Survey core paper map products.   https://www.ordnancesur...
Friday, 12 December 2014

FIX: Airport Utility does not find any devices - Mac OS X Yosemite (10.10.1)

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Apple appears to have changed the way the Airport Utility admin application finds Airport and Time Capsule devices.  This may also apply to ...
4 comments:
Tuesday, 2 December 2014

Fix for "openssl s_client -connect" cert verification errors

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For Ubuntu 14.04, the correct syntax is: openssl s_client -CApath /etc/ssl/certs -connect www.example.com:443
Friday, 19 September 2014

HOWTO: Tag music files automatically, based on folder and file name

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Pasted at the bottom of this article is a Bash script I ran last night to tag my audio collection.  I was hoping this would enable Google Pl...
Friday, 12 September 2014

HOWTO: Dual-SIM Cisco 819 Router Config

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In the hope that it helps others, here is a working config from a dual-SIM Cisco 819 router.  Not clever, just a basic working config to get...
2 comments:
Sunday, 7 September 2014

Mounting Apple Time Capsule share from Ubuntu 14.04

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Older Apple Time Capsule NAS devices don't support NTLMv2: only NTLM.  So when mounting an SMB share from such a device, you need to man...
19 comments:
Sunday, 24 August 2014

FIXED: Ubuntu Server cron error message: invoke-rc.d: initscript php5-fpm, action "reopen-logs" failed in logrotate

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Found a simple fix for this error in my Ubuntu Server 14.04 cron logs arising from one of the logrotate scripts:-
5 comments:
Wednesday, 11 June 2014

pfSense: Auto reboot if Internet connection lost

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I use pfSense as both my router and my firewall.  If the ADSL line drops, normally it will come back up a minute later with no problem. But ...
9 comments:
Saturday, 7 June 2014

Fix for 100% CPU use in Apple Mail - Mavericks 10.9.3

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Migrated to 10.9.3 today. Fired up Mail. 100% CPU, loud fan, hot laptop, slow system... Happens every time.  Happily there's a quick and...
28 comments:
Wednesday, 26 February 2014

Fix for "None of the selected updates could be saved" on Mac OS X software update

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Saw this error today when running the Apple Software Update process on an old MacBook running 10.6.5.   The text of the message indicated th...
Saturday, 11 January 2014

Multiple displays on Ubuntu 12.04

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Finally got this working on my Dell Precision M4600 laptop with its ATI video chipset...
Saturday, 26 October 2013

Aperture Vaults, and Backup speed to Apple TIme Capsule

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Today I wanted to backup my Aperture photo library.  Easy, but not entirely obvious how best to do it quickly...
2 comments:
Monday, 8 April 2013

Fix for Cisco AnyConnect VPN Client hanging on Ubuntu 12.04

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Recently my Cisco AnyConnect VPN client stopped connecting on my Ubuntu 12.04 box.  It would authenticate successfully (or reject an incorre...
1 comment:
Wednesday, 5 December 2012

Fix for "packages cannot be authenticated" warning on Ubuntu

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Sometimes when installing packages on Ubuntu Linux, you'll get a warning like this: sudo apt-get install foo bar     ...     WARNING: ...
6 comments:
Thursday, 15 November 2012

VMware 9.0 on Linux: Closing ports 443 and 902

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On a Linux host, VMware Workstation 9.0.1 has TCP ports 443 and 902 open by default, listening on all interfaces.  This creates a small but ...
3 comments:
Friday, 26 October 2012

Apple Airport Express is not limited to 10 users

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Just wanted to counter the myth that the old-style Apple Airport Express is limited to 10 users.  I'm sure I've had more than that i...
Friday, 5 October 2012

SOLVED: Issues with 2012 Airport Express

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Apple has updated their entry-level wireless access point, the Airport Express.  The new version is a nice little square white box, supporti...
Wednesday, 19 September 2012

Metasploit tutorial

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http://www.offensive-security.com/metasploit-unleashed  - looks good
Thursday, 6 September 2012

Ubuntu 12.04 LTS - quick notes

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Generally very impressive.  Good clear fonts, quick response on my old Dell Latitude D620 laptop. Just a few tweaks to make. I'll add ...
Tuesday, 4 September 2012

Fix for Time Machine after Mountain Lion upgrade

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After upgrading from Lion to Mountain Lion on two machines, the Time Machine backup application announced that it couldn't find the Time...

Fix for Firefox not opening PDF's on Mac

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On Mac Mountain Lion, Firefox 14.0 runs in 64-bit mode by default.  This breaks the latest Adobe PDF reader.  The fix is simple: make Firefo...
1 comment:
Friday, 3 August 2012

New arrival

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My technical work ("geeking" as SWMBO calls it) may have to wait a while, as my first child Elena has just arrived.  Mother and ba...
1 comment:
Monday, 16 July 2012

Formatting a USB stick for UNETBOOTIN

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I spent ages trying to create a bootable USB stick with UNETBOOTIN for BackTrack.  Turns out that the trick is to format the USB stick corre...
3 comments:
Tuesday, 22 May 2012

Fix for unwanted subtitles on Humax FreeSat HD recorder

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The otherwise brilliant Humax FreeSat HD recorder - the FoxSat-HDR - sometimes starts displaying subtitles that can't be turned off with...
20 comments:
Thursday, 19 April 2012

Cisco bug: object-group ACL fails after reboot

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It seems that object-group definitions are ridiculously buggy in router ACL's on IOS 12.4(24)T2.  Here's a simple example from my C...
Thursday, 15 March 2012

How to burn a big file to DVD

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If you want to write a big (> 4 GB) file to DVD, you must use a burning program that allows you to choose UDF as the format...  Otherwi...
6 comments:
Thursday, 8 March 2012

Apple Airport Utility: UPDATED

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Airport Utility v6.0 looks very shiny, but has lost lots of features since the old version.  It no longer supports IPV6, syslog, connection ...
1 comment:
Monday, 6 February 2012

FIXED: Ubuntu 11.10 hangs after upgrade from 11.04: "Waiting for network configuration" then black X screen

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Here's a fix for this problem, which I saw after upgrading a VMware Fusion 4.1.1 machine from Ubuntu 11.04 to 11.10.
Wednesday, 4 January 2012

Preparing a new Ubuntu VM Server

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Here is my crib sheet on setting up a new Ubuntu server, including notes on enabling Virtualisation.  These notes include discussion of Kims...
2 comments:
Monday, 2 January 2012

Multi-WAN + Multi-LAN + No-NAT routing with pfSense 2.0.1

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This notes summarise how to run multiple No-NAT LAN and WAN connections using version 2.0.1 of pfSense (an excellent open-source routing/fir...
22 comments:
Saturday, 3 December 2011

HOWTO: Disable touchpad when mouse is plugged in

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My Dell M4400 laptop runs Ubuntu Linux 10.04.  When writing reports, I kept making mistakes due to hitting the trackpad during typing.  To s...
1 comment:
Monday, 28 November 2011

Mac OS X Lion: Saved Versions considered harmful

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Lion has a new feature designed to take safety copies of files you are editing.   But this isn't a good idea if you edit confidential do...
Saturday, 15 October 2011

Gmail Contact Sync: Mac, iPhone, iPad... [UPDATED]

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How to keep your address book synchronized across an iMac, MacBook, iPhone and iPad...
1 comment:
Friday, 7 October 2011

Accessing an Ubuntu desktop from Mac OS X Lion [UPDATED]

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I've got this working now, but it's more complicated than it ought to be...
Monday, 11 July 2011

Booting Acronis True Image from a USB stick

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Today I needed to restore a netbook PC from a backup image taken with Acronis True Image Home 9.0 (which is excellent). The backup image wa...
5 comments:
Tuesday, 21 June 2011

AWSTATS on Apache with Ubuntu Server 10.04 LTS

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Got this working today.   Nice guide here covers most of it.  Another good guide is here .
Thursday, 16 June 2011

UK SIM cards with static IP addresses

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Should you have a need for 3G Data SIMs with "real" fixed public IP addresses (rather than the usual dynamic NATted private IPs), ...
26 comments:
Friday, 10 June 2011

How to disable GMail's spam filter

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GMail's spam filtering is usually excellent, but sometimes it can get over-zealous.  The first thing to know is that mail from people i...
17 comments:
Friday, 3 June 2011

More thoughts on Sandboxing for security

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From a security perspective, perhaps today's desktop operating systems are missing the point. With the increase in carefully-targeted sp...
1 comment:
Wednesday, 1 June 2011

Accessing a VM image from a QEMU host

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Just a quick note of the commands needed to mount a VM disk image from the QEMU host server...
Tuesday, 31 May 2011

VMware on Linux: Promiscuous Mode

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When VMware Workstation is hosted under Linux, by default it doesn't allow VM Guests to access the network in Promiscuous mode.  There...
7 comments:

Fixed: Ubuntu Server shows outdated update info

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Just updated some Ubuntu 10.04.2 servers using 'apt-get update; apt-get dist-upgrade', then rebooted to find stale information displ...
Thursday, 26 May 2011

Easy sandboxing for Windows apps

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Sandboxie looks very interesting....  Yet to try it, but have heard good things about it.  Without the cost of firing up different VMs, it ...

Disabling/enabling services in Ubuntu (UPDATED)

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Recent versions of Ubuntu have changed the way that system services start up.  Presumably this reflects a policy change in Linux systems. T...
Sunday, 3 April 2011

New Cycling website launch

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http://www.ComeCyclingLedbury.com - finally got it finished.  :-)
Thursday, 17 February 2011

Security Websites

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Herewith, just some bookmarks to websites covering network security topics. 
2 comments:
Wednesday, 26 January 2011

Installing Windows on Dell Inspiron 1545

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If you're trying to install a clean copy of Windows XP or Windows 7 on a Dell Inspiron 1545 laptop, these notes might help...
Tuesday, 18 January 2011

Gmail Push: instant notification of new email

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Just a quick note about setting up 'push' email delivery on Gmail accounts.  This feature gives you instant notification of incoming...
Sunday, 19 December 2010

VOIP QoS on Dual-WAN ADSL Cisco 1841

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Just now I'm messing about with a Cisco 1841 router with two ADSL cards in it (as outlined in an earlier post to this blog). I'll wr...
Monday, 6 December 2010

Dual-WAN ADSL with Cisco 1841

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I've got a second ADSL line now, so I've just started playing with bonding my two AAISP.net.uk lines together using a Cisco 1841 ro...
Wednesday, 17 November 2010

Updating FreeBSD 7.3 to 8.1 on Soekris NET5501

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Just a quick heads-up if you're updating a FreeBSD server with a serial console.
Thursday, 21 October 2010

Ubuntu 10.10 First Impressions

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Tried out clean installs of Ubuntu 10.10 (Maverick Meerkat) on two Dell Latitude D620 systems yesterday.
Saturday, 16 October 2010

Apple iPad first impressions

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I finally got an iPad a few days ago.  Generally, it's a very impressive device - as it should be for the price.  Just some initial obse...
1 comment:
Saturday, 9 October 2010

Ubuntu Server virtualisation on Kimsufi hosting

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After yesterday's false start with Citrix XenServer, today I'm switching to Ubuntu Server as my VM hosting platform.

Virtualizing my Internet server

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I'm about to start work on a new non-profit website using a content management system so that other people can help to edit the content....
Friday, 8 October 2010

IPV6 on Ubuntu 8.04 server

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In case anyone else is wondering why /etc/network/interfaces fails to configure a static IPV6 address on Ubuntu 8.04, here's the soluti...
Sunday, 19 September 2010

IPV6 + Cisco 1841 ADSL + Monowall

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Got this combination working today after a bit of a struggle...
2 comments:
Saturday, 18 September 2010

Wake-on-LAN workaround for Mac Snow Leopard

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This article discusses Wake-on-Demand versus "classic" Wake-on-LAN on Mac Snow Leopard.
7 comments:
Saturday, 21 August 2010

Stopping random cut-and-paste errors

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Recently I've kept finding random bits of text pasted in at random places in the documents I've been editing under Ubuntu Linux.  To...
Wednesday, 18 August 2010

Herefordshire in the sunshine

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Took some photos at the weekend, on a short walk around Marcle Ridge in Herefordshire.  I don't know why this part of the country is so ...

Ubuntu Netbook Edition: Consumer-Friendly Linux

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Just a quick note in praise of Ubuntu Linux 10.04 "Lucid Lynx" - more specifically their excellent Netbook edition - with a HOWTO ...
8 comments:
Friday, 9 July 2010

iPhone 4 Frustrations on T-Mobile UK

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Finally got my iPhone 4 (unlocked from Apple). Having sold my iPhone 3G to my sister (who is now using it on T-Mobile), I'd been reduce...
1 comment:
Thursday, 3 June 2010

Ubuntu 10.04 LTS - First Impressions

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I've been testing this release ("Lucid Lynx") on a Dell Precision M4400 laptop. Initial impressions very favourable. It boot...
Saturday, 15 May 2010

Traverse Viking PCI ADSL card + MONOWALL

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I now have one of these cards in a Soekris net5501, in a nice case supplied by Wim at kd85.com  ...
13 comments:
Thursday, 13 May 2010

Askozia PBX 2.0: Fix for IAX trunk not working

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I'm running a free Asterisk appliance image on a Soekris NET5501 low-power embedded computer .  So far so good: it's simplicity its...
Wednesday, 12 May 2010

HOWTO: Install Ubuntu Linux via PXE Boot

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Here's how to do a network-based installation of Ubuntu Linux, for machines without CDROM drives.  It is very simple.
Tuesday, 11 May 2010

HOWTO: Install a Soekris server with PXE Boot

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The Soekris NETxxxx boards can't boot from CDROM or USB, so installing an operating system requires PXE booting from the network, unless...
1 comment:
Monday, 3 May 2010

No-NAT Firewalling with Monowall

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Just a heads up for anyone tearing their hair out over this one.
3 comments:
Wednesday, 7 April 2010

Full Disk Encryption & PGP email for the Mac

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As a security specialist, my own systems need to be secure, so it's my policy that most of my systems should employ full-disk encryption...
5 comments:
Tuesday, 17 November 2009

Apple Time Capsule steals IP addresses, but that's OK really

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Found one minor oddity with my new Apple Time Capsule.  If you have an ARP monitoring program running (such as arpwatch, or any FreeBSD serv...
1 comment:

HOWTO: Fix dig & nslookup on Mac OS X

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If ping works but dig & nslookup are broken, there's a simple fix.
1 comment:
Friday, 13 November 2009

HOWTO: Make smaller PDF files on the Mac

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On the Mac, printing a document to a PDF sometimes results in a very big file, for example when the original document has lots and lots of p...
Sunday, 27 September 2009

Using PPP over UK ADSL using pfSense

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Most home broadband connections use an ADSL router with a built-in NAT firewall. For more complex networks, the next step is to place a ded...
13 comments:

HOWTO: Native IPV6 dialup on the Mac

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The world is running out of IPV4 addresses, so the transition from IPV4 to IPV6 is getting closer. Here's how to kick the tyres, if you...
Saturday, 26 September 2009

HOWTO: Send SYSLOG messages to FreeBSD

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When you try to send SYSLOG messages for storage on a FreeBSD 7 server, the odds are that your messages won't appear in your log file on...
Thursday, 20 August 2009

GMail's SSL Certificate Updated: Fixing STUNNEL

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Today it appeared that Google Mail had updated the SSL certificate they use to secure access to the SMTPS service on smtp.gmail.com:587.   T...
3 comments:
Saturday, 15 August 2009

Garmin GPSmap 60CSx -update

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I've now had the opportunity to leave the GPS logging on a long car journey. Very impressive...
Saturday, 8 August 2009

Garmin GPSmap 60CSx - first impressions

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Just got one of these handheld GPS units for hiking and cycling. First impressions excellent...
Tuesday, 4 August 2009

EZMLM Log File Viewer

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DJB's EZMLM mailing list software keeps a log showing subscriber additions and deletions, but the date and time are in a non-human-reada...
Tuesday, 7 July 2009

Leopard 10.5.7: MacBook WiFi connects, then drops

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My old MacBook's built-in Wi-Fi was rock-solid until recently, but just lately it had problems. Disabling RealPlayer Downloader Agent se...
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