Shooting Star BBS Blog

How I got my 4th generation 20GB iPod working again

admin@shootingstarbbs.kicks-ass.net — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 08:00:00 GMT

A while back I bought a used 20GB iPod off eBay and loaded Rockbox on it. Everything worked great for about 7 months but then it started powering up with the exclamation point folder icon. I could hear the hard drive trying to spin up but then it immediately shut down (clicking.) I figured the HD must be toast so I went back on eBay and bought a 60GB 4G color iPod (never used). I then put the broken one up for sale on craigslist and had a guy e-mail me. He said to give it a good thwack because the HD cable often comes loose on these iPods. Since I already had opened the case, I went ahead and checked the HD cable. I couldn't tell if it was loose, but I pushed down on it anyway. All of the sudden the iPod booted and Rockbox loaded up! Apparently the cable was loose because now it looks like the thing is working again (crosses fingers).

So, if you've got a 4th gen iPod that is displaying the folder with an exclamation point icon, you might try cracking it open and pushing on the HD ribbon cable.

Tri-booting Vista, XP, and Linux

admin@shootingstarbbs.kicks-ass.net — Sat, 10 May 2008 08:00:00 GMT

I've been successfully dual booting Vista and Linux (openSUSE) for a while now. The trick was to install Vista first (already done when I bought the laptop) and then openSUSE. GRUB was automatically installed and handled the dual boot situation well.

But after all the problems I've had with Vista not running programs that work fine in XP (Joint Ops, SSH/SMB port forwarding--see my other blog entry, my Hauppauge TV card) I decided that I also needed to be able to boot XP. But how do you get XP installed without clobbering GRUB or anything else? Turned out to be trickier than I thought...

First step is to use Vista's Disk Manager to shrink its partition and make room for XP. I was able to free up about 13GB of space which will be enough for now. Then I formatted it as NTFS.

I knew that installing XP was going to clobber GRUB by overwriting the Master Boot Record (MBR) on my hard drive. So I fired up my trusty Knoppix boot CD and used the program DD to backup the MBR to a file. The trick here is to only back up part of the MBR (the first 448 bytes) because the rest contains the parition table which we don't need to mess with.

Once the MBR has been backed up, you can start the XP install process. Just make sure to specify the new partition as the installation destination. No need to format it (did that above using Vista.)

After XP finishes its install the computer will reboot. XP will boot up because GRUB is now toast. Let it finish the install process completely--your old partitions and data will remain untouched.

Next step is to get GRUB back. Boot up Knoppix again and find that MBR backup file that was created above. Use DD again to copy the original MBR back to the disk.

When you reboot, you should see GRUB again. But you'll notice that XP is not one of the boot options. You'll need to modify the GRUB config file (usually grub.conf--depends on your version of Linux) and add an entry for XP.

Once you've added XP to the list of boot options in GRUB, reboot and select it from the list. If all goes well, XP should boot up (and so should all the other OS's.)

If for some reason Vista won't boot anymore, you'll need to run Vista's Startup Repair tool to fix it.

That's it!

(Well not quite, at least not for me. I soon learned that HP does not provide XP drivers for my Pavilion dv6500 laptop! I had to find a hacked nVidia driver to install--one with a modified INF file to allow installing on XP, among other things. Also, since this laptop has a SATA drive controller, the XP install CD does not see it and, since I don't have a floppy drive, I couldn't hit F6 to install it! Solution was to use nLite to create a new XP install CD with the necessary driver.)

Vista patch (KB942624) breaks SSH port 445 forwarding?

admin@shootingstarbbs.kicks-ass.net — Sun, 16 Dec 2007 08:00:00 GMT

I'd been using OpenSSH running under Cygwin for quite a while now and just recently started port forwarding SMB so I could copy files between local and remote computers over an encrypted tunnel. More accurately, I wanted to sync files between Windows boxes and a remote NAS device running NSLU2-Linux using robocopy. This involved installing a loopback adapter, assigning it an IP address (10.0.0.222), then running SSH:

ssh -L 10.0.0.222:445:localhost:445 user@remoteip

Once connected, I can see my remote Windows shares by specify a UNC path (\\10.0.0.222) in Windows Explorer. This was all working great until I installed Vista patch KB942624 which fixes a security issue in SMB. It fixes it so good that now I get the following error message with the above command right after I type in my password:

bind: Operation not permitted
channel_setup_fwd_listener: cannot listen to port: 445
Could not request local forwarding.

I've tested this on three different Windows Home Premium installations with the same result. Uninstalling the patch reverts back to expected behavior (it works again.) So I guess I won't be installing this patch.

Windows Vista--aaaaaagggghhhh!

admin@shootingstarbbs.kicks-ass.net — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 08:00:00 GMT

Why did I think it'd be a good idea to upgrade to Vista when I replaced two of my computers? Probably because every Windows upgrade I've ever done (since Win3.1) was never this troublesome! My main issue? User Account Control. In theory it's a great idea (stolen entirely from Unix/Linux.) The problem is that many, many programs won't run correctly with it enabled! My favorite game won't even run because Punk Buster boots me off the server. Haven't found a fix for that yet. Do anything in the Command Prompt? Better learn how to open it in Administrative mode and even then you may have problems. I've finally turned off UAC... we'll see if that makes my life easier.

New program available for Windows Media Services -- WMS Directory Browser

admin@shootingstarbbs.kicks-ass.net — Sun, 14 Oct 2007 08:00:00 GMT

Windows Media Services (WMS) Directory Browser is an ASP.Net application (HTTP handler) that allows you to view and stream multimedia files when using IIS directory browsing mode. Please click on the link under My Apps to the right for more information.

Get an e-mail alert when you're close to exceeding your Verizon Wireless plan minutes

admin@shootingstarbbs.kicks-ass.net — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 07:00:00 GMT

Using AutoHotkey and Blat, this script will e-mail you when you're at risk of exceeding your family plan minutes.

Join the grid!

admin@shootingstarbbs.kicks-ass.net — Sun, 06 May 2007 08:00:00 GMT

Does your computer sit idle much of the time? If so, consider putting that idle time to good use: join the World Community Grid and the Shooting Star BBS team!

My foray into Linux

admin@shootingstarbbs.kicks-ass.net — Sat, 07 Apr 2007 07:00:00 GMT

I've been playing around with Linux for a few years now, mostly just to see what all the commotion was about, not to use it on a daily basis.

In the past I've loaded up Fedora and have installed later versions of it since then. It never did a very good job detecting my hardware, so things like sound and video cards had to be manually configured which usually amounted to editing conf (configuration) files--not fun.

Lately I've been playing with several other distros including Ubuntu, openSUSE, MEPIS, and PCLinuxOS.

Ubuntu 6.10 looked and behaved a lot like Fedora Core 6. It also didn't detect all my hardware. So I wasn't very impressed.

openSUSE 10.2 did a better job detecting my hardware and I liked its layout and usability better. But it did not detect my ATI Radeon 9800 out of the box so I had to install the Linux driver available from ATI (now AMD.) After that I was happy and able to set up Compiz, the 3D desktop manager.

I also tried the MEPIS 6.5 liveCD and surprisingly it did detect my video card correctly along with all my other devices. Yay! I also liked its menu layout and how it functioned. Since the video card was detected, a 3D desktop (Beryl) was also loaded automatically.

PCLinuxOS, like MEPIS, also automatically detected my video card but did not automatically enable 3D effects (both Beryl and Compiz are apparently supported in this distro.) I was able to manually enable Beryl.

At this point, I'm torn over openSUSE and MEPIS. I'm running Gnome in openSUSE but I'm starting to think I like KDE better. I'm planning on giving it a try with openSUSE soon.

First post

admin@shootingstarbbs.kicks-ass.net — Fri, 28 Jul 2006 07:00:00 GMT

Welcome!

I just installed DotNetNuke and am planning to use it as my new homepage. Check out the links on the left and feel free to snoop around.

-DC-

Ten tips for a better running and more secure computer

admin@shootingstarbbs.kicks-ass.net — Sat, 08 Apr 2006 07:00:00 GMT

Ok, for all those people who have Microsoft Windows computers that run slowly and produce pop-up advertisements all the time, I'm going to do you a big favor and tell you what you need to do. The best part: ALL OF THESE SOLUTIONS ARE FREE!

1) Check your hard drive

Open a Command Prompt (click Start, Run, and type "cmd" then hit Enter) and run "chkdsk c: /f" to check for file errors on your hard drive.

2) Run Windows Update

Go to Start, Programs, and click the Windows Update icon. You'll need to be connected to the Internet for it to work. Make sure you download all the Critical Updates, regardless of how long it will take!

3) Install anti-virus sofware (and keep it updated)

If you aren't running anti-virus software, you're asking for trouble. Likewise, if you think you're running it but haven't updated the signature files lately, you might as well not be running anti-virus sofware at all!

Microsoft provides a free online scanner (OneCare) that you can run manually. However, you still need to install anti-virus software on your computer for continous protection. There are some decent free solutions out there like AVG, Avast!, and ComodoAV.

Important: You should only install one anti-virus app!

4) Install or buy a firewall

First, find out if you need one. Go to GRC and click the "ShieldsUp!" link. If it says you have open ports, or you don't even know what a port is, read on...

Hardware firewalls are the best (most internet routers have a NAT firewall), but software versions work too and are generally cheaper and easier to use. If you're running Windows XP or Vista, it comes with one, you just have to make sure you turn it on. Note that XP's built-in firewall is only a one-way firewall meaning that it protects your computer from external Internet connections but does not stop software on your computer from connecting to the Internet (phoning home.)

More robust firewalls are available, like ZoneAlarm and Comodo (both free.)

5) Search for ad/spyware

Some anti-virus programs do this already, but just in case, you can download Spybot and/or AdAware.

6) Firefox browser (optional)

If you use Internet Explorer (IE), you might want to consider switching to a different browser. IE is known for having a lot of bugs, and even today there are still known bugs that have yet to be patched. Some are quite serious and can put you at risk just by surfing the net! (Do a Google search on "IE unpatched" for a sample.)

One browser that has gotten quite popular is Mozilla Firefox. It even has features IE doesn't! For example, AdBlock with the Filterset.G updater.

You can also download the Thunderbird e-mail client which has spam-blocking built in and is a great replacement for Outlook Express.

7) Backup, backup, backup!

Anyone who has used computers long enough knows the importance of backing up files. While there are many backup programs out there (Windows even comes with one), restoring a crashed OS where all files were lost can be a nightmare, if not impossible. Unfortunately this is often the only solution if your system is infected by a virus or your hard drive dies. One program I use is DriveImage XML. It backs up the entire partition and allows individual file restores or entire partition restores via a BartPE boot CD.

8) Use a custom hosts file

There is a simple text file on most modern operating systems (Windows, Mac, Linux, etc.) that can be used to both find and block Internet sites by name. This file is known as a hosts file. By using a custom hosts file you can block access from your computer to many malicious websites and unwanted advertisements residing on the Internet. That means that when you're surfing the Internet, advertisements on websites won't be displayed regardless of which browser you're using! It also means you're less likely to contract malware and, in the unlikely event that you do (or already have), it won't have much chance of communicating with other bad sites on the Internet. For Windows users, I recommend installing Hostsman to update the hosts file automatically since the list of bad websites is always changing.

9) Defragment your hard drive

Some computers, especially older ones, can start to slow down due to fragmented files on the hard drive. Windows has a built-in file defragmentor but it's not very effective. A more effective version is Power Defragmenter.

10) Update your computer's BIOS firmware

Just like the software you load on your computer, there is software that resides on the hardware chips in your computer, present at the time you bought it and put there by the manufacturer. This software (or firmware) is what makes your computer work and often it can be updated too. The process for doing this is more complex because you must visit the manufacturer's website and follow their instructions for updating. For example, if you own a Dell you can download the updated BIOS firmware from their support site.

If you're interested in learning more, visit CERT.