Every so often, Tech Rescue gets a battery question. This Tech Talk will try to answer some of the most common ones. 1. Batteries have a “memory” don’t they? Technically speaking, current nickel–cadmium, nickel metal hydride and lithium-ion batteries do not have a memory effect. It used to be that you had to “train” a Read more about Battery Questions[…]

With all the hype around the Apple Watch and Android Wear, I wanted to share my thoughts on the current crop of smart watches. I have been using a smart watch since I got a Fossil/Abacus watch back in the mid-2000s. Well, actually, I had numerous Casio Databank watches back in the old days, but Read more about Smart Watch Thoughts[…]

I recently manually updated my Rooted Shield Tablet. After it rebooted and re-optimized the applications, I noticed that the “Home” and “Recent” buttons were no longer showing up or active. The notification shade was also not working correctly. While annoying, it is a fairly simple fix. You have run the following in either ADB shell Read more about How to fix missing “Home” and “Recent” buttons after some Android updates[…]

The free FFMPEG video utility can do this pretty simply using a command line. This works in Windows and Linux and probably MacOSX as well. ffmpeg -i input.avi -vcodec copy -acodec copy -ss 00:00:00 -t 00:30:00 output1.avi -vcodec copy -acodec copy -ss 00:30:00 -t 00:30:00 output2.avi ffmpeg -i input.avi -> your large video file. This Read more about Splitting a Large Video File In To Smaller Files[…]

If you are behind a network device that blocks Plex Media Server’s port 32400, there is hope. Changing the port in the server configuration doesn’t seem to work so the best bet is to have an Apache server run a proxy/reverse proxy configuration. We have an Ubuntu server running on port 80, with Plex running Read more about Running Plex Media Server on Port 80 with Apache[…]

We recently had a client running IIS change primary domains but they wanted to keep the old domain active. One of their web application didn’t like having the old domain URL active, so we had to create an IIS rewrite rule. I have included it below, with the URLs changed to a couple that we Read more about Changing from one domain to another in IIS[…]

This will take a file that looks like “file120.name.ext” and convert it to “filename – 120 – name.ext” Expression: (\d)(\d\d) Replace: $0 –

This is because of SELinux. The issue is caused when you move something from one place to another. It preserves the SELinux context of the original when you move it. Therefore, if you download something into /home or /tmp it gets given an SELinux context that matches that location. If you move it to /var/www/html, Read more about After moving a file into the Linux HTTP directory, the file is not accessible[…]

The newer versions of Squid have been converted to upstart. This is a quick write-up on how we got Squid3 installed on Ubuntu 13.10. We also set it up to allow any users on the local network and require passwords for users outside of the network. Install Squid3 sudo apt-get install squid3 apache-util Create file Read more about Squid 3 Proxy Setup in Ubuntu 13.10[…]

Tech Rescue Labs recently got a Butterfly Labs branded ASIC to “mine” Bitcoins. This is how we set it up using an old Intel Atom based EEE Box and Ubuntu 12.04 Once you get Ubuntu installed, it takes a few minor configurations to get it working. Add SSHD for remote administration and Screen for detaching Read more about Bitcoin Mining with Ubuntu[…]

Powershell is a wonderful tool that finally allows Windows Server Administrators to have the ability to access a shell-like environment that Unix Administrators have had for years. This script (Powershell CmdLet) will read a list of servernames, ip address and service names from a cvs file. It will check each service on the server to Read more about Powershell to Monitor Services[…]

I was trying to set up a Ceton InfiniTV 4 card today in a Windows 7 x64 based Media Center PC (MCPC). The cable guy came over with the Multi-Stream Cable Card, plugged it in and we ran the set up. During the last stage of configuring the card, my MCPC had to download a Read more about Playready Errors (Windows Media Center and Zune)[…]

When running a Linux-based network gateway (like a modified version of Untangle that I do), the amount of network magic that can be done is astounding! I was noticing that a certain IP address had multiple intrusion attempts to my network. After a quick Arin check, the IP was from a foreign country that would Read more about Block an IP Address in Linux[…]

If you are tech savvy, you should be able to do this yourself. If you are not, please find someone you know and trust that is. Comment out the ‘exec’ line in “/etc/event.d/uploadd” and reboot. After rebooting, “contextupload” is still running. This is started by the dbus process. Disable it by removing “/usr/bin/contextupload”.

When running Windows Server you can enable audio playback on the server over RDP. 1. Open the Terminal Services Configuration from the Administrator Tools sub-menu. 2. The first window should show a “RDP-Tcp” connection. If not, select “Connections” from the left pane. Right-click on the “RDP-Tcp” connection and select properties. 3. Choose the “Client Settings” Read more about Enable Audio over RDP from Windows Server[…]

Microsoft Windows Vista’s User Access Control is really generally a good thing, but it tends to be poorly executed. Most power users want to remove UAC because it is so annoying. Instead of disabling UAC, a better solution would be to use an account with administrator-level access as your usual user login account, and then Read more about A Better Way to Control Vista User Access Control (UAC)[…]

Following the directions below should allow you to share a mobile broadband internet connection, like from Sprint or AT&T, on one laptop with multiple other laptops on an Ad-Hoc wifi connection. First you will have to make sure that each computer can connect to an Ad-Hoc wireless network. Host Computer 1. Turn on the host Read more about Share a Mobile Broadband Internet Connection via WiFi[…]

06/24/2008 10:31 Edit: It was brought to my attention that the code below wasn’t showing up correctly. I changed it to be an image that when clicked on, brings up a text file so you can copy and paste it. 1. Install the Veoh application. 2. Create a file with the following contents named veoh.xml Read more about Create a Veoh Application Button in Vista Media Center[…]

Normally it is not a good idea to bypass the login procedure, but there are times when an auto-login makes sense, like a TV PC that automatically starts Media Center. Here is how to enable Auto-Login for Microsoft Windows Vista: The account must already exist before you do this. 1. Click the Start and type Read more about Vista Auto Login – For Media Center PC[…]

If you have been getting spam messages that look like they have been sent by you and then returned because the other email server sees them as spam, don’t worry as much because the chances are, they are just bounceback spam. Computer World Australia has a pretty good article regarding this. “The bounceback e-mail messages Read more about Bounceback Spam[…]

This batch file will take a sourcefile and rename it based on the current timestamp. We usually call this batch file after we use RoboCopy to mirror a folder. This can be run or called by: “datename.bat log.txt” which will rename “log.txt” to “200804100945AM.log.txt” ——–datename.bat———- @Echo OFF TITLE DateName REM DateName.CMD REM takes a filename Read more about Converting Logfile to DateName[…]

The following batch file can take a source folder and make an exact copy of that folder to another location. This can be useful if you want to have an automated backup run at a specific time by setting up a scheduled task to call this file. Robocopy will ensure that all NTFS attributes (security Read more about Using Robocopy to Mirror Folders[…]

We just got done looking at a client of ours’ web site code to find something that was pretty clever. We got a call last night from this client. It seems that when someone typed in the “business genre” and “area that the business is located” in a search engine, then clicked on the name Read more about Strange Web Search Results[…]

This from the US-CERT website: “US-CERT is aware of reports of a rouge cleaning tool circulating for Apple Mac OS, known as MacSweeper. When installed, this rouge software states that there are compromised files on the user’s system and that to clean or fix the files the user must purchase the software. Additionally, this rogue Read more about New Rougue Mac Cleaning Tool[…]

@echo off REM ———————————————————————————— REM Beginning of Batch file copylogs.bat REM ———————————————————————————— for /f “tokens=1-5 delims=/ ” %%d in (“%date%”) do rename “import.log” %%e-%%f-%%g-log.txt REM ———————————————————————————— REM Description Follows REM ———————————————————————————— REM for /f – The for command and the /f switch. REM Loop command: against a set of files – conditionally perform a command Read more about How To Rename A File To A Date In A Dos Batch File[…]

I have been doing some research on external storage products that are RAID capable (for data protection and longevity) and found a new product called Drobo.  I don’t yet have one, but it looks amazingly easy and well thought out. It allows you to use up to 4 hard drives of any size.  To get Read more about New External Storage Recommendation[…]

Puppy Linux is a small (28-72M), yet fully featured Linux distribution. It will easily install on a mini-cd or USB key. The following are the steps needed. 1. Download puppy linux from ftp://ibiblio.org/pub/linux/distributions/puppylinux/ 2. Write the iso on a CD and boot from that CD 3. Insert a USB flash disk into your PC. 4. Read more about How to Install Puppy Linux on a USB Key[…]

In reality, 90% of users surveyed by McAfee believed that they were protected by an Anti-virus solution.  The truth was that only 51% of them were.  You can read the PDF here.