tidystorm

random techno-gab

Category Archives: App repair and hacks

How I rip an online video and burn to audio cd for my car

I watch online videos that cover business and technical subjects. I don’t really need to watch the guy talk, so why not listen in the car instead?

I use Realplayer Free.

1.  Open the video in Google Chrome and start the video.

2. Click on the Realplayer “download this video” link.

3. Download several.

4. Open Realplayer library  

5. In this interface, you can choose “audio CD burner” and you can drag enough files to fill a CD or DVD. Realplayer will tell you how much room you have left.

6. Click “burn CD.” It will burn .cda files to the disk. They play on the computer and on the CD player in my Honda.

How to register Lunarpages private nameservers at Network Solutions

I recently upgraded my shared hosting plan to VPS Xen Cloud. My domain is registered with Network Solutions. Here are the instructions for updating the nameservers on Network Solutions. (Lunarpages offers instructions, but I’ve slightly improved them here.)

To create or update your name servers:

  1. Log in to Account Manager
  2. Go to Manage Name Servers and add your private nameservers with your ip address there
  3. Go to Find All Your Products Below and choose your domain and click “go”
  4. Click on the Edit link to the right of Designated DNS
  5. Type the name of the first new name server in the Name Server 1 text box, or select an existing name server from the drop down menu
  6. Type the name of the second new name server in the Name Server 2 text box, or select an existing name server from the drop down menu
  7. Type in the IP address
  8. Carefully review the DNS changes and if correct, click on the Save DNS button

Your name server(s) has been created or updated.

Secunia, Emet and Adobe Illustrator CS4

I’m still running Adobe Illustrator CS4, even though Secunia PSI reports a vulnerability in this end-of-life program. The prevailing wisdom is to shell out the 200 bucks to upgrade CS5.

Granted, CS5 is supported by Adobe and offers security patches, but it’s a questionable company that offers fixes to their own program only to those able to pay.

There is an alternative. I make no claims here; however, I have decided to use Microsoft’s EMET software to bridge the gap.

From my scanty research, I see that EMET is largely unknown except to those who are most security-minded. There are discussions about it amongst the Secunia PSI community. I also see that EMET monitors only dll’s, but this could be a rumor, so look it up.

That said, because Illustrator’s vulnerability is in the dll file, I’m counting on EMET for now. It is my hope that Microsoft will step up its efforts to build more fail safes into its OS so as to protect innocent users from less-than-perfect apps such as Illustrator CS4.

[Solved] Lenovo Ideapad Wireless Bug

Hung on the phone for a total of four hours with Lenovo, but heck I got an answer. My wireless was not talking to my Lenovo Ideapads any more, yet it was communicating just fine with my Dell and my Lenovo Thinkpad. All were running various versions of Windows 7.

Ralph, in the Philippines, determined that this is a Windows problem, but he hung with me the whole time to figure out a workaround.

Hopefully, Lenovo will dish out this answer in the first hour the next time someone calls, not the fourth hour, thanks to Ralph for figuring it out.

So here goes:

The problem

Linksys E3000 router always worked just fine with Lenovo desktops, Lenovo laptops, Lenovo Ideapads, and a Dell. Suddenly on December 12, the wireless on the four Ideapads seemed not to work any more. After a lot of mucking, the situation got worse, in that four of our Ideapads could not also connect by Ethernet. Now I had two doorstops, and two others that could only connect wired.

Curiously, my Verizon Wifi did work. This led me, and the Lenovo guy, to believe it’s not a hardware problem.

I tried

I tried everything I could find from a google search, but none of these worked:

  1. Uninstall Lenovo Ready Com 5
  2. System Restore
  3. One Key Recovery
  4. Update device driver
  5. Change encryption type
  6. Stopping and starting the WLAN services using services. msc
  7. Changing the router channels
  8. Flash bios
  9. Update Intel Chipset Driver (the wireless card is on the motherboard, so maybe this was not unreasonable)

A misleading event

The first time I tried a Lenovo OneKey Recovery, the wireless came back, not just on the one Ideapad on which I did the recovery, but all four. This made no sense. After more mucking, I lost the wireless again, and it did not come back after another OneKey Recovery. This was a spurious event.

A misleading solution

Windows allows a connection through the MAC address. A MAC address is used by games such as Playstation or Xbox. The MAC address of each laptop can be hard-coded into the router’s configuration. Doing so will override whatever the Windows 7 problem is. Lenovo could go no further, but they are to be applauded for taking it this far.

On one of the Ideapads, I did this:

  1. cmd->(admin mode)->ipconfig /all
  2. look for wireless lan
  3. find the physical address and write it down
  4. go into the control panel for the router
  5. choose the wireless tab, then wireless MAC filter
  6. under MAC Address Filter List, type in the MAC address
  7. repeat for the next laptop (find the MAC address, then type it into the router’s control panel)

Reboot everything

The wireless now worked. Ralph from Lenovo thinks that a MAC address can always be used. So even though it’s a workaround, it can be a long-term one.


But the next day…

The next day, the ideapads couldn’t see the wireless again. Lenovo was perplexed. So I decided to introduce a change by switching routers. I bought a NetGear N600. It worked. SOLVED

The autopsy

I noticed that the netgear suggested two different router names (SSID’s). One name is for the 2.4GHz and the other is for 5GHz. I hadn’t made the distinction before on the Linksys. So I went with netgear’s example, and assigned two different names.

Bang! The ideapads seem to only find the 2.4GHz connection, while the Thinkpad found both frequencies.

My theory as to what might have happened: On the Linksys, the 5GHz frequency was maybe not working? This is over my head, but I’m just using pure logic. it doesn’t explain some of the spurious events, though.

Oh and the Netgear was cheap. See the ad above.

Solved Xmarks says database corrupted

Xmarks told me about a corrupted database, and offered a cryptic set of steps to fix the database. Instead, I uninstalled xmarks, uninstalled firefox, reinstalled firefox, and reinstalled xmarks.

Fixed.

Do I have an opinion about xmarks’ threat to go away? Yes, I’d pay to keep them, and I’ve told them so. Synching bookmarks is how I communicate to my teenagers.

Yup. Really.

When you need your Lenovo motherboard replaced

About to send your Lenovo laptop to the shop to get the motherboard replaced? Find a way to send a love note along to remind the teks to update the serial number. You WILL care and they’re SUPPOSED to do it.

I sent my Lenovo laptop recently, still under warranty, to replace a fried motherboard.

When it was returned to me, Thinkvantage Toolbox reported my system model as invalid. But the problem was broader than Toolbox.

I discovered that the “system model” was trashed. When I typed “system information” in the search box, or navigated to the system tool, I found that the system model was INVALID. This can’t be good.

Worse, when I reported the problem to Lenovo, they told me I needed to reinstall my operating system. So I did that.

But then my laptop, an S10-3T, could not longer recognize its network adapter. Great. I had a new OS, but no means to connect.

And when I called Lenovo again, they told me they could not have said such a thing about reinstalling. They told me that I had now violated my warranty by installing an operating system from a disk. Unfortunately, I hadn’t saved my ticket number to prove that they were the ones who told me to do that.

They were now saying I had to pay to get it fixed because I had violated my warranty. They directed me to their “premium services,” which means you pay.

When I called their “premium services” line to pay to get it fixed, the tek there told me to hit the “one key recovery button,” which would reinstalling the original manufacturer’s installation and would also reinstate my warranty. So glad someone told me. I was supposed to know?

So I did that. Everything restored. However, I still had the problem of the INVALID system model.

So I had to pack up my laptop and send it back to their repair “Depot” in Gainesville, the very same guys who forgot to update the serial number in the first place. We’ll see if they get it right this time.

They told me there was nothing wrong with my computer and sent it back to me.

So I escalated the issue to their technical people in North Carolina. After some back and forths, they figured out how to fix my computer. It is my hunch that the Ideapad arrived into the world with some problems, which Lenovo is now trying to fix. In the end, Lenovo has redeemed itself.

After all, their hardware, software, and service are still better than that of their competitors.

I continue to try loving Lenovo. Irrational? Maybe. But the alternative is unthinkable.

Tool running too slow? Speed it up

I’ve been running Thinkvantage Lenovo Toolbox for 24 hours now. All I’m doing is “test a device” but the external usb hard drive I’m testing is big.

So I just now ran Process Hacker to find out if Toolbox is even running. Maybe it’s hung? After all, the Toolbox test has been sitting at 99 percent for at least four hours now. So it’s a reasonable question to ask. On the other hand, it’s running the SMART Extended Self-Test, which can take a while.

It’s running. But I made a discovery!

You can change the priority of a running tool very easily with Process Hacker. Just right click on the process that’s running, then click priority, then click “high.” Duh.

And from now on if I’m in a hurry for PC Doctor to finish, I’ll suspend Crashplan, Logmein, Argentum, and Soluto. Duh.

How to know your Buffalo Linkstation is in good shape

I like to run periodic disk checks on my internal and external USB hard drives (using a combination of dskchks, defrags, and Lenovo Toolbox) and wanted to do some kind of check for my two Buffalo backup servers as well.

But being unfamiliar with these Linux-based servers that I use as backup servers, I ran into some questions. I called the company and got satisfactory answers.

  1. I found out that I had never installed the NAS Navigator, which is a tray application that runs in the background. I can get this NAS Navigator from the CD or their web site.
  2. When you run a disk check or disk scan from the web interface for the Buffalo Link Station, it first analyzes the metadata to determine if the scan is warranted. One of my Link Stations proceeded with the scan, which took several hours, with no return code. The other ran for five seconds and said it completed successfully. I learned from support that in the first case, the metadata probably warranted a thorough scan, and that no return code or message meant good news. In the second case, the support person told me, the five seconds followed by a positive message means it analyzed the metadata and saw no need to run the scan.
  3. Support told me that unless there’s a problem, there’s really no need to run scans on the Link Stations.
  4. Support told me further that if I would now install the NAS Navigator, I would see any signs of trouble in the tray application.

I have now downloaded and installed the NAS Navigator on my computer. I am now relying on this tray application to let me know if there’s a problem. I probably will still occasionally attempt a scan disk, but I now know that if it completes immediately and reports that the scan was successful, this means that no scan was necessary.

Image backup to a network drive with Windows Home Premium

I don’t use the Windows system image backup because half our computers have Windows 7 Home Premium, which is too stingy to offer system image backups to a network drive. Sadly, we do our system image backups to a network drive, specifically, the USB hard drive that’s connected to our router.

So instead I use the free Macrium Reflect, which does a great job. I still had to map the router’s hard drive on my computer, but at least Macrium Reflect recognizes it, which Windows does not.

I already have all the rescue disks created, which are the device we use to initiate “restore” of a system image backup if one is needed.

To create a new system image backup on a new computer, this is what I did:

1. Run Macrium Reflect
2. Click on “create a backup image of an entire disk or selected partition”
3. Follow the wizard’s instructions
4. Choose network and type in the network address
5. Check the box for “use the image ID as the file name” which should already be checked
6. Use “advanced” to choose “make an exact copy.” Leave the compression level at medium
7. Use the same nickname for the job that we used for the other computers, which is ”Medium Compression and Cloned Copy”
8. Be sure and schedule it so it will run again in the future

To create a new system image backup on a computer for which the job has already been defined:

1. Run Macrium Reflect
2. Click on the “scheduled backup” tab
3. Right-click on the job. It should be titled “Medium Compression and Clone xml.job”
4. Click on “run now”
5. Click OK. The job will run hidden, but you can unhide it to view progress. Find the icon in the system tray

About the rescue disks:

We currently have one disk per computer in the house, but we can always create another new rescue disk for any new computer that comes into the house.

The rescue disk does the job of locating the system image for the computer that needs rescuing.

In the event that we buy a replacement computer for someone in the house, we can create a new restore disk for that new computer, then use it to prime the new computer with the system image from the old computer (provided that the new computer’s hard drive is the same size or bigger than that of the old computer.)

To create a rescue disk:

1. Insert a disk
2. Run reflect
3. Choose the function for creating a bootable rescue disk
4. For rescue CD type, choose Linux
5. Select the drive that you had put the CD in
6. Click Finish

When disaster finally strikes

When disaster strikes or you’ve gotten a new hard drive or a new computer, it’s time to dig up the rescue disk.

To restore the system image backup:

1. Boot to the rescue disk
2. The restore wizard will run and will eject the disk
3. Now you don’t need the disk. In the dialogue box, look for the location of your system image backup. We have it under “network neighborhood.”
4. Click on “map share.” Type in the IP address and folder where the system image backup is stored. Open the location
5. You should see the date of the backup and the partitions that are included in the backup. Highlight the backup you want and click next.
6. Choose the partition you want to restore. You can restore one partition at a time without ever leaving the dialogue.
7. Follow the rest of the instructions.

I must say, however, the need for Marcium Reflect for system image backup is, so far, the only flaw I see to using Windows Home Premium. You can see in the ads above the difference in price between Home and Ultimate. You can guess that the middle one, Windows Professional, is priced somewhere in the middle.