ichi.co.uk

Network shares not working on Windows 7 and net use/view gives error code 53

Thu, 25 Apr 2013 10:33:00 +0100

If you have a problem connecting to network shares in Windows Explorer and “net view \server” or “net use z:\ \server\Share” is giving error code 53, it might be due to the network location for that NIC. If it is set to Public it will cause this, so change it to Work or Home.

Adding A Static Route On A Technicolor TG582n

Mon, 22 Apr 2013 22:40:00 +0100

Needed to add a static route to a Technicolor TG582n modem/router tonight that is being used for a fibre upgrade. There isn’t anyway to add it in the web interface I could find, however a little look in the docs I found it can easily be added via telnet. First telnet to your router:

telnet 192.168.1.254

Username : Administrator
Password : *******
-----------------------------------------------------------------
{Administrator}=>:ip rtadd dst=172.16.0.0/24 gateway=192.168.1.252 intf=lan1
{Administrator}=>saveall

There are several more options available if you need them. It will ask you for each one if you do something like…

{Administrator}=>:ip rtadd
dst = 172.16.0.0
[dstmsk] = 255.255.255.0
[label] =
[gateway] = 192.168.1.252
[intf] =
[srcintf] =
[static] =
[status] =
[metric] =
:ip rtadd dst=172.16.0.0/24 gateway=192.168.0.252

Then just do a “saveall” and you should be good. If you make a mistake or want to delete your route, you can do that with something like…

ip rtdelete dst=172.16.0.0/24 gateway=192.168.1.252

Hope that helps someone. :)

IIS 7.x "404 - File or directory not found" for .iso image files

Sun, 07 Apr 2013 21:11:17 +0100

If you get the following message when trying to download an .iso disc image from IIS 7/7.5…

404 - File or directory not found.

The resource you are looking for might have been removed, had its name changed, or is temporarily unavailable.

You just need to add the MIMI type. To do this, open IIS Manager, select the server on the left, open MIME Types…

Then on the top right click Add > File name extension: .iso
MIME Type: application/octet-stream

The file should now download properly.

A week snowboarding in Niseko, Japan

Fri, 08 Feb 2013 02:16:11 +0000

A week snowboarding in Niseko, Japan

Au Revoir Simone - Tell Me (Clock Opera Remix) Lyrics Places...

Sat, 17 Nov 2012 15:34:00 +0000

Au Revoir Simone - Tell Me (Clock Opera Remix) Lyrics

Places exist
For times like this
I never need them
I never need them
Places out there
There’s magic everywhere
I never need them
I never need them
For if, just when I notice it
And it seemed, just ignored
Farther out, just when we need this
And it seems, is this just me
For if, just when I notice it
And it seemed, just ignored
Farther out, just when we need this
And it seems, is this just me

I never need them

I never need them

For if just when I notice it
And it seemed, just ignored

Farther out, just when we need this
And it seems, is this just me

For if, just when I notice it
And it seemed, just ignored

Farther out, just when we need this
And it seems, is this just me

Is this just me

Is this just me

My latest Drum & Bass mix… :)

Wed, 24 Oct 2012 19:03:37 +0100

My latest Drum & Bass mix… :)

Virgin Media Super Hub Session Data Downloaded/Uploaded Bug

Thu, 04 Oct 2012 15:35:00 +0100

Virgin Media automatically updated the firmware on my Super Hub (Netgear VMDG480 router) recently. Since then I’ve noticed that the Session Data Downloaded value has been ridiculous, like they’re showing MB as GB or something…

28TB in 8 days, 3 of which my computer was off and I was away with my laptop…

2,560GB in 2 hours 17 minutes…

Or how about 16GB in 26s…

I’ve tweeted them about it, so I’ll update this post with their response if I get one.

Accessing a restricted BBC site from the UK

Wed, 03 Oct 2012 18:25:00 +0100

I was just trying to read an article on faster than light travel on the BBC website and I got this message:

We’re sorry but this site is not accessible from the UK as it is part of our international service and is not funded by the licence fee. It is run commercially by BBC Worldwide, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the BBC, the profits made from it go back to BBC programme-makers to help fund great new BBC programmes

I don’t see why I can’t access the site from the UK. However it is funded from abroad, surely they can use that to fund it in the UK as well. If they have to put an interstitial page warning that the article contains adverts and explaining why, that’s fine, but to deny me access to it and make me to connect to a VPN or use a proxy.

I wrote an article about using proxies and VPNs to access The Pirate Bay and some of it applies here. The easiest way I know of to access the restricted site is to add .nyud.net to the end of the domain part of the URL as that will proxy the site.

So to make this work in the UK, you can just do this:

Original URL: http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20121003-can-we-travel-faster-than-light/1

Proxied URL: http://www.bbc.com.nyud.net/future/story/20121003-can-we-travel-faster-than-light/1

I hope that helps someone else.

Using ASP.Net Forms Authentication on Load Balanced Servers

Wed, 05 Sep 2012 13:02:21 +0100

We recently started using HAProxy to load balance between two application servers for both HTTP and HTTPS traffic. It was really easy to get working, has worked great so far and we’re really pleased with it. The only issue we had was with our login cookies, which are set via FormsAuth, as when logging in our visitors use HTTPS and might get a different server to the one they were ‘stuck’ to with HTTP which uses a cookie to ensure the same server. HAProxy can’t read a cookie from an SSL stream as the connection isn’t terminated at the proxy, it is still terminated at the web application server (you can end HTTPS connections at the proxy by installing a webserver on it as well though). For us this was an easy fix however.

From the Microsoft article on FormsAuth:

If you deploy your application in a Web farm, you must ensure that the configuration files on each server share the same value for validationKey and decryptionKey, which are used for hashing and decryption respectively. This is required because you cannot guarantee which server will handle successive requests.

With manually generated key values, the <machineKey> settings should be similar to the following example.
<machineKey  
validationKey="21F090935F6E49C2C797F69BBAAD8402ABD2EE0B667A8B44EA7DD4374267A75D7
               AD972A119482D15A4127461DB1DC347C1A63AE5F1CCFAACFF1B72A7F0A281B"           
decryptionKey="ABAA84D7EC4BB56D75D217CECFFB9628809BDB8BF91CFCD64568A145BE59719F"
validation="SHA1"
decryption="AES"
/>
If you want to isolate your application from other applications on the same server, place the <machineKey> in the Web.config file for each application on each server in the farm. Ensure that you use separate key values for each application, but duplicate each application’s keys across all servers in the farm.

To generate a Machine Key, simply go to this handy webpage and generate a new key. You can then either add it just after the <system.web> element to your application’s local web.config or to the root web.config which will be in your .Net installation folder (something like C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v4.0.30319\Config).

After you have done this on all your servers, you can check them all by going into IIS and selecting Machine Key where you can see if each server is using the correct keys.

However, after doing this it still wasn’t working for us. After a little digging about we realised we hadn’t installed any Windows Updates on the new server. I think it was specifically this one that was stopping it working, but after a full update and a reboot it all worked just fine.

Evolution of the alphabet

Tue, 04 Sep 2012 17:21:55 +0100

Evolution of the alphabet

OS X Mountain Lion

Thu, 26 Jul 2012 11:39:13 +0100

I upgraded to Mountain Lion yesterday, as I like to torture myself a little from time to time and see what an OS upgrade will break this time. I’ve only two things that didn’t work, Mailplane and Parallels. Mailplane needed to be upgraded to either version 2.x preview or to the Mailplane 3 beta.

Parallels also had an upgrade with support for Mountain Lion and installing that got it working.

I have two 24” monitors on my Mac and I run Parallels full screen on my 2nd monitor. On the new version with OS X Mountain Lion, when I click inside the VM, apps on my main display start flickering like crazy. There is a forum post on it here, but basically the fix for now is to disable 3d acceleration on your VM.

Some friends and I went out drinking at Winter Wonderland in...

Wed, 25 Jul 2012 00:36:00 +0100

Some friends and I went out drinking at Winter Wonderland in Hyde Park a couple of winters ago. Filmed some pretty funny footage on my camera, so I put it to The Black Eyed Peas as the lyrics seemed to go really well the video, which I edited to be relevant to the lyrics where possible. I still amuses me anyway. :)

Review of iamichi – edit:one

Tue, 24 Jul 2012 13:49:00 +0100

Review of iamichi – edit:one:

Reading this review made my day.

An Arabic lunch.

Sat, 21 Jul 2012 14:22:00 +0100

25 salads

25 salads

Denis fish

An Arabic lunch.

Heineken cans shaped like bottles

Thu, 19 Jul 2012 19:12:00 +0100

I’ll be the first to admit I’m a bit of a beer snob. I don’t like canned beer and will do a lot to avoid it. It has a metallic taste that I don’t like and I much prefer bottles. I know draft beer comes in large aluminium barrels, but it doesn’t seem to affect the taste in anything like the same way as 500ml cans do.

Then I came across this…

At first I quite liked the can bottle, as it’s aesthetically appealing, I much prefer the mouthpiece on a bottle to a can, so I thought, ok, maybe this’ll be alright as I do really like the actual receptacle. Then I drank it. No Heineken, no, just no. It tastes exactly the same as canned beer but costs the same as a bottle. Oh well.

Mildly interesting spam message

Sat, 30 Jun 2012 14:49:00 +0100

I’m currently waiting for a parcel to be delivered which is my new Olympus OM-D E-M5 that is coming from the US. I received a spam message that took me in for a minute, as I thought it was related to the camera.

Postal notification, 

Our company’s courier couldn’t make the delivery of parcel.
Status deny:Fee isn’t paid. 

LOCATION OF YOUR PARCEL:Irving 
STATUS: sort order 
SERVICE: One-day Shipping 
NUMBER OF YOUR ITEM:U413001201NU 
FEATURES: No 

The label of your parcel is enclosed to the letter.
You should print the label and show it in the nearest post office to get a parcel. 

Important information!
If the parcel isn’t received within 30 working days our company will have the right to claim compensation from you for it's keeping in the amount of $5.94 for each day of keeping over limited time. 

You can find the information about the procedure and conditions of parcels keeping in the nearest office. 


Thank you.
Royal Mail Logistics Services.

First thing I did was to check the headers of the message (below). I noticed that it got an SPF pass, which I first thought a bit strange as the email was showing as being from status.id959@royalmail.com, then I noticed it was actually “status.id959@royalmail.com via s2.ingenihost.com”, so the SPF pass was for the domain ingenihost.com.

Delivered-To: 
Received: by 10.194.54.37 with SMTP id g5csp160341wjp;
        Fri, 29 Jun 2012 15:10:46 -0700 (PDT)
Received: by 10.224.72.138 with SMTP id m10mr7310631qaj.5.1341007846024;
        Fri, 29 Jun 2012 15:10:46 -0700 (PDT)
Return-Path: 
Received: from s2.ingenihost.com (s2.ingenihost.com. [96.9.180.53])
        by mx.google.com with ESMTPS id d3si6031089qao.0.2012.06.29.15.10.45
        (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=OTHER);
        Fri, 29 Jun 2012 15:10:45 -0700 (PDT)
Received-SPF: pass (google.com: best guess record for domain of colourfu@s2.ingenihost.com designates 96.9.180.53 as permitted sender) client-ip=96.9.180.53;
Authentication-Results: mx.google.com; spf=pass (google.com: best guess record for domain of colourfu@s2.ingenihost.com designates 96.9.180.53 as permitted sender) smtp.mail=colourfu@s2.ingenihost.com
Received: from colourfu by s2.ingenihost.com with local (Exim 4.69)
	(envelope-from )
	id 1SkjOm-0002rY-Bf
	for ; Fri, 29 Jun 2012 18:10:44 -0400
To: 
Subject: Delivery information contains at the postal label
From: "Royal Mail CS" 
X-Mailer: SayMailSMTP
Reply-To: "Royal Mail CS" 
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type:multipart/mixed;boundary="----------13410078444FEE27E45161A"
Message-Id: 
Date: Fri, 29 Jun 2012 18:10:44 -0400
X-AntiAbuse: This header was added to track abuse, please include it with any abuse report
X-AntiAbuse: Primary Hostname - s2.ingenihost.com
X-AntiAbuse: Original Domain - 
X-AntiAbuse: Originator/Caller UID/GID - [543 32003] / [47 12]
X-AntiAbuse: Sender Address Domain - s2.ingenihost.com
X-Source: /usr/bin/php
X-Source-Args: /usr/bin/php /home/colourfu/public_html/.c007.php 
X-Source-Dir: colourfulspaces.com:/public_html

They actually screwed up the attachment, as the file didn’t have a name (filename=”“), so Gmail called it noname. I downloaded it and gave it a .zip extension, unzipped it and found a 44KB file called Label_Royal_Mail_Express_Services_UK4784256.exe. Out of interest I scanned it on Virus Total and found it contained a virus that Kaspersky calls Trojan-Dropper.Win32.Dapato.bkqg. Results for the scan are here.

So definitely not my new camera then. Reported it as spam in Gmail and on SpamCop so hopefully the senders IP gets blacklisted pretty soon.

Windows Task Scheduler Bombs With Error Code 2147943785

Wed, 27 Jun 2012 12:42:00 +0100

I’ve seen error 2147943785 a couple of times and it’s always been due to the user that is set to run the scheduled task not having the Log On As Batch Job assignment.

Start Menu > Administrative Tools > Local Security Policy > Local Policies > User Rights Assignment > Log On As Batch Job

Add the user that is set to run the scheduled task and try to run it again.

Audio

Tue, 29 May 2012 00:32:47 +0100

Blend fails to open a Visual Studio 11 Beta project

Tue, 22 May 2012 19:55:00 +0100

I was needed to open a Visual Studio 11 Beta Metro project in Blend and got the error:

The project ‘MyProject.csproj’ could not be opened. The imported project ‘C:\Program Files (x86)\MSBuild\Microsoft\WindowsXaml\v10.0\Microsoft.Windows.UI.Xaml/CSharp.targets’ was not found. Confirm that the path in the <import> declaration is correct, and that the file exists on disk.

First thought was to edit the line that contains: v$(VisualStudioVersion)\Microsoft.Windows.UI.Xaml.CSharp.targets” in my csproj file, changing v$(VisualStudioVersion) to 11, but that’s not a nice solution. To fix this properly, just use the setx command to set the value and restart Blend.

setx VisualStudioVersion 11.0

Bypassing the UK Pirate Bay Blocks via Proxies/Mirrors and VPNs

Wed, 02 May 2012 20:52:00 +0100

I would like to start by pointing out that I’m not endorsing copyright infringement with this post, however The Pirate Bay has a massive amount of totally free downloads, from music promos to open source software, which the music and movie lobby groups have managed to get blocked in the UK courts (just ISPs Virgin Media, TalkTalk, O2, BT, Everything Everywhere) and I believe in a free and open internet. That being said, I’d also like to point out that infringement is not the same as theft, no matter how many times they tell you illegal downloading is ‘stealing’. I believe that until they give people reasonably priced, easy to access to TV shows and movies on demand, piracy is only going to keep getting more and more prevalent.

I won’t stay with an ISP that censors the internet, until I’m out of reasonable choices. I’m currently contracted to Virgin Media (because 100 meg), but I will switch to a fibre connection from a smaller ISP that hasn’t been forced into censorship by the BPI and company.

The craziest thing about all this for me is the fact that this has given The Pirate Bay a free massive profile boost via what is known as the Streisand effect.

The easiest option is to simply bypass the blocks with a mirror/proxy site. Here is a list of such sites that are tested to currently work on Virgin Media (and should work on all other UK ISPs):

http://come.in
http://proxybay.info
https://tpb.ipredator.se
http://www.pirateproxy.net
http://tpb.ic0nic.de
~~tpb.pirateparty.org.uk~~
http://tpb.piraten.lu
https://tpb.partidopirata.com.ar
https://piratereverse.info
Google Translate
~~thepiratebay.se.proxy.piratenpartij.nl~~
~~Yahoo Babelfish Translate~~
http://thepiratebay.se.nyud.net
http://labaia.ws
~~tpb.europeancensorship.eu/nph-tpb.cgi/http/thepiratebay.se~~
~~all4xs.net/repress/thepiratebay.se~~
~~freedomto.us~~

Other sites that you shouldn’t use:

~~alt.ragerik.info~~ - Doesn’t work properly
~~thepiratebay.ee~~ - DO NOT USE. It is a scam site.

There is also a guide on how to make your own TBP proxy here. I’d also like to point out that you shouldn’t try to login via a TBP proxy site, as your username and password could be captured. If you do want to attempt to login to your account you should use a unique password that you only use on TBP.

By far my favourite in that list is Google Translate which you can just use as a fast, advert free, web proxy. Using something as simple as Google Translate to bypass a court-ordered block of The Pirate Bay made me chuckle. Another good tip is that you can just add .nyud.net to any URL to access it via the proxy, so http://thepiratebay.se becomes http://thepiratebay.se.nyud.net.

A reader called amity19 left a comment on this post pointing out that you can use the Opera web browser’s turbo feature to access The Pirate Bay and other blocked sites, as it routes all the requests via Opera’s servers for optimisation. To enable it, just go to Preferences > Webpages > Opera Turbo and enable it. It’s a handy feature and seems to work well.

You can also configure your web browser to use an HTTP or SOCKS proxy quite easily and there is a list of free proxies here and here. For the more technically inclined, I wrote a guide a while ago that tells you how to setup an anonymous Squid proxy on Debian linux, so you could get yourself a Virtual Private Server in another country and use that. A much more simple option however is to SSH to a computer in a country where it isn’t blocked. There is an easy to follow guide on how to do that here.

The above list will give you access to The Pirate Bay from UK ISPs, however if you really value your privacy, the best option is to use a VPN. You can download your torrents via this anonymously as well as broswing the site. If you want to be even more anonymous you can also use a pre-paid credit card to pay for them (to protect your privacy). There is a list of VPN providers here, however iPredator is operated by The Pirate Bay themselves and a good option. There are also free services such as VPNReactor, which will give you 30 minutes free per connection, which should be plenty of time to find the magnet link to download the latest music promo, etc.

To go one better than a VPN for downloading, use a Seed Box (more info here).

~~There is also a petition against the censorship of The Pirate Bay, here.~~