NEDMUG Blogs

Media Center HDMI Black Screen Workaround

Pete Stagman — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 00:00:00 GMT

It's a pretty common problem, you turn the TV/Monitor/Screen off for a few hours or more, and when you come back, you just have a black screen. You can hear the menu sounds, but the screen won't wake up. This seems to be a common problem for HDMI connected screens.

Hopefully this will work for you:

If your remote has a LiveTV button, hit it. It doesn't matter what channel it's on, the screen should now come out of sleep and start working as normal.

If you don't have a LiveTV button, try getting into the Media Center Guide using the Guide button. Then hit your OK button. Again, it doesn't matter what channel it's on. That should wake the screen up and start working normal again!

This works for me and for a few other people that I've suggested it to, hope it works for you as well.

SlySoft to continue lifetime upgrades - for a fee

Pete Stagman — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 00:00:00 GMT

SlySoft discontinued lifetime upgrades on January 1st 2011, but after public outcry, they decided to continue lifetime upgrades for a small fee.

Here's the announcement from SlySoft:

In response to customer wishes SlySoft strikes a balance and announces
to continue lifetime subscription sales for a small additional fee.

SlySoft's year-end promotion included the announcement to discontinue
lifetime license sales in January 2011. This caused some turbulence
among our customers and even within the company. Developers wanted to
keep this option and management objected due to increased development
costs and the resulting inefficiency of lifetime licenses. Intense
discussions within the past few weeks have led to today's decision to
retain the lifetime license option for all customers, financed by an
aggressive austerity package and a small price increase affecting
only lifetime purchases, effective April 1st, 2011.

If you purchased AnyDVD HD in December because you wanted to get the lietime subscription before it ended, there's still good news for you, the price. The new price for AnyDVD HD is €119.00 or about $169.00

Here's the full price list: U.S. Price Approximate

Price List
Products(Download Demo)	1 year	2 years	3 years	4 years	Lifetime
AnyDVD	€41.00($58.00)	€49.00($70.00)	€56.00($80.00)	€61.00($87.00)	€69.00($99.00)
AnyDVD HD	€63.00($89.50)	€79.00($112.00)	€93.00($132.00)	€103.00($146.50)	€119.00($169.00)
GameJackal	€22.60($32.00)	€29.00($41.00)	€34.60($49.00)	€38.60($55.00)	€45.00($64.00)
CloneDVD	€32.60($46.50)	€39.00($55.50)	€44.60($63.50)	€48.60($69.00)	€55.00($78.00)
CloneDVD Mobile	€32.60($46.50)	€39.00($55.50)	€44.60($63.50)	€48.60($69.00)	€55.00($78.00)
CloneCD	€32.60($46.50)	€39.00 ($55.50)	€44.60($63.50)	€48.60($69.00)	€55.00($78.00)

Installing an e-Mail Server on Windows Home Server

Pete Stagman — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Running an e-Mail server on Windows Home Server

I hear the question all the time. “Why doesn’t Windows Home Server have an e-Mail Server included?”

The answer is simple: Because it ain’t easy to do.

Well, let me clarify that. It’s EASY to install and run e-Mail Server software on Windows Home Server. It’s not so easy to get it to work with your ISP, connection, firewall and clients.

Problem 1:

Most ISPs use Dynamic IP addresses for customer internet access. This means your address could keep changing. That makes running a mail server tricky, imagine if your street address kept changing and your friends were constantly trying to find you. You can use the FREE DynDNS service to update your address any time it may change.

If you have a business account with the static IP option, this won’t be a problem for you.

Problem 2:

You need a domain name to send mail to (That’s the part after the @ in an e-Mail address. @mydomain.com). There’s a way around this by registering your own domain or using a DynDNS domain name. We’ll go into that later.

Problem 3:

Most ISPs block port 25 & port 80 (e-Mail Server to Server port, Web Server port). You can get around this by using port relaying, or DynDNS MailHop Relay service (Pay Service).

Problem 4:

Your ISP may or may not allow you to send mail from your personal domain name through their server. Yep, another job for the DynDNS Outgoing Mail Relay. (Pay Service)

Problem 5:

Your router/modem/firewall. You need to get into your device and figure out how to allow mail to get in and out of your internet connection and get to your Windows Home Server.

Problem 6:

Software. How do I get e-Mail Server software onto my Windows Home Server? You might think that the software would be the first problem to solve, but it’s really the easy part. You need to solve all the others first.

Let’s take each problem one at a time.

Problems 1&2: Dynamic IP address, Domain Name

Your ISP uses dynamic IP addresses and yours keeps changing and you need a domain name. The easiest way to get around these is to use the DynDNS service.

DynDNS.org has 88 domain names for you to choose from. I tend to use dnsalias.org (. net, .com) just because I use them mostly in professional situations and it wouldn’t be good to use something like doesntexist.com (Yes, that’s a real name you can use on DynDNS).

Open www.dyndns.com and scroll down to “Free Domain Name”.

Note: It was pointed out to me by Mike Garcen from MissingRemote.com that Microsoft gives you a free dynamic DNS name "MyName.homeserver.com". That should actually work fine for running your mail server.

If you log into your Windows Home Server control panel and go to Settings then Remote access, then Turn On remote access, a wizard will start that will walk you through configuring it. If your router supports uPNP, it will even configure the router for Web and RDP access. It WILL NOT configure it for email though.

If you've read my other security posts, I'm NOT a fan of uPNP and I think you should make the router/firewall changes manually.

Choose a domain from the drop down, then type in a name that you want to use as your domain name. Here I chose dnsalias.com and typed in "mywhsserver" as my domain name. So my full domain name will be mywhsserver.dnsalias.com.

Click Add to go to the next page.

You can see here that your new domain name is added to the cart. There is no cost for this so the total should be $0.

I happened to pick a name that wasn’t already taken. If you try one that is taken, you will get a warning and sent back to choose another name. If you don’t have a DynDNS account, you can create one here. I already have an account, I’ll just log in.

Click on next to confirm your free purchase, and then click on next again to activate the service. You will be brought to a screen that lists your hosts. You can have up to 5 with the free service.

Click on the domain name you just created and that will bring you to the configuration page.

At the bottom of the page, click on “Mail Server” and “Web Server” and save changes.

If you’re wondering about an MX record and e-Mail. The FREE DynDNS service relies on the SMTP standard, which says you don’t technically NEED an MX record. Any mail sent to the domain will default to the A record if no MX record is found. I’m not particularly happy with that, but it should work.

Now you need to update your IP address with the DynDNS service. You can download the update client at http://www.dyndns.com/support/clients/ and then install the client on any computer on your network since they all go out to the internet with the same IP address. But it would be better to install it on a computer that is on all the time, in case the address changes while that PC is off.

Or, you can check to see if your Modem/Router/Firewall has a built in DynDNS update client. Most devices in the last 5 years now support DynDNS. This would be the way to go if your device supports it.

Problem 3: My ISP blocks ports 25 & 80

This is where it starts getting very tricky. To get around this, you’ll have to spend some money.

First you will need to register a real domain name. You can do this on a service like GoDaddy.com, I have several domains registered. Most domain registrars will charge you around $10/yr for domain registration.

Next, you need to set up your DNS. If you have a static IP address this is easy, you can use the DNS servers of your Domain Registrar. If you have a dynamic address, you will now need to use the DynDNS Custom DNS service. ($29.95/yr)

Once you have your DNS (Static or Dynamic) sorted. You need to sign up for DynDNS MailHop Relay ($49.95/yr). What MailHop Relay does is intercept any mail being sent to your domain on port 25 and resend it to another port (24, 25, 587, 2525, 10025, 52525 are supported). Your ISP may block some of these ports, but chances are, at least one of them is open.

Problem 4: My ISP won’t let me send mail from my domain through their server.

This isn’t as common as blocking port 25, but a lot of ISPs still do it for anti-spam reasons.

You could try sending your e-Mail direct from your server to the remote server, but most servers will reject mail coming from a Dynamic IP. Again, if you have a static IP, this MAY work for you.

If you can’t send through your ISPs server, and the remote servers reject mail direct from your server, you’re going to need some sort of outgoing mail relay. There are a number of relay services out there. But since we’ve been using DynDNS, let’s stick with it. MailHop Outgoing Relay $19.95/yr

Problem 5: Modem/Router/Firewall

You will need to get into your device and figure out how to port forward to your server. There are FAR too many devices for me to try to explain all of them, but basically, it goes like this.

In your firewall settings there will be some sort of heading, tab, button that says something like Port Forwarding, Applications, Games, or some variation of that. It will usually have 3 settings: Source port, Destination IP, Destination Port. I have also seen them with only 2 settings: Source Port, Destination IP.

Source Port – This confuses some people, this is the port that the Remote Computer is trying to contact, ie: port 25 to deliver mail.

Destination IP – This is the address of the Server INSIDE your firewall. It should be a private IP address like 192.168.1.10. Use the address of your e-Mail server if you are trying to receive mail.

Destination Port – This is the Port on the INSIDE server (Mail Server) that the router will forward TO. This is handy if you are using a MailHop Relay to a different port. The router will change the port that it received the request on to whatever port you set here.

So if you are using MailHop relay to change the port from 25 to 2525 for instance, the router can intercept 2525 and re-forward it back to 25 so you don’t have to change the e-mail server port.

Now that we have all these other problem’s sorted out. It’s time to get to Problem 6: e-Mail Server Software

I have had great luck using DeskNow! Mail and Collaboration Server. www.desknow.com

DeskNow comes in 2 flavors that we’ll cover here: Lite and Professional. The lite version is FREE and has many features included: Unlimited Domains and users, Pop, SMTP, WebMail . . .

The Professional version has many other features that may or may not be of interest. The professional version starts at $150 for a 5 user license, so it’s still VERY reasonable.

You can see a version comparison here http://www.desknow.com/desknowmc/versions.html

The ASP version is for e-Mail service providers that want to host e-Mail as a business.

The install is VERY simple. First you want to RDP into your Windows Home Server desktop. When you get to the desktop, you can either download DeskNow! From there or you can download it from another PC and save it to the Windows Home Server public folder or some other folder that you can access. (It’s currently about 56MB)

Double click on the exe you downloaded to start the install.

The first few screens are the standard windows install screens. You can choose all the defaults until you get to the “Configuration Wizard”.

Note: One exception to the defaults. When you get to the screen that asks for the DeskNowData folder, the default is "C:\Desknowdata", that won't work on a Windows Home Server. You will need to create a shared folder on the Home Server. I named mine "Desknow" and only gave myself access to it. Desknow uses admin credentials and it doesn't need specific permissions. You can turn on folder duplication if you want to make your e-mail safer from drive failure.

When you get to the DesknowData Folder screeen, use the UNC path of \\MyServerName\desknow\Desknowdata, DeskNow! understands UNC paths and this will work fine.

Click Start.

The next screen is asking what ports you want to run the webmail server on. Since Windows Home Server is already running on 80 and 443, I change them to 8080 and 4443.

Click Next.

The next screen is asking what ports you want to run the Instant Message server on. These are fine to leave as default. Or you can shut IM off if you won’t be using it.

Click Next.

The next screen is asking how you want to use DeskNow.

1) As a standalone server for all Incoming and Outgoing mail.

2) As a POP server that will go out to another server and grab all your mail from there and download it into DeskNow!

3) As a collaboration server only. Internal mail, IM, file sharing and calendar ONLY.

Choose how you are going to use DeskNow! And click Next.

The next screen is asking what IP addresses are allowed to use this server for mail relay. Unless you plan on using this server from outside your house to relay mail, you should just enter your internal address range. Mine is 192.168.1.X (Leave off the last digit)

Click Next.

This screen wants the domain name you configured to receive mail, either in DNS or DynDNS. I had created mywhsserver.dnsalias.com, so, that’s what I’ll enter here.

Click Next.

The next screen is localization; enter your time zone and language.

Click Next.

The next screen wants you to set the Admin password for your first domain (The first domain will be the MASTER domain. If you add other domains later, you will have to log into THIS domain to make changes to server settings.)

Click Save & Exit.

That’s it! You’re done! DeskNow! Is installed and up and running. When DeskNow! Restarts, it will bring up a QuickStart guide. But all you really need to do is add a user or 2 and you should be up and running!

You get to the mail server from the Windows Home Server desktop by opening a web browser and browsing to http://localhost:8080 (If you changed the default port to 8080, you need to add it at the end of the address to tell IE to connect on port 8080, you also have to add it from other clients. The address from another client to my server would be http://mywhsserver.dnsalias.com:8080)

If you try to get in right away, you may get a message saying that this is the first time DeskNow! was started and the default configuration is being created.

That’s the end of this post. DeskNow! Has MANY settings and it’s all documented on their website.

Rosewill RSV-S8 External Drive enclosure

Pete Stagman — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 00:00:00 GMT

When I first built my Windows Home Server, I built it using an old Intel Server cabinet because I wanted a lot of drive bays, 6 to be exact. I filled it with 6 500GB hard drives, for a total of 3TB of drive space. I figured that would last me a while for file storage and backups of the computers in the house. I was right. . . for a while.

But then I started Ripping my DVD movie collection and that 3TB was being used up pretty fast. So I swapped out those 6 500GB drives for 6 1.5TB drives for a 9TB drive pool! That would surely last me for a long time!

But that was not the end! Oh no, then came 2 new drive space munchers!

Windows Home Server Power Pack 3 with it's new ability to automatically "Archive" recorded TV shows from Media Center. Since I'm an avid MC user and DVR damn near everything, every day more and more TV was being moved to the Windows Home Server.
Blu-Ray! I started getting all my movies in Blu-Ray High Definition, and since I hate having to handle disks when I can just keep them stored on a server, I began Ripping all my new movies to ISO files. Each movie takes approx 40GB!

Here we go again. That 9TB of drive space is nearing the end. But my 6 Hard Drive bays are full of 1.5TB drives. I could swap them out with 2TB drives, but that would be pretty expensive to only get a 1/3 increase in drive space. So I started looking at External Enclosures.

After looking at 10 or so different enclosures I settled on the Rosewill RSV-S8.

I purchased it on Newegg.com for $309.99:
Rosewill RSV-S8 SATA 3G 3.5" HDD 8-Bay RAID 0/1/10/5/JBOD Storage Enclosure System

It's an 8 bay SATA-II enclosure. It comes with a 2-port eSATA controller card and a Port Multiplying Backplane. The controller card is a PCIe x1 card, it comes with an optional half height bracket. Included in the box:

1 - RSV-S8 (Sil3726 chipset)
1 - PCIe x1 slot card (Sil3132R5) & Optional half height bracket
2 - eSATA Cable
1 - AC cable
32 - HDD Screws
1 - Setup installation & Driver Disk
1 - Software User Manual. (No hardware setup instructions)

The unit supports RAID 0, 1, 10, 5 and JBOD. Since I was planning on using Drive Balancer, RAID didn't matter to me.

I read through the Reviews on Newegg before purchasing the unit. Most of the negative reviews dealt with:

Packaging - For me it came packed double boxed, with air bags all around the unit. Rosewill must have heard the complaints and redesigned the packaging.
Mac support - Not going in a Mac, so I didn't care.
RAID Management software - I wasn't going to install the software. I planned on using the Windows Home Server Drive Balancer, so, RAID wasn't important to me at all.

While unpacking, the first thing I was impressed with the unit. It was smaller than I thought it would be. It's only 13.5" High, 13.5" Deep and 6" Wide, which makes it only slightly larger than a Hewlett-Packard MediaSmart Server!

Here's a pic of an HP MediaSmart Server Next to a RSV-S8 in my Server Cabinet. (For Size comparison ONLY! You cannot add this unit to an HP MediaSmart Server! My actual WHS box is on the shelf above.) You need to be able to install a PCIe card in the server.

I pulled 4 of the trays out and put my old 500GB drives into them. There were some complaints on Newegg that the trays could be damaged by not lining them up into the tracks correctly. That was true, if you don't get the trays lined up just right, they can become wedged into the tracks and bent. I put them back in very carefully to make sure I didn't bend them.

(edit) Once I closed the drive tray lever I had to give the tray a gentle push to seat it all the way in. This seems to be a problem with all SATA drive trays, they don't seat all the way in unless you give them a gentle nudge. Thanks to whoever it was that reminded me of that!

I shut down my Windows Home Server and popped open the case. I installed the controller card with no problems.

Then I grabbed the 2 eSATA cables. They are about 3 feet long so I had no problem running them between the units. The Back of the RSV-S8 has the 2 ports marked "Port 1" & "Port 2" with Port 1 on the top. The back of the controller had no markings, so I decided to open the case back up and see if there were any markings on the card. Good thing I checked, on the card Port 1 is on the bottom.

Once I had the cables run correctly, I buttoned everything back up and turned the RSV-S8 power on. I waited a few seconds then turned the Windows Home Server on. No smoke or bright flashes so, I guess everything was hooked up right.

I popped the provided driver CD-ROM into the Windows Home Server and from my laptop I RDP'd into the Administration Console of the Windows Home Server. I cancelled the autorun since I didn't want to install the RAID Management software.

I went into device manager and found the RAID Controller listed under "Other devices". I clicked on "Update Driver" and browsed the CD to find the Driver/Windows/32bit folder. Installed the correct driver and within seconds the controller was correctly found and the 4 drives I had installed were detected.

I then opened the Windows Home Server Management Console, the 4 "New" drives were listed there as "Non-Storage Hard Drives, Not Added" I clicked on each drive and added them.

Total installation time from unpack to up and running was less than 1 hour!

Another thing to mention is how QUIET the unit is. It has a 300Watt power supply and a 120MM fan. With the 4 drives running I can barely hear it. When I first turned it on, I could hear the drives spin up, but once they were up, it was very quiet.

Since I never installed the RAID Software I can't comment on the ease of use or even whether or not it works. But the RSV-S8 worked exactly the way I hoped it would. It was easy to install, the drivers worked great and my Windows Home Server has more storage space and still some free bays for the future!

If the $309.99 price tag is too much for you, there are a couple of other Rosewill options:

The RSV-S5 5-bay unit for $199.99 :

And the RSV-S4-X 4-bay unit for $149.99:

The Digital Transition is almost here.

Pete Stagman — Sun, 31 May 2009 00:00:00 GMT

You've heard about it by now. It's all over the TV and Radio. The Digital Transition is coming! But what does it actually mean?

To put it simply, all Television Stations in the United States must stop transmitting an Analog Over The Air (OTA) Signal and switch to an entirely Digital Signal. The main reason for the switch is "Bandwidth". The Analog signal that has been used since the invention of television is very inefficient. In the "Space" used by an each "Channel" of an Analog Signal we can fit many Digital "Channels". Not only can we fit many Digital Channels, but each Channel can contain Sub-Channels using what is known as "Multi-Casting".

If you are already receiving Digital Television, you may have noticed that the Channel Numbers have changed. You are used to seeing Channel "5", but what you see now is "5.1". What's this ".1" business? Well, that is the Multicast number. Each Channel can have up to 4 Multicast Channels, so you can possibly have Multicast Channels 5.1, 5.2, 5.3, 5.4!

Cool huh?

But, what's on these other Multicast Channels?

That's up to the TV Station. The ".1" Channel is the main Channel, that is, it's what is normally broadcast by the TV Station. The ".2, .3, .4" channels can be anything the Station wants to transmit. Some TV Stations broadcast Weather Radar, Sports, or Alternate Programming on those Sub-Channels.

That's cool too, right? So, what do you need to do to get this new Digital stuff?

If your TV was made in the last 5 years or so and has a Digital Tuner. Maybe nothing. You can just scan for channels and see what you get. (See your TV User Manual to learn how to do that). If your close enough to the TV stations you should be able to get any Channels and Multicast Channels that they are broadcasting. If you're further away, you may need a powered antenna or even a roof antenna to get a good signal.

Want to see what channels you should be able to receive at your location? Check out AntennaWeb, type in your address and AntennaWeb will tell you what stations you are in range of, or what type of antenna you would need to receive that Channel and what direction to point the antenna.

What if I don't have a Digital Tuner in my TV?

In that case you will have to buy a Digital Converter Box. The Government is giving out coupons for a $40 discount on the converter boxes. You can apply for the discount here https://www.dtv2009.gov/ApplyCoupon.aspx. The coupons are on a first come, first served basis and with less than 2 weeks left, you'd better Hurry!

So what does the Digital Converter Box do?

The converter box is basically a new Tuner for your TV. It will scan for and receive the Digital TV Channel signals and then convert them into a signal your Analog TV can use. It has it's own antenna and remote control. It works in a similar fasion to a CableTV box. You set your TV for a certain channel (usually 3 or 4) and connect the Converter to the antenna input for the TV. The Digital Signal is then Down Converted from the Digital signal to an analog signal.

If the signal is Down Converted to Analog, what kind of picture quality can I expect?

Even though the signal is Down Converted, the picture quality will be much better then what you are probably used to since you are starting with a much Higher quality picture to begin with.

I have a DigitalTV or I purchased a Converter Box, does that mean everything is in High Definition?

No. Your new Digital TV or Converter box is Capable of Receiving High Definition TV (HDTV), but not all stations are transmitting HDTV programming. All older programs that were not recorded using HD will be broadcast in the old Standard Definition TV (SDTV) quality.

My TV is not capable of displaying HDTV, how will the HDTV picture look on it?

There was a lot of discussion on how to deal with displaying an HDTV picture on a non HD TV set. Whether to show the whole picture in Letterbox format and have black bars on the top and bottom of the screen, or to Pan & Scan the picture to allow it to fill the screen. The industry decided that it would be best to show the Letterbox format. Here's why.

Let's say that you are an advertiser and you make a High Definition commercial selling some product. You put text over a picture of you product.

Notice the black border top and bottom, this is what the picture would look like in Letterbox. Looks great that way and the advertiser would be happy with it.

But, what happens if the TV station decides to convert the signal to Pan & Scan to fit your screen?

9 Dodge Challengers for $995.99!! What a bargain! No wonder the auto industry is in such trouble.

As you can see in this simple example, although you may like the picture filling the screen, a lot of important information may be lost in the conversion process.

I have CableTV or Satellite, how does the conversion affect me?

It doesn't, or rather, it doesn't have to. Since the Cable and Satellite companies use their own Bandwidth (The cables and/or satellites) they are not required to do anything. The purpose of this transition is to free up space on the airways, not on the cables or satellites that are owned by those companies.

But my Cable/Satellite company says they are converting to digital too. Why? If they don't have to.

That is the choice of the company. They are not required by law to convert, but for the same reasons that the government wanted to convert to digital, the Cable/Satellite companies also want to get rid of the old analog signals. By converting as well, they will be able to carry more programs, channels and other information like internet access for homes and businesses.

I hope this little blog helped you understand the conversion. For more information check out the website.

http://www.dtvanswers.com/

There is also a great video done by Channel 5 WCVB Boston on how to setup your converter box.

http://www.thebostonchannel.com/video/19602262/index.html

Netflix and Media Center officially get together

Pete Stagman — Tue, 19 May 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Netflix and Media Center officially get together

“The Netflix in Windows Media Center application lets you browse personalized lists of over 12,000 Netflix movies and TV shows you can watch instantly in Windows Media Center. In addition to these personalized lists, you can search a list of over 100,000 Netflix movies and TV shows you can either watch instantly or add to your DVD queue. You can view, add, and remove items from your Netflix instant watch, and DVD queues.”

As this article is being posted, Microsoft is begining to push out the latest enhancement to Media Center in Windows Vista, Native Netflix! Once the update is downloaded you will notice a new badge on the Media Center home page. Netflix. Clicking on the badge will bring you to an installation page where you will be given the option to download and install the netflix application. if you choose to install Netflix, you will leave Media Center and a browser will open to download and install the application.

The current incarnation of Netflix in Media Center works ONLY in

· Windows Vista RTM, SP1, SP2 (X86 or X64)

· Windows Vista with TV Pack 2008 (Codename Fiji)

Windows 7 is not currently supported.

Extenders are not currently supported (I know, I know. When will they learn that extenders are important?)

You will need a Netflix account with Instant Watch ability. Or start a Free Trial account.

Media Center must be configured before installation.

Silverlight will be installed with the Netflix app.

If you have any custom menu strips they will be removed when the Netflix Add-in is installed. You will have to use something like MenuMender to add the custom menus back in.

The first time you open the Netflix application you’re presented with the option to enter your Netflix Username and Password or the option to start a trial account.

If you already have a Netflix account, any movies that are in your DVD Queue will show up in the window. If you did not have an account or there’s nothing in your Queue, you can use the search feature to add movies to either the DVD Queue or the Instant Queue.

I just quickly went through and added a bunch of movies to the Instant Queue. I actually found it easier to go to the Netflix website (from my laptop) and add them from there. It was quicker and easier to search using the mouse and keyboard.

Once you have added items to the Instant Queue, you can access them from Media Center. It took about ten minutes for the list to populate after adding them from the website.

Once you have selected a movie to watch, click on it and it brings you to the “Play” screen, here you can play the movie, Remove it from the queue, Add it to the “DVD Queue” (To receive a DVD in the mail) or “Find Related” which is a feature I really like.

The “Find Related” feature does a search based on the actors, Genre and/or movie description. It then pulls up other titles with the same actors or subject matter that you may like. Here I scrolled down a little so that you can see that it doesn’t just pull up other Arnold movies.

If you choose to play the video, the app will test your connection speed and select a video quality that will be appropriate for your connection (and keep the video smooth and without buffer pauses) the video will buffer and depending on your internet connection will begin to play in 10-15 seconds. I have a fairly fast connection, so I think that I’m getting High Quality video. It looks very good for a streaming full screen video (this is NOT Internet TV quality). Of course there is some pixilation and a little artifacting (The square blocks that appear now and then in the video), but the quality is surprisingly good and well worth it for the ability to play a movie On Demand.

There are some quirky bugs that happen from time to time. But I’m running beta software and they should be worked out at release.

clubhouse, media center, windows media center, how-to, Tip

Installing Windows 7 RC from a USB thumb drive

Pete Stagman — Tue, 19 May 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Installing Windows 7 RC from a USB thumb drive

This procedure also works for installing Windows Home Server, Vista, Windows Server, or just as a plain old boot disk. If you just want a boot disk, you'll still need to put some files on the prepped USB stick.

There are a lot of reasons to install from a USB stick rather than a DVD. The number one reason is speed, installing from the thumb drive is many times faster than a DVD. Another reason may be that you want to edit the cversion.ini file so you can upgrade from a previous beta.

The first thing you want to do is make sure that your computer CAN be booted from a USB stick. You’ll have to check your BIOS or the manufacturer’s website to see if your computer is USB bootable.

There are far too many different models to try to cover them here.

Second, make sure you have a USB stick that has enough room. For Windows 7 - 32bit you’ll need roughly 3GB and for 64bit you’ll need roughly 4GB.

Now that you have a thumb drive that’s the right size we can prepare it for booting.

To do this we’ll use the “Diskpart” utility from a command prompt.

Open a command prompt as Administrator.

From the DOS prompt type diskpart

Next, insert your USB Thumb Drive into a free USB port. We’ll need to figure out which drive your USB is so from the DISKPART> prompt type: list disk and hit enter

Here, you see that I have 3 disks listed. Disk 0 is my Hard Drive, Disk 1 is a 514MB partition on my built in flash drive, Disk 2 is an 8GB drive. Since the USB stick I inserted is 8GB, that must be it.

We want to use disk 2, so from the DISKPART> prompt type: select disk 2

To make sure that there’s nothing on the USB stick that will interfere with our booting, we’ll wipe out any partition information on the stick.

WARNING! This will wipe this stick clean! It will delete and destroy any data on this stick.

From the DISKPART> prompt type: clean

Now we want to create our primary partition for booting.

From the DISKPART> prompt type: create partition primary

Now we want to change to that partition and make it an active or bootable partition.

From the DISKPART> prompt type: select partition 1

When that step completes type: active

Next we need to format our active partition and assign a drive letter to the boot partition.

From the DISKPART> prompt type: format fs=fat32

When the format completes, type: assign

You can now exit DISKPART and close the command prompt.

The USB stick is now ready to boot. Next we need to copy the files from the ISO to the stick. You’ll need to mount the ISO file as a drive using something like Daemon Tools. You can download daemon tools from http://www.daemon-tools.cc/eng/downloads. You may need to reboot your PC after installing Daemon Tools.

Mount the ISO as a drive then copy ALL the files from the ISO to your new USB stick. You should now be able to boot from the USB stick and do a full install of Windows 7RC1!

If you are trying to do an upgrade install from an older Beta, you are probably getting an error that “Your version of Windows cannot be upgraded”. To get around this, open the USB stick you just created in an explorer window. Browse to the “/Sources” folder and look for the file named cversion.ini, edit the file and look for the line “MinClient=7077.0”. Change the 70xx to 7000. Save the file and run the setup again.

clubhouse, media center, windows media center, how-to, Tip

The Tiki Hut Tour

Pete Stagman — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Just a bunch of photos. I'll add descriptions and text later.

This is Blain Barton and his Tiki mask. Blain's a very shy guy, it took us a lot to get him out of his shell.

Yeah, I'm being sarcastic.

The Tiki Hut Boston Crew:

L-R Me (Pete Stagman), Jack Daniel (Yes, his real name), Blain Barton, Dan Stolts

Good crowd, roughly 100 attendee's.

Pete Stagman, Dan Ouellette, Dan Stolts. Can you tell the two Ex-Military?

Pete Stagman, presenting Windows 7. Talking about DirectAccess here.

Pete Stagman again.

Pete Stagman, "Who me?"

The Tiki Hut Boston Crew with the winners of the prizes. Yep, that's a full RockBand setup.

Tiki Hut Boston Crew. What a great night and event. Hope you made it.

Hang Loose!

Grab this badge here!

Pete converts MS employees to Media Center!

Pete Stagman — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 00:00:00 GMT

So, last night (April 28^th, 2009) at the Tiki Hut Windows 7 demo, I was supposed to talk about some of the new features of Windows 7, like Direct Access (Microsoft's new VPN client) and BranchCache (basically an enhanced DFS). But of course, Me being Me, I wanted to do a demo of the new features of Media Center in Windows 7!

But, I'm not running Windows 7 on my laptop.

I had it running in a VirtualPC, which is pretty cool all on its own, but you can't attach tuners to a VirtualPC.

So, I asked Blain Barton if I could use his laptop to do the MC demo. He said "Oh, we don't have the time to get MC set up and working."

I said, "I can have it up and running in less than 5 minutes”. He looked at me like "No way". But he said, "Ok, give it a shot"

I took out my handy dandy little AverMedia Volar Max USB ATSC tuner (that’s always with me in case of emergency TV withdrawal), a Yagi antenna that I had brought with me and a 10' piece of RG6 cable (regular coax antenna cable). I ran the cable out the door behind the Podium and setup the antenna pointing out the window. Unfortunately, the MS office in Waltham is on the wrong side of the buildings for a direct line of site to the TV towers that are only about 10 miles from there. So, signal is good only for the strongest stations in the area.

I inserted the USB tuner into a slot and Win7 immediately recognized it and installed the driver. I went into Media Center and did an express setup, then into Settings / TV / Tuner Setup and went through the steps of getting guide data (setting Zip Code). The guide data downloaded and I then went into Settings / TV / Digital TV Signal Strength and removed any channels with weak signals. I still had about a dozen channels after removing the weakest ones.

I opened the guide and started flipping through the channels looking for something in HD. At this time of day the only thing in HD was Oprah . . . Oh well. I flipped the switch on the podium and Oprah in HD was being projected onto the 2 large screens (I think they’re about 7’ screens) in the theater and the audio was coming through the sound system. Various MS employees who happened to be walking by at the time came in and were looking at the screen kinda confused. One said, “I didn’t know you could get TV on these projectors?” I said, “You can’t. It’s coming from this laptop.”

About this time Blain came back and looking at the screen said “Wow, you got it working cool!” He came around behind the podium (the other ms employees following) and was looking at the setup. He asked how I was getting the signal and how everything was hooked up. I showed them the tuner, the cable and the antenna, explained how easy it was to set up and how little it really cost to get FREE HD!

Now mind you, this was an hour before the start of the event and I was just testing the setup. But I already had 6 people walking out of there saying. “That’s too cool, I have to do that!”

Wish I had time to show them the REALLY COOL STUFF.

Later.

Grab this badge here!

Episode 23: DVR-MS Toolbox

Adam Thursby — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Back once again and this week Josh and I get a chance to speak with Andy Van Til, developer of DVR-MSToolbox. Most Media Center users know about this app, but I’ll have to admit that I had no idea everything it could do. This episode we get some great insight into the app and where it may be headed. Not only that but Andy takes time to explain some of the underlying processes at work with both DVR-MS and WTV files. We also touch on a little bit of a DRM issue I’ve been having and The Digital Lifestyle’s 2nd annual Enthusiast Competition. Enjoy the show! Click here to download.

Building an Astaro personal firewall with spare or low end parts - Part 3

Pete Stagman — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Go to Part 1

Go to Part 2

Follow Pete on Twitter! http://twitter.com/tyrstag

Double NAT

In most cases, your ISP gave you a MODEM or Router that sits between the Internet and your Home Network and chances are good that your MODEM/Router (I’m just going to call it a Modem from now on) is doing NAT. So you have a public IP Address on the outside of the Modem and a Private address on the inside. If you then add your Astaro Firewall into the mix with NAT enabled, you are adding a second level of NAT as the Astaro will take that Private IP Address and change it to a Different Private IP Address.

The best option in this environment is to call your ISP’s tech support and ask them if they can switch off NAT and set the Modem to Bridge Mode so that it will not try to give out Private IP addresses. Explain to them that you are trying to add a hardware firewall and this is the way it’s supposed to work. If they agree to do it, then your Astaro will end up with a Public IP Address on its External Interface and you won’t have to worry about Double NAT-ting at all.

If they refuse to change the settings, you can still get it to work, but you’ll have to do a bit more work.

Accessing the Internet in a Double NAT

In order for your PC to access the Internet, it has to be able to NAT in reverse, which means that the DHCP settings that the Router and the Astaro are giving out need to be correct. When you try to access the Internet, the gateway that the Astaro gives out along with the IP address should be the Internal IP Address of the Astaro, The External Address of the Astaro should be an address given to it by the Router with the Internal IP Address of the Router as its Gateway.

In order for your network to work in a Double NAT environment, you MUST follow these rules:

· The IP Sub-Nets of the Modem-to-Astaro and the Astaro-to-PC MUST be different. I.e. Modem-to-Astaro 192.168.1.x, Astaro-to-PC 192.168.2.x (You don’t have to use these exact subnets, any Private Address ranges will work)

· The External gateway on the Astaro must be set as the Internal Address of the Modem.

· The gateway of the PC must be set to the Internal IP Address of the Astaro.

· If you are going to remote access your Network, the External Address of the Astaro Must be Static and any machine you plan on accessing from the Internet must also be set static.

Accessing your network remotely from the Internet

Say that you wanted to be able to Remote Desktop to your PC from the Internet.

This is where it can get really confusing in a Double NAT network. First you will have to get into the Cable Modem and Port Forward the RDP Port(3389) to the External Address of the Astaro. To the Astaro? Yes, because then you have to get into the Astaro and Port Forward the RDP Port AGAIN to the destination PC. You can see how this is done in Part 2.

Adding a Wireless Router to the Network

You want to add wireless to your Network and you have a Wireless Router that you had kicking around. Well, Guess what? That Wireless Router is going to want to add another level of NAT to your Network!

Here, the best option is to not use a Wireless Router at all, if you don’t already have the Wireless, go buy a Wireless Access Point without any Routing. If you already have the Wireless Router, get into the management interface and see if there is a setting for “Access Point Only”. This is common in newer Wireless routers. If this is NOT an option, then you want to make sure that DHCP is NOT enabled in the Wireless Router. You DO NOT want the Wireless giving out its own addresses, you want it to get the addresses from the Astaro and pass those out.

The other thing you want to make sure of is that the Wireless is on the INSIDE Network, after the Astaro. Do not plug anything into the WAN Port on the Wireless, you want the Wireless to be an Access Point and NOT do any Routing.

Setting up a DMZ

First, What is a DMZ? A DeMilitarized Zone is a separate Network that is neither Inside or Outside your Network. How can it be neither? Easy, it’s a 3^rd separate Network. This is why the Hardware Requirements for the Astaro includes 3 NICs.

So, why would you want a DMZ?

If you have a server that you want people to be able to access from the Internet, it is likely that at some point, that server will get hacked or “Owned” and may become a danger to your Internal Network. A DMZ gives you another layer of security from that “Owned” server and your Internal computers won’t be susceptible to easy attack from your OWN SERVER.

Setting up the DMZ on the Astaro

To enable a DMZ on the Astaro, first log in to the management interface. Navigate to Network, Interfaces.

Then select “New Interface . . .”

Give the new Interface a Name.

The Type: should be “Ethernet Standard”

Hardware is any NIC you have remaining on the drop down. If you had 3 NICs there will be only one available in the drop down. If you had more than 3 NICs, you may have more options in the drop down.

The Address: Needs to be a different address range from your Internal and External addresses. I chose 192.168.3.1

The Netmask: can be any Mask you like, depending on how many addresses you think you will need. I left it at 255.255.255.0

All the other settings you can leave at the defaults.

Click “Save” to save your new Interface.

Click the RED light to enable the Interface.

The Next step is enabling a MASQ for the interface. This allows the computers on the DMZ Network to access the Internet.

Navigate to Network Security, NAT then click on “New masquerading rule . . .”

Here you tell the firewall what Network you are allowing Access to what Interface.

For Network: you want to choose the Network Interface you created in the previous step. Mine was called “DMZ”

The Interface: is the Name of the Interface that accesses the Internet. As you see here, Mine is “External (WAN)”

Click “Save”

Click the RED Light to enable the MASQ.

Creating a Packet Filter Rule

That Interface now has a path to the Internet, but NO DATA is allowed to pass. So, now we have to go to Network Security, Packet Filter.

Click “New rule . . .” to create a new packet filter rule. Here we set what services the DMZ is allowed to access on the Internet. Let’s assume that you are going to install an e-mail server in the DMZ, an e-mail server will need to be able to access Email messaging services on the internet, so we’ll create a rule that allows those services. (Notice the Rule that I have that says Internal Network àANYàANY. That is a No No, you should never have a rule with more than ONE ANY in the definition, I’ll fix that. I’m not sure why it’s there.)

You can set Groups of rules that should stay together. We don’t have many rules, so it’s not really necessary.

Packet Filter Rules are tested in order from Top to Bottom. The Rule Position would be important if we had many rules, you may find if you are adding many servers and services that you have lots of rules. In that case, you want to move rules that will be run more often to the top of the list. Things like HTTP that are probably most of your internet traffic should be at the top so the firewall doesn’t have to go through the entire list of rules before it finds a match. Services that you use only occasionally should go to the bottom of the list.

The Source: will be the “DMZ (Network)” that we created earlier. This is where the traffic will come FROM. We are SENDING mail from here.

The Service: is the “Email Messaging” group of services. If you were to look in this group you would find SMTP, POP3, IMAP . . .

The Destination: in this case is ANY. That means ANY host on the Internet. If you are using your ISPs mail server or another service like Postini you could set a Host address instead ofANY.

The Action: is Allow. We are ALLOWING the traffic through. Other options are Deny and Drop. The difference between Deny and Drop is important. Deny sends a message back to the originating host saying that it was denied, Drop just breaks the connection without any message.

Click Save to save your new Packet Filter Rule.

Click the RED light to enable the rule.

Adding a Host Server to the DMZ

Now that we are allowing mail out of our network, we need to let it in. To do this we’ll have to create a Host Definition and NAT rule.

Navigate to Network Security, NAT. Then click the DNAT/SNAT tab.

Click “New NAT rule . . .”

Give your NAT rule a descriptive Name:

Group and Position: work the same way they do in Packet Filters. Move the more often used to the top of the list.

Our Traffic Source: is Any, so we can receive mail from anywhere on the Internet

Traffic Service: is our Email Messaging group again.

The Traffic Destination: is the Interface that has the Public IP Address of our mail server. In most cases it will just be the External (WAN).

The NAT Node: is DNAT (Destination)

Next we need to add the Destination Host

Click the GREEN Plus Sign next to the Destination box. This brings up the Add Network Definition box.

Give your Host a Name: I just called it “Mail Server”

The Type: will remain Host.

Enter the IP Address that you will give your mail server. I chose 192.168.3.2

Select the DMZ Interface:

Comment it optional.

Click Save to save the host you just created.

This will bring you back to the DNAT screen. Complete filling out the fields by clicking the “Automatic packet filter rule:” check box. This does what it says and creates a packet filter that will allow the traffic you defined in the NAT Rule.

Congratulations! You now have a working Email server in your DMZ that is separated from both your internal network and the Internet.

Accessing Servers that are in your DMZ from your Internal Network

Now that we have your Mail Server in the DMZ, it might be nice to actually be able to manage it. The easiest way to do it is with RDP (Remote Desktop Protocol). But, we have all traffic blocked between our Internal Network and the DMZ. So, we need to create a packet filter rule that will allow RDP from our Internal Network to the DMZ.

Navigate to Network Security, Packet Filter.

We don’t need a Group here.

Since we don’t have many rules and we shouldn’t be using this rule often, we can leave the Position: at the Bottom

Our Source: is the Internal (Network) since we may want to manage this server from any computer on your Internal Network. You could set this to a Single Host if you wanted to.

The Service: is Microsoft Remote Desktop

And the Destination: is DMZ (Network) Again you could set this to just a single IP address (Host) but we may add other servers and it will be easier to have a rule that allows the entire network rather than creating a rule for every machine you may add.

Action: is Allow

Click the RED Light to enable the rule.

You now have access to any machine on the DMZ network from the Internal Network and ONLY from the Internal Network.

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Go to Part 1

Go to Part 2

Episode 22-Hacking 7MC

Adam Thursby — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 00:00:00 GMT

This week on the Entertainment 2.0 podcast, Josh and I are joined by Michael Healy of Hack7MC. I frequently repost and link to Michael’s site because he really shows you how to tweak and get your 7MC installation working. Even if you’re not running the beta and are going to wait for a retail release, this is a site you need to bookmark.

This week we also take time to talk about Ian Dixon’s Media Center Health Monitor and how you can make use of this great tool not only for yourself but for other Media Center installations.

As always, we welcome your comments and questions. You can reach Josh through Cheap Geek and you can find me here! Also, leave your pictures, comments and voicemail on the Entertainment 2.0 drop.

Click here to download Episode 22

Building an Astaro personal firewall with spare or low end parts. Part 2

Pete Stagman — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Back to Part 1 Continue to Part 3

Follow Pete on Twitter! http://twitter.com/tyrstag

How to connect your new Astaro firewall to your network

So you’ve followed the directions from Part 1 and you have a working firewall with 3 network cards. But, you haven’t been able to get into the firewall to configure it. How do you connect it to your network?

Ok, the first thing you need to do is figure out which NIC is which, but until you can get connected on one of them, there’s no way to know for sure which NIC is which.

The first thing you will need to do is to make sure you are on the same network as the Astaro. In Vista, the easiest way to do this is to click on the Start Marble, Right click on “Network”, Left Click “Properties”. This will bring up the “Network and Sharing Center”. On the left side of the “Network and Sharing Center”, under “Tasks” click on “Manage Network Connections”

You will probably have a lot less connections than I do. I’m running the Astaro Software in a Virtual Machine on the same computer that I’m writing this on.

Find the connection that shows a connection. It will probably say “Local Area Connection”. Right click on the Connection and Click “Properties”.

Double Click on “Internet Protocol Version 4 (TCP/IPv4)”. If you accepted the default IP setting while installing the Astaro software, you should be able to use the settings in this screenshot.

You can leave the DNS server alone for now, we don’t need the setting to get the firewall running.

Next, Take a network patch cable and connect it to the PC you are doing the configuration from. Next we have to figure out which is the Internal port of the firewall. If you have 3 NICs, the Astaro has named the ports as eth0, eth1 and eth2. It named them in the order they were detected during the installation. So if you have one or two built into the motherboard, they are most likely eth0 and eth1 if you had 2 ports on your mobo and just eth0 if you had only 1.

But the easiest thing to do is “Trial and Error”. Put the cable into any of the ports and open up Internet explorer or Firefox or your browser of choice.

In the address bar enter https://192.168.2.100:4444, this is the default management address. Hopefully you got a Certificate error. If not then move the cable to another port in the Astaro and hit “Refresh” (F5). When you get the Certificate error, you have the right port.

Click on “Continue to this website”. If you haven’t gone through the Basic Configuration from Part 1, go back to the first part and follow those directions. I’ll wait here while you do that. . .

OK, back?

How does it fit in the Network?

The firewall sits in between the Modem/Router and your network switch. So that all traffic between the internet and your PC is filtered and scanned. Like in this diagram.

IP Addressing and Subnet Masks – What are they and how do they work?

If you’ve ever given your PC an IP address you know that there are 4 pieces of information that you need for the network to work correctly.

· IP Address

· Netmask

· Gateway Address

· 2 DNS Servers (1 Minimum)

We’ll deal with the first 3 here and DNS later.

IP Addresses

An IP Address is how your computer is identified on the Internet. They are not unique to each computer (contrary to what most people think). But they MUST be unique on the internet.

Huh? How can it be on multiple computers and still be unique on the internet? That’s done by a little thing known as NAT(Network Address Translation) and the fact that there are 2 types of IP Addresses, Public and Private.

Public IP Addresses are the addresses that are on the Internet and therefore are PUBLIC, meaning they can be seen by anyone with an Internet connection and MUST be UNIQUE.

Private IP Addresses are used internally to your Home, Business, Cell phone, PDA . . . They are not seen on the Internet and are PRIVATE. They must be unique on your network, but the same address can be used thousands of times by different internal networks.

Let’s look at an IP Address

IP Addresses are written in a format known as a “Dotted Quad”. Meaning that there are 4 parts separated by Periods. You’ve seen them.

192.168.100.100

Each part of the address can be any number between 1 and 254. (Technically 0 -255, but the numbers 0 and 255 should not be used.) The reason for the numbering is that an entire IP Address is a 32-bit number, each part of the address being 8-bits in Binary. We’ll discuss Binary later in the blog. You should understand it so you have a better understanding of how Netmasks and IP Addresses work.

Private Addresses

Private addresses come in 3 Ranges. Each was designed for a different number of devices on the Private network. You should use the smallest number of addresses that you can. Here are the ranges.

10.0.0.0 – 10.255.255.255 supports up to 16,777,216 computers and has a default Subnet Mask of 255.0.0.0 ß For some reason people like to use this range. I guess it’s in case they eventually buy more than 1,000,000 computers.

172.16.0.0 – 172.31.255.255 Supports up to 1,048,576 computers and has a default Subnet Mask of 255.240.0.0

192.168.0.0 – 192.168.255.255 Supports up to 65,536 computers and has a default Subnet Mask of 255.255.0.0 ß This is the most common of the address ranges. Almost every home router has this preconfigured. The Astaro firewall you built in Part 1 set up a default network of 192.168.2.0 with a Subnet Mask of 255.255.255.0

Private addresses are NOT routable on the Internet. This means that if you try to use one of those addresses on the internet, any Modem/Router you try to send data to will ignore them.

Only Public addresses are allowed on the Internet. Public Addresses are all the other numbers not included in the list above. These Public IP addresses are issued in blocks to ISPs for use by their customers. The ISP has a limited number of addresses to give out so they use something called Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) to give out addresses from a pool as they are needed.

You are issued 1 address when you connect, no matter how many computers you have on your private network. When you disconnect, the address is added back to the pool so other users can use them.

Your Modem/Router/Firewall then gives a Private Address to any computer inside your Private network. These are usually the 192.168.X.X addresses.

So, how does the Private Address get converted into a Public Address?

That’s done by a little Magic called Network Address Translation (NAT). When you access the Internet using a Private Address, your Router/Modem/Firewall (Just Router from now on) assigns your computer a Port Number, then forwards your request out to the Remote Host (Web Server) using the Public Address and tells the Remote Host to send the Data (Web Page) pack to your Public Address on the Port that was assigned by the Router. The device receives the data, looks at the requested port, looks through the table it created for the NAT entries and then forwards it on to your PC.

1. My Computer (192.168.1.5) wants to open www.google.com

2. Router (192.168.1.1) translates my Private IP to the Public Address and adds a random port. (72.72.X.X:12345) It adds the entry to the NAT table.

3. Router forwards the request on to www.google.com and tells the server to Reply to your Public IP on the specified port. (72.72.X.X:12345)

4. Google fills the request and sends it to (72.72.X.X:12345).

5. Router accepts the request and looks in the NAT table for the entry 12345. It finds My Computer listed with the Private Address (192.168.1.5).

6. It changes the Public Address to MY Computer’s Private Address and forwards it to My Computer

Pretty Simple right?

What are IP Ports?

Every IP Address has 65536 Ports that are available for services to use as well as for NAT. They are numbered from 0-65535. Each service that you connect to uses a specific port.

The first 1024 ports are called the “Well Known” ports. These include:

· Port 21 FTP (File Transfer)

· Port 22 SSH (Secure Shell)

· Port 53 DNS (Domain Names)

· Port 80 HTTP (Web Pages)

· Port 443 HTTPS (Secure Web Pages)

There are many other ports that are registered to services that are out of the first 1024. Probably the most common are:

· Port 3389 RDP (Remote Desktop)

· Port 5900 VNC (Remote Control)

You can find a complete list of the registered ports HERE.

Subnet Masks

Subnet Masks are probably the most confusing and misunderstood things about IP Addresses. I’m going to give a very high level look at Subnet Masks here.

I could probably do a whole blog just on Subnet Masks and if there were enough interest in it, I might be talked into it.

The Subnet Mask tells your computer what network it’s attached to. It does this by comparing the IP Address it has with the IP Address of the Host it want to talk to and seeing if they are on the same subnet. How does it do that? This is where it gets REALLY confusing. You normally see subnet masks that look like this:

255.255.255.0

What this is actually saying is that any IP Address that has the same first 3 Quads, is on the same network as me. WTF?!? How does that work?

A 255 means that the Address must match EXACTLY, a 0 means that they do not have to match at all.

There are many more Subnet Masks that you may see, like:

· 255.255.255.240

· 255.255.224.0

· 255.255.0.0

Notice that the lower numbers are at the end of the mask. All masks must follow this format; you cannot have a subnet mask that has a lower number in the middle. 255.240.255.0 is NOT a valid mask and will wreak all kinds of havoc on your network.

OK, so I want to talk to my printer. My Computer’s IP Address is 192.168.1.5 and My Printer’s Address is 192.168.1.10, My Computer looks at both addresses and the Subnet Mask to decide if it can talk to the printer directly.

	1st Quad	2^nd Quad	3^rd Quad	4^th Quad
PC	192	168	1	5
Printer	192	168	1	10
Subnet Mask	255	255	255	0
Result	Match	Match	Match	Doesn’t matter

So, these devices are on the same Subnet.

Now let’s see what happens with a Host that is NOT on my network. Let’s look at www.Google.com. One IP address for Google is 208.67.217.231. (They have many)

	1st Quad	2^nd Quad	3^rd Quad	4^th Quad
PC	192	168	1	5
Printer	208	67	217	231
Subnet Mask	255	255	255	0
Result	No Match	No Match	No Match	Doesn’t matter

So, this address is NOT on the same Subnet.

What happens when the IP Addresses are not on the same Subnet?

This is where the Gateway address comes in.

When your computer tries to contact a Host that is not on the same subnet, it forwards the request on to the IP Address in the Default Gateway field.

Then the NAT Magic happens all over again.

What if I want to access my computer from the internet or I want to run a Web/WHS Server?

The first problem that you have is that you were probably issued a DHCP IP Address that will change occasionally and/or every time you reboot your Router/Modem. To deal with this and to use a name instead of the IP Address, we will use DynDNS. Dynamic Domain Name System is a service that you can use to have a real name for your site that will update automatically any time your IP Address changes.

First, you will need to create a DynDNS account. Go to www.dyndns.org and create an account.

Click on “Host Services” and then “Add New Hostname”

Give a name that you want to use for your new host and select one of the DynDNS hostnames that are there for you to choose from.

Once you have a name and domain picked out, you can click the “Use auto detected IP address X.X.X.X” link, or just click on “Create Host”. Then you will need to log in to your Astaro firewall.

Go to Network / DNS then click on the DynDNS tab. Clcik on the “New DynDNS . . . “

For the Hostname: field, use the full name that you created on the DynDNS website. Ie: myhost.dyndns.org, whatever you chose.

You can leave the Assign: field to the default of “IP of Local Interface”

Set the Interface: to “External”

Type: should be “DynDNS”

Move down to Username: enter the Username you created for DynDNS.org

In the Password: field, enter the Password you used for DynDNS.prg

Click “Save”.

Once you hit save, you will be back at the DynDNS status screen. You will see that there are 2 squares and one of them is RED. This means that the settings are not activated.

Click the RED square and it will turn GREEN. The Settings are now active.

Click the Double Arrow in the top right corner of the Astaro window. Make sure that the DynDNS status is: “The last update was successful.”

HINT: Never hit the Refresh button of your browser, that will log you out of the Astaro Management interface and you will need to Login again.

Congratulations! You have now set up your first DynDNS Domain Name! From your computer you should now be able to open a Command Prompt and Ping “myhostname” and get a reply.

(Yes, I’m faking this result. That address is a private address that couldn’t be ping’d this way.)

That’s great! How do I setup a remote desktop session from the internet?

The first thing you need to do is figure out what the address of the computer you want to access from the Internet is. Go to that machine and open a Command Prompt.

From the Command Prompt window type: ipconfig

You’re looking for line that reads IPv4 Address. I actually have 2 addresses listed, the address I need in my case is 192.168.2.10, which is the default range that the Astaro install created.

Now that you found the address that the Astaro Assigned, you need to make that permanent. You don’t want that address to change every time you reboot the computer and have to reconfigure the firewall.

You do that by creating a DHCP Mapping.

Log into your Astaro firewall and go to Network / DHCP, then click on “Lease Table”. This is a list of all the IP Addresses that the Astaro gave out. Look up the IP Address you got from your Remote Desktop computer and find the MAC Address.

Select the MAC address from the table and copy it with CTRL-V. Click on the “Static MAC/IP Mappings” tab.

On the DHCP Server: field, select Internal.

Paste the MAC address into the MAC Address field.

Enter the IP Address that you got from ipconfig. Or you can enter ANY valid address for this machine to get any time it is turned on.

Click “Save”.

You have now setup a Static DHCP mapping!

Why do it this way? Why not just give the PC a static address? Easy, to make management easier. If you set the Addresses static on all the PC’s, when you want to change addresses you have to go to each PC and change them. This will give you a single place to change the addresses from. If you want to change the Address of 1 or all you machines, just go into the “Static Mappings” and change them there. The next time the machine reboots or when the lease expires, it will get the new address.

Now that you have a Static IP Address, you can set up the incoming connection. You do that in the Network Security / NAT Menu. Click on the DNAT/SNAT tab. Click “New NAT Rule”.

In the Name: field, add some descriptive name for this rule. I just put RDP.

You can leave the Group: and Position: at their defaults.

Traffic Source is “Where will this connection come from?”. If you will be accessing this connection from the Interent, leave it at Any.

For Traffic Service: click on the little folder to the right (That will let you select an existing service), the services will open in the left column. Find Microsoft Remote Desktop and Drag it from the column into the Traffic Service: field. (pretty cool huh?)

For Traffic Destination: click on the folder to the right and drag “External (WAN) (ADDRESS)” into the Traffic Destination: field.

The NAT mode: will stay DNAT (Destination)

In the Destination: field click on the GREEN Plus sign. (This lets you ADD a Destination)

Give the Destination a Name:

The Type: will stay “Host”

Enter the Address: that you set as STATIC in the previous step.

Leave the Interface: as <>

Click Save.

Click the “Automatic packet filter rule:” check box so there is a check mark in it.

Click Save.

You will now be back at the DNAT/SNAT Status screen.

Click on the RED Square to enable the rule.

Congratulations! You now have a fully configured DNAT rule that will forward RDP requests to the computer that you gave a static IP address by using DynDNS names!

You cannot test this configuration from inside your network. The next time you are outside and you want to access your computer, open Remote Desktop Connection and for the address, use the DynDNS name you created at the beginning of this How-To!

See you in Part 3!

Back to Part 1 Continue to Part 3

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Building an Astaro personal firewall with spare or low end parts. Part 1

Pete Stagman — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Building an Astaro personal firewall with spare or low end parts. Part 1

Continue to Part 2.

“Astaro Security Gateway turns any PC into a security appliance within minutes, providing high-performance whilst reducing network administration costs.

· Network Security - Firewall, VPN and Intrusion Prevention

· Web Security - URL Filtering, Malware Detection, Bandwidth Management and Application Control

· Mail Security - Antispam, Antivirus, Antiphishing and Email Encryption “

Now here’s the cool part. Astaro will let you download, install and use the Astaro Security Gateway with all the features (Except Enterprise stuff) enabled. Absolutely FREE for personal use.

This will be a multi-part blog. In this part we’ll cover: Hardware requirements, registering, downloading and installing the software, then some basic configuration.

In future parts we’ll get into more advanced configurations like using Packet Filters, Port Forwarding, Anti-Virus, Anti-Spam and VPNs for remote access.

Hardware Requirements

Minimum Hardware Recommendations

Pentium III 900 MHz or compatible CPU
512 MB RAM
10 GB SCSI/IDE HD
Bootable CD-ROM SCSI/IDE
3 NICs (Internet, Local Net, Demilitarized Zone)

My Realistic Hardware Recommendations

Pentium 4, 1+ GHz or compatible CPU – The faster the processor, the less likely the firewall is to bottleneck when handling large amount of data or downloads.
1-2 GB RAM – Same here.
60 GB SCSI/IDE HD – More storage for swap space and log files.
Bootable CD-ROM SCSI/IDE – can’t get away from this if you want to be able to install the software. You could use a USB CD-ROM drive if your system will boot from one.
3 NICs (Internet, Local Net, Demilitarized Zone) – Technically you only NEED 2 NICs unless you want to run a web or e-mail server in a DMZ that is separated from both the internal and external networks.

See the Astaro Hardware Compatibility List Here

I don’t think I need to go through all the steps of building a PC, so we’ll skip right to getting the software and installing it.

Creating a MyAstaro Account, creating a license and downloading the software.

The first step here is to go to https://www.astaro.com/user/login, if you already have an account you can just log in. If not then create an account by clicking the Join MyAstaro button.

Once you’ve created the account you will be in the License Management screen.

Click on the “Astaro Security Gateway V7 is available as a fully functional home use version and is free of charge. Download here.” Link. This will bring you to the “Create License” screen.

Read the Home User Agreement. (yeah right)

Enter a Nickname for your license. I just named it “My Firewall”, and click the “Create” button.

Once the License is created you can click the “Download License File” button. Save the license file to a location on your hard drive, but remember where you put it, you will need it later.

Next, we’ll download the Astaro software

On the navigation links click on the “MyAstaro End User Portal” link. Under “Software Downloads”, look for Astaro Security Gateway - Software Appliance.

Choose a location near you and either HTTP or FTP. (It’s up to you which to use)

Navigate into the /ISO folder and select the latest_asg_v7_software.iso file (that will make sure you get the latest version). Download the file to your hard drive. Make sure you have enough space, the file is just under 500MB.

Once the file has completed downloading, burn it to CD using your favorite utility.

Installing the Astaro Security Gateway software

Make sure that you understand that this is a complete operating system. It will format your hard drives and any data you had on there will be destroyed. You cannot multi-boot the software. If you want you can install the software on a VM.

Insert the CD you created into the CD-ROM drive and boot the computer. At the first screen that comes up, hit “Enter” to begin the installation.

The next screen is the first of the Astaro configuration screens.

Press “Enter” again to begin the install.

The next screen is the same warning I already gave you that all data on the hard drives will be lost.

Press F8 to confirm that you understand you are about to destroy your data.

At the next screen, choose your keyboard layout. Then.

The install will scan your hardware and ask you to confirm the configuration.

The next 3 screens ask your Location, Time Zone and let you set the Time and Date.

At the next screen select the Ethernet NIC that you will use as the internal interface to your network and will also be the network you access the management interface.

At the next screen you can accept the default addresses or set a new network address for your internal network. Keeping the defaults should work fine for any home network.

Valid addresses for private networks are in the ranges of:

· 10.0.0.0 – 10.255.255.255

· 172.16.0.0 – 172.31.255.255

· 192.168.0.0 – 192.168.255.255

Depending on how many addresses you need and the NetMask you use. (We’ll get into NetMasks in a later part)

This is the last screen you will need to enter any information. After accepting the IP settings, there will be a few more screens that you can just hit enter through.

When the install is complete you will see this screen. Write down or remember the address it shows you. i.e. here it’s https://192.168.2.100:4444 you will need this to access the management.

Hit Ctrl-Alt-Del to reboot your new firewall! When you hear 5 beeps it will have completed booting.

Now we’ll go through the basic settings wizard

First you will need to give the PC that you will do the management from an IP address on the same network as the firewall you just installed. Remember the address I told you to write down in the last step?

Plug a network cable into the NIC you selected as your management interface. Open a web browser on your computer and type in the address you wrote down on the last screen.

If you had plugged the cable into the right NIC you will probably get a certificate error. Just click on “Continue to this website” Link. If your not in the correct nic, you will get a “Page not found” error.

After continuing, you will come to the Hostname and passwords screen.

All the fields must be filled in to continue.

· The Hostname will be what’s shown when someone pings the firewall. I usually do something short like FW or FireWall.

· Company name can be anything you want.

· Type your City and select your country.

· Create a Strong password! Remember that if someone figures out your firewall password they have complete access to your network!

· Use your e-mail address, this is where firewall notifications will be sent, it’s important that you receive them.

Accept the license agreement and click “Perform basic system setup”

After a minute or 2 you will be back at the “Certificate error” page again. Continue to the login screen.

The User Name is admin (All lower case)

And the password is the one you set in the previous step.

You are offered 2 options here, either “Continue with This Wizard” or “Restore Existing Backup File”. Unless you already had an Astaro firewall you will probably choose “Continue”. Click Next.

This is the screen you will install the license file you created way back at the beginning of this blog.

Click on the folder next to the text box and browse to the location you saved the file. Select the file and hit “Next”.

On this screen you can change the IP address if you don’t want to use the ones you selected earlier. You can also enable the DHCP server if you would like the firewall to give out IP addresses on your network. (We will go more in depth on DHCP in a later part). After you’ve made any changes you want, Click “Next”

On this screen, choose the NIC that will be connected to the internet and the connection type. In most cases you will probably choose “Cable Modem”. Click “Next”

On this screen you select what services you want to be able to use from INSIDE. By default ALL services are blocked INCOMING and OUTGOING. By selecting these items you are allowing these things to work OUTGOING. So if you want to be able to browse the web, you need to select “Web (HTTP, HTTPS, FTP)” for RDP you will need “Terminal Services (Citrix, Apple Remote Desktop, RDP, SSH, Telnet)” and so on. Choose the services you want to be able to use. Adding any of these will NOT allow INCOMING connections. (We’ll discuss incoming connections in a later part).

Select the options you want and click “Next”.

On this screen you select the type of Intrusion Protection you want to enable. You might be tempted to just select everything and be done with it, but each item you select, adds overhead to the system and will make the system run slower. Only select the items you really need. If you don’t have Linux, a Web Server, Mail Server or Database Server, don’t select them. The system will be more efficient that way.

On this screen you select items you want to BLOCK. Anything NOT selected will be allowed. In this case you want to select items that you don’t use and will most likely never use. You can change them later if you do decide to use one that was selected.

On this screen, you can enable virus scanning of files that you download, it will also scan all web pages for Trojans and other malware.

You can also enable web filtering here. If you have children or just don’t want to accidentally hit a certain type of webpage (Porn, Terrorist, Criminal . . .) you can select them.

Here you enable your spam and virus scanner for Incoming and outgoing mail. (We’ll discuss advance options for SMTP/POP in a later part)

Congratulations!! You’ve completed the basic configuration. You now have a working firewall.

The Astaro Dashboard.

Continue to Part 2.

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DVD Library on Extender How-To

Pete Stagman — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 00:00:00 GMT

DVD on Extender How-To v0.7

Links only, do not redistribute! All updates and new files will be posted on this page.

I'm not the creator of the DLL or the script, I've just assembled the bits in one place and created the how-to. The authors have asked me to keep them anonymous and if you want them to keep working on this project then I'll do as they want.

If you have a better way to get this to work. Like a better script or different steps, send them to me at (pstagman !at! htpcug.com) and I'll check it out and post it.

Remember that this is a hack. Transcoder.dll and the scripts are not from or supported by Microsoft.

Forums are fixed!!

New Utility

Great news! Robert Chesworth has created a utility to automate the links process!

His "Media Center Links" utility will recreate the whole DVD folder structure locally, copy the folder.jpg files, create the links and then create the WVX playlist files. All in one shot!

Instead of creating all this on the remote storage, it creates it locally on the MCE PC. This was the procedure I had suggested for users who have WHS or NAS devices. So it will work in both cases.

You can Download the utility here. Media Center Links.zip Unzip the file and run setup.exe. There is documentation in the zip. The utility has been updated to the latest 1.0.0.6 version on April 29th 2009! Also included in the zip is the source code for the utility.

If you have any questions or problems, please post your question in the forums.

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How to get DVD's to play on your Media Center Extenders using DVD Library

Windows Vista Service Pack 1 is required for this to work correctly.

Media Center Extenders can't play .vob files, so the files have to be renamed to .mpg files. But wait! If I rename all the .vob files to .mpg files then other apps may stop working right? Correct. So, the solution is symbolic links. A symbolic link is a fake file with the name you want that links back to the original file. So VTS_01_1.mpg is a symbolic link that points to VTS_01_1.VOB. That also means you do not get anything other than the main movie.
WARNING: Do not create symbolic links on Windows Home Server Shares! They don't work and wreak havoc on the server because of the way that the drive extender works!! If you store your movies on a WHS or NAS see this page!
1. Create symbolic links to the .vob files:
  1. Open a command window with admin rights in the VIDEO_TS folder that contains the .vob files you want to link.
  2. Find the largest .vob files. The main movie will be in the largest .vob files, usually they will be 1GB in size.
  3. Use the command fsutil hardlink create VTS_01_1.mpeg VTS_01_1.VOB to create the links. (changing the names of the files for each file you link)
  4. You should get a response like: Hardlink created for D:\shares\DVDs\MOVIE\VIDEO_TS\VTS_01_1.mpeg <<===>> D:\shares\DVDs\MOVIE\VIDEO_TS\VTS_01_1.VOB
  5. If you want the cover artwork to be displayed in DVD Library, create a folder.jpg file of the artwork in the VIDEO_TS folder.
Next you need to create a .wvx playlist file so the extender plays the playlist and you don't have to select each file to play. You can create the file using notepad or the text editor of you choice. Here's what it needs to look like:
1. My Ripped Movie
  
      Server\DVDs\Movie\VIDEO_TS\VTS_03_0.mpeg"/>
  
      server\DVDs\Movie\VIDEO_TS\VTS_03_1.mpeg"/>
  
      Server\DVDs\Movie\VIDEO_TS\VTS_03_2.mpeg"/>
  
      server\DVDs\Movie\VIDEO_TS\VTS_03_3.mpeg"/>
  
      server\DVDs\Movie\VIDEO_TS\VTS_03_4.mpeg"/>
  
      server\DVDs\Movie\VIDEO_TS\VTS_03_5.mpeg"/>
  
      server\DVDs\Movie\VIDEO_TS\VTS_03_6.mpeg"/>
2. Save the file in your VIDEO_TS folder and give it a name "My Ripped Movie.wvx"

Here's a script that will create the symbolic links and the .wvx files in one shot. Use at your own risk!

CreateWVX.zip

Using the CreateWVX.vbs script

CreateWXV.vbs is used for DVD that have been ripped to a VIDEO_TS folder with VOBs

Copy and paste the script into notepad and save as "CreateWXV.vbs".

There are two constants (see below “strRemoteLocation” and “strWVXOutputFolder”) at the top of the script that will have to be modified first to match your environment before using this script.

Then run "cscript CreateWXV.vbs your_DVD_folders_here", from command-prompt, run as admin.

'strRemoteLocation is the path that will be used in the WVX file to reference the location of the DVDs

'This should be accessible via the machine that will play the WVX file

Const strRemoteLocation = "\\server\DVDs"

'strWVXOutputFolder should be the location the WVX files should be written

Const strWVXOutputFolder = \\Server\MywvxFiles

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

DVDs that have been ripped to a wmv format.

CreateWXV.vbs is not needed for wmv files

Make a VIDEO_TS folder add these file to the VIDEO_TS folder the wmv file and the playlist *.wvx file (see below) and a fake VIDEO_TS.ifo file using notepad (open notepad and save at it as VIDEO_TS.IFO do not save as *.txt).

Add a folder.jpeg or DVDID.xml file to the main DVD folder for the DVD cover artwork.

For dvd xml files go here http://www.dvdxml.com/search.php

No Symbolic Link needed for wmv files

(so this will work if your wmv files are on Windows Home Server)

WMVs will play, but you have to use a small playlist e.g.: below.

test

PS use a *.wvx extension in notepad (not a *.txt) for all playlists

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Recorded TV Movies (DVR-MS files)

If you have recorded a movie in Media Center (it has to be a movie) it will show up automatically with the cover artwork in the DVD Library on the extender.

No Symbolic Link needed and no playlist needed for DVR-MS files.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Here's another script that creates links and .asx files, submitted by Ryan Hurst

HardlinkAndASX.zip

Next you have to enable DVD Library for Extenders

UPDATE: The author of transcoder.dll has added support for other media file types. If it doesn’t find a WVX file, it will now search for any video file type and play the first one it finds.

Another new Transcoder.dll version!! v0.7

Changes:

Modified the transcoder.dll to look for the mymovies.asx files so the search logic is now as follows:

*.wvx first

mymovies.asx second

any valid video type third (note it doesn’t check for whether the extender supports or not!)

If you make any modifications to the sourcecode, please submit the new binaries to me for review. Official releases will be posted on this page only.

This is done by downloading this file: transcoder-v0.7.zip

Source code is now available. See below.

Unzip the file and copy transcoder.dll into your Media Centers \Windows\Ehome folder. Then run the transcoder.reg file to import the dll registration.

Start an extender session and DVD library should now appear in the TV ribbon.

Add the share for your DVD folder to the DVD library and it should begin to populate your movies!

Enjoy!!!

Hopefully you'll end up with extender menu's that look like these:

ToDo:

Pictures

Screenshots

Credits

Previous dll versions. If you should want them . . .

transcoder-v0.6.zip
transcoder-v0.5.zip

Sourcecode: Transcoder-src-v0.7.zip

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NEDMUG Blogs

Media Center HDMI Black Screen Workaround

SlySoft to continue lifetime upgrades - for a fee

Installing an e-Mail Server on Windows Home Server

Rosewill RSV-S8 External Drive enclosure

The Digital Transition is almost here.

You've heard about it by now. It's all over the TV and Radio. The Digital Transition is coming! But what does it actually mean?

But, what's on these other Multicast Channels?

That's cool too, right? So, what do you need to do to get this new Digital stuff?

What if I don't have a Digital Tuner in my TV?

So what does the Digital Converter Box do?

If the signal is Down Converted to Analog, what kind of picture quality can I expect?

I have a DigitalTV or I purchased a Converter Box, does that mean everything is in High Definition?

My TV is not capable of displaying HDTV, how will the HDTV picture look on it?

I have CableTV or Satellite, how does the conversion affect me?

But my Cable/Satellite company says they are converting to digital too. Why? If they don't have to.

http://www.dtvanswers.com/

http://www.thebostonchannel.com/video/19602262/index.html

Netflix and Media Center officially get together

Installing Windows 7 RC from a USB thumb drive

The Tiki Hut Tour

Pete converts MS employees to Media Center!

Episode 23: DVR-MS Toolbox

Building an Astaro personal firewall with spare or low end parts - Part 3

Episode 22-Hacking 7MC

Building an Astaro personal firewall with spare or low end parts. Part 2

Back to Part 1 Continue to Part 3

How to connect your new Astaro firewall to your network

Back to Part 1 Continue to Part 3

Building an Astaro personal firewall with spare or low end parts. Part 1

Continue to Part 2.

Hardware Requirements

Creating a MyAstaro Account, creating a license and downloading the software.

Next, we’ll download the Astaro software

Installing the Astaro Security Gateway software

Now we’ll go through the basic settings wizard

The Astaro Dashboard.

Continue to Part 2.

DVD Library on Extender How-To

DVD on Extender How-To v0.7

How to get DVD's to play on your Media Center Extenders using DVD Library

WARNING: Do not create symbolic links on Windows Home Server Shares! They don't work and wreak havoc on the server because of the way that the drive extender works!! If you store your movies on a WHS or NAS see this page!

Here's a script that will create the symbolic links and the .wvx files in one shot. Use at your own risk!

Next you have to enable DVD Library for Extenders