Tech Safe House

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I spent the better part of the morning jailbreaking my iPhone.  After trying unsuccessfully 4 times to get it to get service after jailbreaking with Pwnage, I decided to restore to factory firmware and then use QuickPwn.  Success!  As soon as it rebooted, it activated the service on the phone, and after do a restore from backup, I was up and running.  It is not as hard as it sounds.

I was only interested in jailbreaking, not unlocking.  If you want to unlock as well, you probably will be better served by using Pwnage on a Mac.

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• iPhone firmware 2.2 gets QuickPwn and PwnageTool, of course

Over on www.tomkirkham.com, there is an ebook for how to setup and use Windows Remote Desktop, especially for small businesses.

If you are using dd-wrt with your router and a Windows Server doing DHCP, you can easily setup dozens of PCs around the office for direct remote desktop access.  The author promises more information about how to do that in later editions.

Recently, a client was reporting that AOL kept popping up and taking over his computer.  I quickly realized that AOL was stealing focus about every one minute or so.

I wasn’t sure whether it was intention by AOL or not, and after unsuccessfully searching settings inside AOL, I decided to just treat the symptom instead of the cause.

One of the Microsoft Powertoys, TweakUI, has a tweak that prevents applications from stealing focus.  Bingo.  Problem solved.

Find out what’s on Clearance at ThinkGeek!

If you’ve used WRE54E Randge Expanders and simply got fed up, use Linksys-Cisco WRT54GL Wireless-G Broadband Routers with dd-wrt and setup WDS to make them reage extenders.  In case you did not know, the WRT54GL router is a different version of the WRT54G that you can buy in Best Buy, etc. but the GL model is designed for replacing the firmware with others, such as dd-wrt. This gives the router much more capabilities and power.  I might add that in my personal experience, the routers seem to be more reliable than the “off-the-shelf” WRT routers from Linksys. One of the reasons is probably because the GL model has more RAM.

Setting up the routers to bridge amongst themselves is not hard with 2 or more dd-wrt routers.

With all routers set to default, do the following:

1. Client Router(s): In Setup -> Basic Setup, Disable WAN Connection Type, Change Local IP Address to something other than the main router (which is probably 192.168.1.1 - I use 192.168.1.2, .3, etc. for my clients), set Gateway to the main router, and disable DHCP. Save settings. Under Wireless, set SSID to be the same as the main router.
2. On Main and Client Router(s): In Wireless -> WDS, add each router MAC to each others under LAN. Finally, set security to be the same on all routers.

If the client is connected, you will get signal strength readings under the WDS Nodes heading.

You should be able to use wireless or wired ports on the client router(s) with no problem.

Happy Wireless!

Although I only use this release candidate at my house (we generally do not use betas or rcs for production deployment), it seems pretty stable to me. I like the new interface, and it just seems a bit more polished than previous versions.

It costs a bit more, but the Linksys WRT54GL is the way to go for a reliable router, especially after you flash it with DD-WRT. This firmware provides the power of much more costly routers at a reasonable price. Port triggering, site blocking, advanced wireless capabilities and more. More reliable than the Linksys firmware. DD-WRT works with other routers, but the Linksys GL is just fine.

I finally found drivers for my personal UT-41 USB GPS device. It seems that it usesa Prolific PL-2303 USB-Serial conversion driver. Click here to go to the download page for Windows, Mac, and Linux. No Vista drivers yet (but why would you want those, anyway?).

If you have an Dell Inspiron 640m or e1405, and the screen flickers off and on when you disconnect it from the AC power and it is running on battery, it seems that downloading an older Intel graphics driver, rather than the latest one from the Dell web site might fix the problem. Here is a link to notebookreview.com that discusses the problem; here is the link to the older driver from Intel; and, here is a link to older drivers from Dell (I downloaded the one from the Intel site). Of course, only time will tell, and I have no idea if this will work for your notebook, but so far it has worked for mine. You may have to play a video for the symptom to show up - it seems that if I did not play a movie, and just disconnected it from AC, the screen stayed fine, but if I played a video, then disconnected the power, the screen would flicker of and on until I reconnected the AC adapter. I am running XP Pro, but I would wager the same problem happens if you are running Vista, which is what was preinstalled on my notebook. I am trying to use as many search terms as possible (such as screen off and on, battery, inspiron 640m, inspirion e1405, ac adapter, screen flicker, video flicker) so that hopefully others will not have as much trouble finding the solution.

Here is a good article explaining dufferences in the types of flash drives.

You know how when you start typing in the “to” field and Outlook suggests email addresses that you have used previously? That is called Outlook MRU (Most Recently Used), and it is stored in an .NK2 file on your PC in the \Documents and Settings\[Profile]Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook director. Next, have you even needed to see, edit, import, and export that file, to say, a new PC? Well, Josh Davis has created NK2.info for just that purpose. Handy utility for techies like me that frequently move users to new PCs. The conversation usually goes something like this:
“Outlook is not popping up my emails that I use.”

“Are they in your contact list?”

“No.”

I get my flash drive with NK2.info on it, go to the old PC, retrieve the file, and then say:

“Would you like them in your contact list?”

“Hey, that would be great!”

Score one for great customer service.