Rob the Geek

Category: HOWTO

  • Reflashing a Rooted Router

    I have a couple of Open Mesh Indoor Access Points that I’ve used for various projects, the most recent of which being the provision of WiFi for our Teenage Subnet. These devices have a very cool history. Originally created under the banner of Meraki (since sold to Cisco and thenceforth diverging from its open source […]

  • Reversing a PDF with the GIMP

    While the GIMP (the GNU Image Manipulation Program, not the one from Pulp Fiction) is a marvelously capable (and freely available) graphics tool, it has a complete meltdown when asked to perform a simple task like saving a multi-page PDF. GIMP will import a multi-page PDF fine: Right-click the PDF, Open with GIMP [Fig.1] Import from […]

  • XBox Live via an OpenWRT router

    One of the concerning requests of Xbox Live connectivity, is to enable UPnP or ‘Universal Plug and Play’ on your home router. The UPnP protocol has a long standing history of security problems, not the least of which being that it allows unauthenticated devices to connect to and through your home network. In the past, […]

  • Kicking off with Koha

    Koha is a fully featured, scalable library management system. So, I thought I’d set up Koha on a virtual machine to have a bit of a play, and maybe use it to manage our library at home. Create the virtual machine I’m using VirtualBox as my VM manager, so – first off we create a […]

  • Tweaking the Home Network – pfSense Firewall [Part 2: Initial Configuration]

    Initial Configuration (via Web Browser) In the previous article, we set up (at least) two network interfaces. The first, facing the Internet (the WAN) and the second facing the internal network (the LAN). In our instance, our WAN interface will simply pass traffic onto our existing internal network, where it is subject to existing rules and management, […]

  • Tweaking the Home Network – pfSense Firewall [Part 1: Installation]

    So, now we have teenagers, I’ve realised a need to create a little more separation with our home network. The intent of this is to give them a segment of the network where they can connect their wireless devices, use the internet and allow their friends to also connect their devices when they visit. With freedom comes responsibility, so we also want to be able to enforce limits on the hours of use, conserve bandwidth, and attempt to protect them from malware and viruses. Future enhancements may include traffic reporting, content filtering – but for now we want to get them off the core network, and onto their own segment.

  • When USB goes bad…

    So, I decided to give running a linux distro *solely* from a USB 3.0 flash drive… the install itself was fairly simple and painless, the pain only started on the reboot. The drive failed, and I was dropped to the rather unfriendly >initfs prompt. I tried a few things, from fixing the failed superblocks dumpe2fs […]

  • Linux for Kids

    My best mate dropped over on the weekend and left me an ancient Sony Vaio that he’d acquired for his 7-year-old daughter. After shooting the breeze over the beer, we got to talking about his daughters computer use. Essentially he (and she) just wanted “something she can use and have for her own” – he’d […]

  • ASUS Garmin A10

    I got one of these phones when they first came out – they were pretty awesome back then, however over time they have been orphaned on older, vulnerable iterations of Android and they simply don’t have what it takes to be a primary device any longer. Because of this – I’m currently looking to root the phone and install upon it a modified ROM which will give me *just* what I need to turn this into a useful device for sitting in the car.

  • Ubuntu Upgrade Day: 11.04 – 11.10 ‘Oneiric Ocelot’

    Yay! My favorite Linux distro gets a facelift today with Ubuntu 11.04 making way for the newly released version 11.10 ‘Oneiric Ocelot’. From past history lessons, I do tend to stray on the side of caution, so only one of my machines will be getting the upgrade treatment this week and I’ll hold off with the […]