Category Archives: Tech stuff

Why I hate Windows

A Pipe and a Keyboard Posted on by

On Friday, I installed a copy of Windows 7 on a new VirtualBox virtual PC.

Yesterday I set about installing software into Windows 7.  In the course of the installation, I noticed that Windows was downloading updates, though for some reason it wouldn’t load the progress screen.

When I finished my installations I checked, and I was informed that all downloads were complete.  I switched off Windows 7.

As expected, The power down produced that familiar screen – to the effect that Windows is installing updates and that I mustn’t power off or interrupt the process.  Apparently there were 150 updates to be applied.  That was at 4pm.

At 11:15pm the process finished and the virtual machine powered off.

Seven and a quarter hours to install software that is already downloaded?  And during this time the machine was useless in that I couldn’t run anything on it or power it down?  That has to be some kind of record?

And on the next power-up it still took a further ten minutes to “update the registry”.

Just in case anyone wonders why I hate Windows and love Linux………..

Hacker IP addresses

A Pipe and a Keyboard Posted on by

For some time now I have been running Better WP Security on several sites.

One of the many excellent features of this plugin is to alert on requests for non-existent files.  Every 404 is listed along with date and IP address.

404 requests fall into three categories –

  • Files that have been moved or deleted
  • Typos
  • Files that have never existed and are obvious attempts to gain entry into the backend of the site

The last category is the one that interests me.  The files that have been sought are for example, /signup.php, /register.php and /join.php. Other examples are presumably searches for known vulnerabilities in various plugins which I don’t even use.

I have been collecting the IP addresses of all the 404 logs and have added them to the Banned User lists within Better WP Security.  Incidentally, the latter has a nice feature that whenever an IP is added to the list, it automatically sorts the list and removes duplicates.

One thing I noticed was that a very high percentage of IP addresses were allocated to the Fujian Provence of China.  I have therefore added wild cards to my list to eliminate as many of their addresses as possible, particularly where a class of address frequently occurs.

I have uploaded a text file of these IP addresses if anyone is interested.  It can be used to populate your own version of Better WP Security, your .htaccess file or any other plugin that bans visitors such as No Soup.

WordPress stuck in Maintenance Mode

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Last night I did a routine update of a plugin on this site.

During the update I accidently clicked on a link (finger twitch combined with a very sensitive mouse!) which interrupted the process.

The site then got stuck in maintenance mode and I could neither view the site nor could I get into the Admin area.  To all intents and purposes the site was dead in the water.

The fix is very simple – just FTP into the site and delete a file .maintenance from the site root.

To be on the safe side, I then manually uploaded the latest version of the plugin I had been updating, just in case it had become corrupted during the process.

Sorted.

Resetting an Iomega iConnect to default settings.

A Pipe and a Keyboard Posted on by

I recently tried some hacking of my Iomega iConnect.

The exercise was interesting but not very fruitful!

I presume that was the cause as the box died on me and transformed itself into a dead black box that was too light to even work as a doorstop.  Time to rebuild!

My first action was to download the Imager from the Iomega site.

Next, format a flash drive as FAT32.  Unzip the downloaded image file and copy the eight files onto the flash drive.

Now comes the fun part!

Disconnect all USB devices from the iConnect, and plug the flash drive into the rear USB port.

Holding down the little reset button on the back panel (I used a jeweller’s screwdriver), reset the power to the unit.,  The front indicator will burn blue for a short while and then turn red.  You can now release the reset button.  After a while all the front LEDS will burn solid blue.  At that point, remove the flash drive and repower the device.

The iConnect is now restored back to its factory settings which poses a problem – how do you access it?  It has reverted to a default IP address which will not be on your home network or home PC, therefore, even if you knew the address you still cannot access the device!

My solution –

First, to be on the safe side, I downloaded the Iomega Storage Manager and installed it (they do give a Linux version but it complains about missing libraries so I used the Windows version).  Select your OS here and then select the Iomega Storage Manager link under “Download Software & Drivers”.

Now connect your iConnect directly to your PC using a network cable.  If you have a wireless connection to your network, disable that.

You now need to change your PC’s network setting to the IP address 169.254.1.2, and a subnet mask of 255.255.0.0.  The Storage Manager should now indicate that it has found the iConnect.  In my case, each time the iConnect has an IP address of 169.254.1.211, but that may vary.

Now point your browser at the discovered IP address and you should have access to the iConnect.

Set the device’s IP to one on your own network and repower it.

At this point, you will need to reset your PC’s IP address to its normal values (or just enable wireless if applicable), disconnect the iConnect from your PC and connect it to the network.  You should now be able to access it from a browser using the IP address you allocated it.

Happy hunting!

Wireless scanner not visible in Mint

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A problem that crops up fairly regularly after a reinstall or upgrade of Mint is that I can’t access my scanner.

I have an HP Officejet J4680 multi-function device which operates via wireless.  Recently, after upgrading to Mint 14, the problem arose again.  I could print but Mint couldn’t see the scanner.

After a bit of research I discovered the simple solution which I am putting up here to remind myself for the next time.

Instead of the route Menu –> Preferences –> Printers, (which will add the printer but that’s all) it is preferable to use the Terminal command –

system-config-printer

This will pull up a different (and slightly more advanced) dialog section.  Once the device is added via this path, both printing and scanning work perfectly.