DD-WRT vs. Tomato

DD-WRT vs. Tomato

I am sure you know know what DD-WRT or Tomato is, otherwise you wouldn't have stumbled upon this page. I have been a long fan of DD-WRT, I think it is the best firmware out there. But that was because I was using the Linksys WRT54GL router. I loved DD-WRT so much such that I had to promote it everywhere, I went to get more routers to get this installed everywhere. However, I want to be cheap and try to save some costs, so I looked up the DD-WRT compatible list and found that the Buffalo WHR-G54S, however I could tell you this is no router for the DD-WRT. Installation was painful, I had to use tftp and I feel like I could brick the router anytime. I had previous brick a wrt54gl with the use of a so-called "Psp version" of the firmware, which according to the description, would allow me to connect to the xlink kai network without the use of a computer and an extra wifi card.

I am a moderate Bittorrent user, and when the traffic shots up the DD-WRT version of the router freezes. The BT traffic will keep going in a slow manner, but the normal traffic will not work anymore. I tried to setup QoS, but it doesn't seem to work even when I have 8M/2M. And during that time you can't even login to the administrator menu, it would just time out. Even if you could, when you try to hit the reboot button, it would time out right there. You have to physically reset it each time the BT kills the router.
I previously read an article about the comparison between tomato and DD-WRT , I thought why not give tomato a try. I know there are a few more 3rd party firmwares out there, but I know the more flash you do, the more risky your router might become an expensive paper weight. I read online everywhere and found that you could flash it within the DD-WRT menu, but you need to type a few commands to reset the administrator password. Installation was relatively easy, however, not as easy as flashing a brand new wrt54gl to DD-WRT.

When I log onto the administrator menu, I fell in love immediately. Everything was quick, and simple. The traffic counter is working flawlessly with a bit of flashy ajax, and I appear to get faster throughput than my old dd-wrt firmware. Plus UPnP actually works right out of the box. I could see computers login and use uPnP. I must say I was surprised by the speed I was getting from the Tomato firmware. DynDNS was setup easily, and it wouldn't jam up every once in a while. I used to have to reboot my router more than once per week, now it is probably once every month?

The verdict is I prefer Tomato over Dd-WRT, however, that is for my Buffalo WHR-G54Srouter in this very moment. DD-WRT runs fairly smoothly at my wrt54gl.

Aircrack on Ipod Touch / Iphone

This video shows that it is possible. It is only a matter of time before someone tries this on the HTC T-Mobile G1.

How to Properly Taste Coffee

The cupping method and tasting terms

Coffee beans have up to 800 flavor characteristics that our senses can detect. Red wine, by comparison, only has 400. Most coffee connoisseurs prefer mild roasts because the longer a coffee bean is roasted the more characteristics that are burned off.

Tasting coffee is an art form. To detect the most amount of flavor from the coffee bean, it must be tasted properly. Coffee tasting works much like wine tasting. As in wine tasting, coffee tasting has special terms, used to describe the taste of coffee and to find the perfect balance.

The Cupping Method of Coffee Tasting

Coffee tasting, or cupping as it is called, has to be done the same way every time to ensure that the difference in the taste of coffee beans is not due to outside factors like amount of coffee and water temperature.

The cupping method works in the following way.

Choose the beans that you want to taste.
Take a quarter ounce of coarse ground roasted coffee.
Heat 5 ounces of water to just below the boiling point.
Pour the water over the coffee in a circular motion.
Dip a spoon into the cup (with your nose close to the cup) so that it breaks the top layer of that coffee grinds that floated to the top.
Take approximately half a spoonful of the liquid from the cup.
Quaff it with a loud slurping noise. The noise is made so that you can mix the liquid with the air, spraying it directly over your tongue.
Savor, swish once, and the spit out the liquid.

Using this method, the tongue is able to discriminate among the many subtle flavors of coffee. Different parts of the tongue detect different flavors.

The back of the tongue discerns the bitterness.
The sides of the tongue discern the staleness.
The tip of the tongue discerns specific flavors.

Terms used in Cupping

Knowing how to taste coffee is not enough. One must know how to describe the flavors. The terms below are used in cupping. Each of these terms describes certain characteristics of coffee.

Aroma: the smell of the coffee.
Fragrance: the smell of the coffee grinds.
Body: the way the coffee feels in your mouth. This is the feeling of weight and texture.
Rich: the coffee has more than body and aroma. The coffee is buttery and satisfying
Mellow: the coffee has a fully-developed body; not harsh.
Acidity: The verve (for lack of a better word) of the coffee. Arabica beans are famous for having this characteristic.

A Word on Acidity

Acidity is a highly desirable characteristic in coffee. Water that is used in brewing can affect it. If alkaline water is used to brew coffee, it will counter the acidity in the coffee. Purified or filtered water is recommended to get the best and truest taste from coffee.

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Joomla Firefly Template

Joomla Template Firefly is really one of the most popular templates out there. This template was made by Yootheme and to date this is still one of the most powerful templates out there.


Get it here:

Link

Getting error 10002 'Security Header is not Valid' SOLVED

I've been getting error 10002 'Security Header is not Valid' when trying to use the Paypal API with NVP php sample code. I started hacking at the project of integrating Joomla Virtuemart with the paypal DoDirectPayment API. I first made a standalone php file which calls the API to process a hardcode transaction. The file works when I load that single file directly no problem. I can check the transaction online at the sandbox. Then when I try to load this file during the checkout process in Joomla it gives me the error 10002 'Security Header is not Valid'. I then dived into the code and found out the way to solve is to replace the line

global $environment;

with

$environment = 'sandbox'; // or 'beta-sandbox' or 'live'

make sure you cut this line from outside the function
function PPHttpPost


This should solve your problem. Then you can experiment more and pack the string from your session, and your API should work no problem. Drop me a line if you have any question.

How to reset Windows XP NT password from BackTrack 3

How to reset windows xp or NT password? You can download a version of Linux called Backtrack 3(BT3), basically it is a version of Slackware Linux that is built with all security tools. For the purpose of this experiment, you can download either the CD version or the USB memory stick version. The tool that you need to unlock XP password is called chntpw, and if you can find a version of BT3, then you can find it in the path
/pentest/password/chntpw

the windows password file can be found at

[mount point]/WINDOWS/system32/config/SAM

then you can goto the /WINDOWS/system32/config directory and type

/pentest/password/chntpw -u administrator SAM

you can clear the password of the administrator account.


Enjoy

PayPal Php SDK

Recently I am at a project regarding integrating the paypal direct payment pro at a coffee shopping website. Over at Paypal there are a lot of documentations on how to install the php sdk for one to test. However when I was trying to type in the command line

C:\>php install.php

I get the error message

C:\phpsdk>php install.php
INSTALLATION ERROR:
Please cd to the C:\phpsdk and run install.php

at the designated directory, I get the error message telling me to cd to that directory of /php-sdk/ then try it again. But I AM at that directory! I tried looking online and checked the version of php and other software inside XAMPP, and I couldn't find the problem. Then I jumped into the code of the install.php and found that the error. When I was unpacking my data, I had the folder named phpsdk, and that's where php keeps flaging me. The problem is the NAME of the directory (not the path to it) holding php-sdk HAS to be "php-sdk" exactly. And after this error, I basically got the SDK setup and got sandbox to deal with payments in no time.

Install website payment pro Paypal API in Joomla virtuemart

How to install PayPal Pro US recurring direct payment for virtuemart?

1.copy the files to related folder.

2. Go to your VirtueMart Payment configuration screen (add payment)
3. Name the new Payment Module as whatever you prefered .
4.Set Code: PP_RE
Payment class name: ps_paypal_prosub
Payment class type: credit card
5. Click save
6. Edit the new Payment Method again and click on configuration
7. Fill out form and MAKE SURE WHETHER YOU WILL USE SANDBOX .
You also need to enter your PayPal API signature information which you can find in your PayPal Profile (click API Signature) in your PayPal account.
8. Click Save

• 9. Make sure it's enabled.

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DD-wrt X86 Installation How-to

DD-WRT X86 Instalation Tutorial

Written by GrayFox

Sunday, 01 July 2007

In this tutorial I will explane how to install DD-WRT X86 What is dd-wrt DD-WRT is a routing operating system based off of Linux. It was originally released as a third-party firmware for the popular Linksys WRT54G router. Now with it no longer limited by the small 16MB of ram and slow CPU in the WRT54G you don't have to worry about resource usage. Files needed I suggest grabing the latest version of DDWRT X86 the download page is here. At the time of writing this the following links had the latest version. physdiskwrite (needed for Windows) dd-wrt_public_vga Requirements: An X86 compatible pc (i386) or greater with at least 16MB of RAM, 2 network cards, and a hard drive. The files listed above. Test platform For my test platform I used a Pentium 3 450 with 384MB of ram and a 10.4GB hard drive. The network cards were the following: Intel Pro/1000MT Desktop Adaptor Integrated 3COM nic. Linux/OSX Instructions Step 1- Open your computers case and plug in the hard-drive that you wish to install dd-wrt onto. Step 2 - Open up your console/terminal program. Step 3 - Become a super user and enter in your super user password (Or if your on Ubuntu or OSX just type sudo before the dd command.) Example: su Step 4 - Navigate to where the image file is located. Step 5 - Use the command dd to write the image to the desired hard drive /dev/hda =Primary Master /dev/hdb =Primary Slave /dev/hdc =Secondary Master /dev/hdd =Secondary Slave Example: If you wanted to write the dd-wrt image to your primary master drive, you would using the following command. dd if=dd-wrt_public_vga.image of=/dev/hda Live CD The instructions are exactly the same as for Linux but you don't have to put the hard-drive into another machine. I suggest using KNOPPIX or DSL Linux if you want to do a live CD install. Windows Installation To install this on Windows, it's just as easy as with Linux. Step 1 - Open your computers case and plug in the hard-drive that you wish to install dd-wrt onto. Step 2 - Open the command prompt. (Windows XP, 2000, 2003= Start>Run>cmd) Step 3 - Navigate to the directory where physdiskwrite.exe is and where your image is. Step 4 - Enter the following command : physdiskwrite -u dd-wrt_public_vga.image Step 5 - Select the disk you want to install dd-wrt to from the list. DD-WRT After you have imaged the hard-drive boot the machine. You should see a login prompt after everything has loaded and booted. Now plug your switch into your eth1 interface (the second network card in your machine, If you have onboard the onboard will be eth0 and your pci card will be eth1.) The web administration interface can be accessed at 192.168.1.1 and the default username is root default password is admin. DD-WRT Wireless Lan I am unsure if DD-WRT currently supports wireless as at the time of writing this I had not tryed any wireless cards I had. The version that runs on linksys WRT54G supports wi-fi as well as sputnik.

Drupal Must Have's for professional website

1. CCK
http://drupal.org/project/cck

cck image
http://drupal.org/project/imagefield
http://www.drupal.org/project/imagecache

cck Media files
http://drupal.org/project/emfield

2. View
http://drupal.org/project/view

3. Menu
http://drupal.org/project/nice_menus
http://drupal.org/project/menu_trim

4. SEO
http://drupal.org/project/xmlsitemap
http://drupal.org/project/globalredirect
http://drupal.org/project/nodewords
*http://drupal.org/project/search404

5. Editor/Filter
http://drupal.org/project/bueditor
http://drupal.org/project/codefilter

Optional Modules
Event
http://drupal.org/project/event

Print
http://drupal.org/project/print

Captcha
http://drupal.org/project/captcha

Editor

WYSIWYM (What You See Is What You Mean) editor
http://drupal.org/project/wymeditor
WYMeditor is a lightweight XHTML/Javascript WYSIWYM (What You See Is What You Mean) editor.

Education Modules
http://drupal.org/project/library

http://drupal.org/project/quiz

Library Modules
http://drupal.org/project/marc

For Education
http://drupal.org/project/phpedu

Adds and maintains expiry dates for user accounts.
http://drupal.org/project/account_expiry

Confused about the similar function of modules? Read the "Comparisons of contributed modules" http://drupal.org/node/266179

===========
Note:
* optional.

More coffee Art from my Sunbeam Paul Bassett

More results of coffee art from my Sunbeam Paul Bassett machine.

How to make Coffee Art

Coffee Art
I'm sure most of you have seen a picture/Video of people making coffee art. It is indeed a piece of Art to master the skills in making a double Rosetta in that small coffee cup of yours. I have an espresso machine at home and I still can't make them on a consistent basis. Kudos to every master on this page here.
Just to show some comparison, I made this!

Installation of Ubuntu LAMP in VMWARE

This is a detailed instruction on how to do the following, I think it's very useful for everyone out there who is trying to set this up.

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Enjoy!

Computer just shuts off suddenly, no noise, no beep

My computer is setup such that it is connected to my living room's LCD. And I have been watching video on it ever since. I've had an ugly computer case for a long time, and I think it is time to move to a new silverstone case to add that little something missing in my living room. After relocating the guts of my machine, I find that my new machine is shutting down very randomly. It is not a restart, it's just a sudden shut down which left my computer in a state of ON but not functioning, ON but fan not working, ON but power supply fan stopped.
First suggestion of such problem is usually overheat. I tried cleaning the CPU fan/ heat sink, operating while the case is opened, also taking the hard disk out of the box to cool it down. All of the above doesn't work.
Then I start to think whether it is a power supply issue. The silverstone case has a front LCD display which draws power from the computer. My system might be on the boarder line of voltage requirement, and when it is under load it draws over the limit of my powersupply, thus killing the system. However this doesn't seem to be the problem.
I then decide that it might be a piece of hardware that is not connected properly to the motherboard when I moved it. I tried reconnecting every cable. I took out all the RAM, took out the video card, tightened every screw, but still no result.
I then suspect that the power supply is providing bad shape of power to the computer, unfortunately I don't have an extra power supply at home to test that. I took out the power supply then I turn my computer on, and viola, it is working fine.
There are a few possible outcome of this problem,
1. I still haven't fixed it.
2. The power supply is overheating
3. Parts of the power supply is hanging loose, therefore when I change the orientation of the placement of the power supply, it works. (I rotated it 90 degrees with respect to the horizon)


I will replace the power supply with a better one, and hopefully it will solve my problem.

Photoshop Video Tutorial

My recent purchase of a DSLR Canon 400D had got me interested in digital editing in photoshop. Here are more information on that subject, enjoy.

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33 tips to enhance human photo with photoshop

Check out this link for tips for body enhancements, enjoy

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Full VC contact list from CA from docstoc

I was browsing around and saw this list. This is quite interesting.

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Venture Capital Firms in California (full contact info) - Get more free documents