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Stream dreambox video to PC via VLC

walter — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 14:07:46 +0000

This ultra-small tutorial explains how to watch dreambox satellite TV on your PC using the latest version of VLC. If you have problems getting it to work try the comments section, maybe I can help.

Setup:

Firefox 3.5.7
VLC 1.0.3
Dreambox 7000s / Enigma 1 / PLI JADE 2 (other setups not tested)

Parameters in my setup (will be different in yours!):

Dreambox IP : 192.168.1.200
VLC language = dutch

Note: When installing VLC , by default the “mozilla plugin” isn’t installed. You need that plugin to watch Web-X-TV. Check the box “mozilla plugin” while installing VLC.

STEP 1: NETWORK STREAM

Open a network stream ( Media – open network stream )

STEP 2: OPEN HTTP STREAM

The stream is accessible via HTTP. Select HTTP for protocol. Then enter the dreambox IP address. ( 192.168.1.200 in my setup ) and add /video.m3u to the address. The complete address should look like this: 192.168.1.200/video.m3u
Now click on PLAY.

STEP 3: VIDEO

VLC player should start playing whatever TV program that is currently playing on the dreambox.

NOTE: Change video.m3u to audio.pls to listen to the audio only.

TIP: Use the webinterface to change programs.

False positives after update Avast (fixed!)

walter — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 05:16:05 +0000

UPDATE: THE ISSUE IS RESOLVED / FIXED : updated version: 091203-1
Continue reading at the bottom of this post for info on the fix

What was going on:

The latest Avast virusdatabase update came with a serious bug. In version 091203-0 various files* are being marked as “Win32:Delf-MZG (Trj)”. These are all false positives and should
be ignored. (* rumors say the affected files are written in Delphi )

Apart from falsely marking files as this virus some say it can hinder the windows operating system’s boot, so if you happen to suffer from these symptoms, under no circumstance reboot your system. If you would reboot, Avast could block certain services from starting.

To disable Avast (temporarily) follow these instructions: (continue reading at the bottom for the fix)

Right mouse clicking the Avast icon near your clock.
Choose Stop On-access scanning tasks

If you got stuck and need to reboot your system, follow these instructions first. ( In any other case, just disabling Avast. ): (continue reading at the bottom for the fix)

Reboot in safe mode: Hold down F8.
Log in as Admin
Uninstall AVAST & DO NOT SCAN YOUR COMPUTER!!
Wait until Avast fixes the bug or install another virus scanner.

Disable AVAST for the time being.
Wait for another iAVS update and click NO ACTION when action is required.

Quote from: zone12 on Today at 02:05:26 AM

The recent avast! VPS update has a serious flaw inside it, various files are being marked as “Win32:Delf-MZG (Trj)”. Some of the common files being marked as this false positive include Skype and Spybot S&D.

Apart from marking various files as this virus, the new update brought a crippling threat to the windows operating system. Accounts are vague but some are reporting that the new update may hinder the windows operating system’s boot.If you have updated avast during the last 48 hours do not restart your computer!This is caused by avast scanning the starting files, during this process it will mark a file as hazardous and will not allow you proceed without aknowledgement, being that this is happening during the time in which windows loads there is no possable way to give aknowledgement to the program therefore putting the computer at a standstill.

The problem started a few hours ago. In an attempt to find out what is happening, thousands of users went to Avast’s forum, immediately overloading it. In the mean time, “avast” is trending on twitter.

UPDATE: It is finally fixed. ( Thursday 7:05 CET )

Information about current update:
Total time: 39 s

- Vps: Updated
(previous version: 091203-0, updated version: 091203-1)

Server: download650.avast.com (209.62.90.50)
Downloaded files: 6 (1,78 KB)
Download time: 9 s

To UPDATE Avast follow these instructions:

Right mouse clicking the Avast icon near your clock.
Choose UPDATE
Choose iAVS update

EXTRA:

How to restore files from the chest:

The Virus Chest can be accessed directly from the options menu in the Avast program window. To get there right click the Avast icon near your clock and choose Start Avast!. Cancel any starting scans!!! (important) Then click on the chest icon. A window containing a list of files will open. Right clicking on any file will produce the following options we can use:

Refresh all files: Select this option if you want to make sure you are looking at the complete list of files. The program refreshes the list automatically but you can use this option if you do not want to wait.
Restore file: The file will be restored to its original location and at the same time removed from the Chest.
Extract file: The file will be copied to the selected folder.

I suggest restoring.

(taken from the manual: http://download787.avast.com/files/manuals/user-manual-home-eng.pdf )

update: Official statement of AVAST (Alwil) http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=51647

PC-based DVB-S2 satellite receiver part 1

walter — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 14:44:15 +0000

Please continue to the updated post.

Twitter spam phishing continues

walter — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 01:42:15 +0000

There is a new Twitter phishing scam making the rounds, and this one is spreading quickly via direct message, wrote by Ben Parr on Mashable.com in October.

Indeed, when using Twitter, I have noticed a lot of DMs in my inbox containing weird messages accompanied by a short URL. Twitters @SPAM acount wrote a few days ago: Getting weird DMs? Probably due to phishing. Don’t go to the links sent in the DMs or give out your login & PW! It seems like the problem is spreading.

The phishing and spamming on Twitter is going on since January! Typical messages look like hi, find out if your iq is higher here http://pei****e.info or you’re on here lol http://v***tter.dfhjkdh.com. They know just how to get you curious enough to click the link, so it’s best to refrain from clicking any link in your DMs for a while. The link takes you to a Twitter login page. If you enter your password, rogue spammers abuse your twitter account to send private messages to you followers, possibly infecting them too. So don’t do it!

If you think some application is sending DMs in without your permission, look to revoke the permission rogue apps have at http://twitter.com/account/connections and change your password at http://twitter.com/account/password.

Twitter says: We’re working to reset PWs and notify users w/affected accounts in the meantime (but feel free to change your PW if worried!)

More on twitter phishing here:
http://mashable.com/2009/10/28/warning-new-twitter-phishing-scam-spreading-via-direct-message/

How to make a high quality MP3

walter — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 22:34:01 +0000

Making the perfect MP3 is still a challenge. When looking for an MP3 encoder, the software that creates the MP3’s, you’ll find an abundance of programs available. But not all of them get the job done.

In this edition of “make a high quality MP3″ we go for encoding WAV files into MP3s using the LAME MP3 encoder. This encoder is widely accepted as the best free alternative for expensive commercial encoders. It’s very fast, it produces high-quality files and has many advanced features.

Unfortunately LAME is a command line utility. To get the familiar graphical user interface, we need a front end. A front end is a piece of software that communicates between you and a command line utility through a graphical user interface. Razorlame is exactly the software to get this done.

Setup is easy. Download Razorlame and extract it to a folder. No additional setup is required. We included a recent version of Lame.

Now that’s done, let’s see at some basic features of Razorlame. RazorLame should be quite straightforward. LAME offers a great variety of options, so does Razorlame. To find out what an option does, hover with the mouse a few moments over the control and a hint will appear (most of the time).

Encoding settings:

General:

Bitrate:: The higher the bitrate, the better the quality, but higher bit rates create larger files. Also note that not all devices can cope with hight bitrates. I suggest to use 128 kbit for portable devices, 192 kbit for car MP3 players and 256 kbit for archiving. The difference between 256 and 320 kbit is unnoticeable for 99% of the listeners.
Mode: Choose between stereo or mono. Joint stereo gives somewhat smaller files, but it distorts the stereo image.
Output Directory: Choose between storing the resulting output in the same directory as the source OR point the output to a specific directory.

Advanced:

Optimization: Choose between speed or quality. Quality is slower, while speed results in (somewhat) lower quality.
Include CRC Checksum: Check this if you want some protection for bit errors. It makes the files larger. CRC does not protect for large errors, some believe CRC prevents corrupted MP3’s from playing all together, while without CRC the files plays, even when there is some minor corruption. I suggest you leave it unchecked.

VBR:
Variable bitrate (VBR) files vary the bit rate in function of the complexity of the sounds it needs to encode. The advantage of VBR is a better quality-to-space ratio compared to a CBR, but the encoding is more complex (slower) and the results are incompatible with some hardware.

Maximum Bitrate: This is the maximum bit rate a segment can have. If a passage of music is very rich (high frequencies) it will switch to this bit rate during that passage. When the music becomes less complex, the bit rate drops to a lower rate. You can set the lowest bitrate in the general tab. I suggest setting this to 256 kbits and de general tab bitrate to 128 kbits.
Quality: When using VBR this setting sets the overal quality/speed, where 0 is highest quality and 9 the lowest. I recommend 4. Look at this table to see the different results for different settigs:
ABR: ABR is variation on the VBR-style distribution of bitrate, but subject to an overrall target bitrate, rater tha an overall target quality irrespective of bitrate. Some hardware isn’t compatible with ABR.

Leave the Expert and Compression tabs as they are for now.

Encoding:

Let’s encode a WAV file. It’s the kind of files you’ll end up with extracting audio from CD’s. The process is very simple. Just drag & drop the wav file into Razorlame. Then click the ENCODE button. You can drag multiple files to Razorlame.

There you are. You now have a high quality MP3.

More info:
jthz.com – How to encode top quality audio-files using Windows, LAME, Ogg Vorbis
www.mp3-converter.com – List of MP3 tools
lame.sourceforge.net – The Lame open source project

Is your Wordpress affected by a virus?

walter — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 09:15:30 +0000

4 ways to find out if your Wordpress installation has been affected by eval / base64_decode | Digitizor
Many websites including Lorelle and Techcrunch are reporting a new kind of attack on Wordpress that affects almost all Wordpress installations running Wordpress software below version 2.6. All those running Wordpress version 2.8 are not affected. Users having blogs on wordpress.com have not been affected, although. In this article we will tell four ways which you can use to find out if you have been affected.

Continue reading on…

HOW TO: Track Social Media Analytics

walter — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 08:33:36 +0000

HOW TO: Track Social Media Analytics
Social media is a relatively new phenomenon, but Delicious Delicious reviews, Digg Digg reviews, StumbleUpon StumbleUpon reviews and other social media websites have become an increasingly important source of website traffic. This also creates a massive demand for data related to social media. Where are users coming from? What topics excite them?

Dreambox DM 8000 reviews en test

walter — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 11:38:59 +0000

Review Dr Dish (Duits)

Interface

Dit is een uitgebreide review van de Dreambox in het Duitse blad SatVision. ( Duits ) (vind hier een vertaling in het Engels van hetzelfde artikel)

Links naar USER reviews :

The box runs very smooth and is also faster than the DM800 because of the faster processor. link
Dreambox DM 8000 draad in het Sat4all forum: link
[DM800HD] Twijfel tussen DM800 of DM8000 aanschaffen : link
The max res of the box is 1080i : link

Alternatief voor de Dreambox, De Kathrein UFS910 :

De Kathrein UFS910 met “Dreambox” achtige software. link
Engels Kathrein forum: link
Duits Kathrein forum: link
intern sharen met Kathrein?: link
review op Sateelites.co.uk: link
review op satplaza: link

Een dealer die beide ontvangers aanbiedt kan misschien op meer vragen antwoorden: Altsat (Aalst – België)

edit text or config files in linux ( gedit )

walter — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 21:13:20 +0000

Gedit is een teksteditor voor GNOME. Het is het standaardprogramma voor het bewerken van tekst met GNOME. (link)

Gebruik: gedit

From the Official Gmail Blog: Undo Send

walter — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 23:25:52 +0000

Sometimes I regret sending a message the morning after. Other times I send a message and then immediately notice a mistake. I forget to attach a file or email the birthday girl that I can’t make her surprise party. I can rush to close my browser or unplug the Internet — but Gmail almost always wins that race. (read more)