problem I want to validate services of a host, though the host is not pingable (e.g. public www server)
solution For the host definition make sure no 'check_command check-host-alive' line is there (including lines inherited from templates). For nagios 3.2 / gentoo I changed my template for the host to 'generic-host' and added 'max_check_attempts 10' and 'contact_groups admins'.
ORF1, ORF2
Satellit:ASTRA 1 Position: 19,2° Ost Transponder: 7 Downlink Frequenz: 11303 Symbolrate: 22000 Fehlerschutz (FEC): 2/3 Polarisation: horizontal Modulation: 8PSK Übertragung: DVB-S2 ORF 1 APID: 1921 SID: 4911 VPID: 1920 PCRPID: 1920 ORF2 APID: 2921 SID: 4912 VPID:2920 PCRPID:2920
ARD, ZDF
ARD HD / Das Erste HD und ZDF HD ASTRA 1 (19.2 Grad Ost) Transponder 11 Frequenz: 11362 Horizontal Symbolrate: 22000 FEC: 2/3 Video-PID / VPID / PPID: 6010 (ARD HD) / 6110 (ZDF HD) Audio-PID / APID: 6022 (ARD HD) / 6122 (ZDF HD) Bildauflösung: 1280 x 720 Pixel (720p) DVB-S2 MPEG-4 8PSK
problem: I want to watch ORF 1 and 2 in HD in Windows 7 Media Center
First try using AVerTV: I bought 2 AVerTV Satellite Trinity cards that state: HDTV support and a connector for Common Interface (CI).
What did work? Media Center successfully found both cards and SAT tuning found some channels. Channel switching was reasonably fast.
Issues: First of-all HDTV support is true, BUT only for channels that broadcast HDTV via DVB-S (which happens to be the case in Australia and New Zealand). ORF1/2 HD is transmitted via DVB-S2.
About the common interface: this is a seperate disaster. I order cards in New Zealand at ascent and tried to arrange shipment via TNT, since ascent didn't want to ship to Austria. I had a lot of troubles with TNT actually accepting the transport order and when I finally managed to ship it, Ascent didn't want to sell anymore to me. Right now the package seems to be at TNT New Zealand, but they are unable to find it and return it to Ascent.
Second try using TechnoTrend Now I got in contact with the manufacturer first to make sure the cards actually work with Windows 7 Media Center AND they replied: "fully supported". So I order 2 TechnoTrend TT-budget S2-3200 at dvbshop. Shipment was faster than expected.
What works? The card is successfully recognized by Windows 7 Media Center. Channel scan found alot of channels including HDTV DVB-S2. ARTE HD, ZDF HD, Astra HD... but not ORF HD - even using manual transponder scan didn't help. Viewing of DVB-S2 channels almost works... Astra HD looks fine.
problems: ZDF and ARTE have graphic artifacts (fast moving objects are not drawn correctly). TechnoTrends support claims that this is my graphic card - it's not onboard, but an ATI card.
Common Interface support works for the first time I view channel, as soon as I switch the channel and come back it states: "channel scrambled".
Next steps Install Vista + TV Pack
problem: updating an Intel SSD (e.g. X18-M) using an USB Flash Drive
solution: download the HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool and the latest update from intel.
Now make your flash drive bootable with the HP tool and select the content of the Intel update (e.g. mount it using Daemon Tools or similar) as boot content. Then copy the rest of the content of the Intel update to the flash drive (iSSDFUT.exe,...).
Finally change (if not already in that mode) the SATA mode to AHCI in the BIOS. Now boot the flash drive. Run
iSSDFUT.exe
After reboot change the SATA mode back to the original one.
notes: I installed the HP tool on Windows 7. After starting the HP tool using "Run as Administrator" everything worked fine.
During investigation I often forgot to change the SATA mode back to IRRT (in my case). Interestingly Windows 7 still booted, but prompted me to perform system recovery - which of course failed 
. After changing the SATA mode back to IRRT everything worked fine again.
problem/environment: I bought a Latitude XT2 with the standard 80gb 5400 RPM disk (SATA) and got the Intel X18-M (80gb SSD) as a replacement. Since the controller supports IRRT (Intel Rapid Recovery Technology) I want to connect the original disk using eSATA and backup my main disk. All this has to work on Windows 7.
solution: At least in Austria I couldn't get/find a hard drive closure for 1.8'' SATA disks providing an eSATA port. Thus I reverted to buy a 2.5'' closure (closure from delock). This one has the advantage to provide a Power Over eSATA connector. The Latitude XT2 has this connector on the right side. The downside is that it has a different internal SATA connector and I had to buy an adapter (make sure you get the Buchse. I originally bought this one... and it's the wrong way around).
To actually fit the adapter inside the closure I removed the soft plastic.
At first the disk was not detected using the Power Over eSATA cable, but using a standard eSATA cable and providing power using USB worked. Then I installed Intel Matrix Storage Manager for Windows 7. In difference to the Intel BIOS, the Storage Manager supports RAID creation without destroying existing data (at least the BIOS didn't state it different, so I didn't dare to create it there). It took a couple of hours to build the RAID, but sync on demand seems to be very fast.
After the reboot the Power Over eSATA cable worked too (I don't understand why).
As it seems you can also buy a Media Slice. First of all my dell contact stated that it doesn't have a hard drive slot (check the web site which states it does). Second the cost is 346,80 (euros) compared to 20,- for the closure plus 10,- for the adapter (30,- in total).
For whatever reason my oleaut32.dll got broken on my Windows 7 installation. The final fix (after approx. 4h investigation) is
sfc /scannow
APN: three.co.uk
Username: guest
Password: guest
Get the voucher at one of their stores - you can pay with a non-uk credit card.
problem: In got multiple routes to the internet and port mapping from different public ips to internal services. If the port mapping origins from the default gateway of the destination server, everything is straight forward. If a public ip other than the default gateway is used, one option is to change the source ip of incoming packets for the port mapped service on the router. Thus all requests arriving at the destination server appear to origin from router and the server knows how to route back.
environment: router is running openwrt, but I'm using standard iptables stuff. In the below samples 192.168.1.1 is the router and 192.168.1.2 is the destination server (http). 123.1.1.2 is the public ip.
solution:
iptables -t nat -A PREROUTING -d 123.1.1.2 -p tcp --dport 80 -j DNAT --to-destination 192.168.1.2:80 iptables -t nat -I POSTROUTING 1 -s 0.0.0.0/0 -d 192.168.1.12 -j SNAT --to 192.168.1.1
For SigmaTel C-Major Audio driver use this driver (found here)
For the graphic card (Geforce 6800 Ultra in my case), I open the device manager and just chose it from the list. Afterwards Windows Update asked me to download the update.
For the touch pad I used this
environment:Subversion using mod_svn under apache/linux, hosted behind ISA (doing SSL termination). Using SCM feature of XCode for checkin
problem: login succeeds in XCode, but list fails with Error: 175002 (RA layer request failed) Description: REPORT request failed and 403 Forbidden (The server denied the specified Uniform Resource Locator
solution: For the firewall policy rule that forwards to the server hosting subversion add "
Waiting for a reply from Microsoft if there is a better way of doing this (e.g. *@svn.contoso.com [this is an invalid public name] or similar).