Posts

DNS entries needed for MLB app

I have a pi-hole DNS server and fairly aggressive block lists from https://firebog.net/ . The MLB TV android app was crashing until I whitelisted this google entry. It looks like it's for serving ads in the app. imasdk.googleapis.com These other entries can stay blocked and the app still worked. X   api.onesignal.com X   mlb.sc.omtrdc.net X   api.branch.io X   assets.adobedtm.com X   mlb.siteintercept.qualtrics.com X   udm.scorecardresearch.com X   b.scorecardresearch.com X   datadoghq.eu X   demdex.net X   app-measurement.com X   conviva.com

Simple powershell ping log with timestamp

Here's a quick and dirty script that will ping with a timestamp, and save the ouput to a text file. I have used pingInfoView quite a bit, but sometimes this fits the situation better. $hostAddress = Read-Host -Prompt 'IP Address or Hostname' $fileName = Read-Host -Prompt 'Output file' ping.exe -t $hostAddress|Foreach{"{0} - {1}" -f (Get-Date),$_}| Tee-Object -file $fileName

Communication medium effectiveness matrix

Different communication methods and how effective they are in each of the following (usually) desirable categories. Convenience How quick and simple can this be used without a lot of setup. Speed Ability to get the message to someone timely. Tracking Is the communication recorded, or can it be verified at a later date. Personal How much the communication naturally builds your personal/professional relationship with others. Ubiquitous The degree that everyone has access and the ability to use this communication method. Understanding How effective the method is at conveying your intended meaning. Convenience Speed Tracking Personal Ubiquitous Understanding Total Email Med Med High Low High Med 20 Slack High High Med Low Med Med 20 Text Med H

OBi 200/202 no audio but call connects

Image
After installing a Palo Alto PA-220 with standard policies, there were several things that were broken. VOIP phone through Google Voice/OBi analogue - no audio on any call (STUN over port 19305) Speedtest.net find server and tests would not complete (SSL over port 8080) Our washer and drier were no longer sending notifications when laundry was done (SSL over 46030) External Plex server (SSL over port 32400) The offender was the default outbound policy to the internet/WAN. While the source/destination are any/any, the Service specified is application-default which basically means that if services are using non-standard ports they won't be allowed in this policy. There weren't any indications of dropped traffic in the logs, because default policies are not logged in Palo Alto devices by default, and this traffic was getting denied by the interzone-default policy. To resolve this easily, just change application-default to any. However, you may want to see wha

Microsoft Edge Memory Leak

Image
I had one tab open in Microsoft Edge, and it was using over 5 GB of memory. Memory leak much? Yet Microsoft wanted to close Firefox.

Installing residential network wiring

Image
The goal of this project was to install network wiring throughout a house that only had the cable line in from the ISP. The house is a split level with four levels. The bottom basement is unfinished, but also has the cable line and modem installed on an unfinished wall. The primary need for this project was to wire up the bedroom used as an office, so wireless wouldn’t be the only option. As an initial solution, I bridged an old Linksys router to our main wireless access point. This provided wired connections in the office without having to run wires the entire way. However, the Linksys router was slower than the bandwidth from the ISP, and was likely slowing down the wireless for all other connected devices. The router was also unreliable and required rebooting every few days. This was not the ideal situation to work on computers that might have other networking problems. Also, I felt that if I was not getting the full bandwidth from the ISP, I was cheating myself. One

Remove browser hijacker malware

For conduit, white smoke, babylon, anything opencandy ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenCandy ), and other browser hijackers I usually do the following. 1. uninstall these and anything unrecognizable from add/remove 2. in EACH browser   a. remove any add-ins/extensions   b. change the default web page/home page   c. remove any search engines that you don't recognize, set default to google 3. delete anything from c:\program files, c:\users\appdata that appears to be from the malware 4. run a full scan of Malwarebytes, and possibly other scans 5. probably also a good idea to clear your cache and cookies I also heard that some trovi malware is also changing browser shortcuts on the desktop, and has a scheduled task to change these shortcuts. I haven't seen this personally, but it's worth checking. Apparently ADWcleaner is good at removing this. My rule of thumb is that if it takes longer than 30 minutes to an hour to fix I'm going to re-install