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Remote Desktop Server – Registry Key to Change RDP Listening Port

As you probably already know, by default, Microsoft Remote Desktop listens on port 3389. This is all good, but what if you are behind a firewall and wanted to allow port forwarding to be able to access multiple computers via RDP remotely but can’t because they are all running on the same port?

Well, if you’re crafty and have a decent Linux-based router like Mikrotik that will let you create packet mangling rules to change the destination port number, you can get around this, but in environments where you have little SOHO routers like Linksys or Belkin, typically this is where changing the port number that RDP listens on comes in handy. The only problem then is remembering whatever port you changed it to because then you have to specify it anytime you connect via RDP which can be a pain if you’ve got a bad memory. There are already a thousand and one articles out there to help you change the port number, this is a quick post for future reference for myself.
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Mac OS X El Capitan – Cannot Restart into Boot Camp Partition

Ever since the 10.11 update, I couldn’t force a restart into my Windows Boot Camp partition on my Mac from the terminal, I would get an error message “Could Not Set Boot Device Property: 0xe00002bc”.

After a bunch of riggamaroll and dicking around with the USB keyboard not being detected for freaking ever, I was finally able to get booted into recovery mode. In the past, I have been able to hold the “Alt” key to select a boot device from the boot menu, but for some reason it wasn’t working any more on my Windows keyboard. I never could get the USB keyboard to show up until I was fully booted up into the OS, so eventually I swapped it out for a name brand keyboard and then it worked.
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Playstation 4 – Cannot Connect to the PSN Using Comcast Gateway

Back around Thanksgiving of this year, some family of mine was having some difficulty connecting to the Playstation Nework on his shiny new PS4 on his Comcast internet. Being the helpful tech stooge that I am, I decided to come over to offer my hand in assistance. I had previously set up all of the port forwarding rules and everything on his modem before for his PS3 and it was all working until now, so the issue didn’t make a lot of sense to me.

All in all, I ended up spending several hours scouring the PSN forums to figure out how to fix this issue and so I figured I would save you some time by documenting the resolution. It didn’t matter if I set the PS4 up with a static IP address, static DNS, or by putting it into a DMZ, nothing I did could make it connect to the Playstation Network. The strange part was, although all of the network test results were saying they were ok and he had a type 2 NAT type, I still couldn’t connect. What gives? I was baffled by this issue.
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OpenMCU-ru – DSCP Based QoS Packet Tagging Rules for Linux IP Tables

In Ubuntu, the best way to ensure that the firewall is up and running and that your packet filtering or mangling rules are in place any time the network connection comes up, you should create a rule in the /etc/network/if-up.d folder. An alternative approach to that would be to put a “post-up” rule on whatever interface in you /etc/network/interfaces file. From my experience, so that your firewall rules can be easily maintained as well having the ability to make comments for each rule, it’s ideal to take advantage of the iptables-save and iptables-restore functionality.

In order to follow this procedure, the first time you set up the firewall, you will have to manually add all the firewall rules and then issue the iptables-save command. For sake of saving time, I will just provide you with the contents of my config file that can be restored with the iptables-restore < config_file command. Continue reading “OpenMCU-ru – DSCP Based QoS Packet Tagging Rules for Linux IP Tables”

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Outlook 2010 – Only Starts in Safe Mode

What a surprise, this morning I came into the office only to find that all of my people running Outlook 2010 were now having it open in Safe Mode and I immediately thought, OK this had to have been a Windows Update issue. This seems to be the norm for old Microsuck these days, as I’ve had these sort of problems with Outlook happen twice within the last month. Perhaps they should come up with a new slogan, “Microsoft: Raising the Bar in Repudiation”. Continue reading “Outlook 2010 – Only Starts in Safe Mode”

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Mac OS X – Force Spotlight Search to Index a Network Folder

I’ve had some ongoing issues with some Mac users at work recently who were complaining about the length of time that it was taking for Finder to open up some of our network shares. At first, I thought that the issue may have stemmed from our backups that happened to be running at the same time, but after I figured out how to make those processes run in the background and only when the system was idle and that the problem was still prevalent, I had to investigate further.

Upon further inspection, I found that the folders in the network drives they were accessing and sometimes taking up to a minute or more to populate, in most cases had several thousand files and subfolders. After the initial loading of the folder, everything was still easily accessible and readily available after that if you left that directory and came back into it, so chalk it up to a folder caching/indexing issue. Continue reading “Mac OS X – Force Spotlight Search to Index a Network Folder”

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BackupExec 2012 – How to Limit CPU Usage and Disk I/O on RALUS with Cron Jobs

Backup Exec on Linux, otherwise known as RALUS, is great but it has no provisions for limiting it’s disk I/O or CPU usage during different periods of the day. Unfortunately, BE for Windows doesn’t have that option either, so get on it Symantec, nudge, nudge.

If you’re like me, you might have backup jobs on File Servers that span several terabytes worth of data that can essentially run for a day or two on their own. The problem is that people get really bitchy when things don’t run at the normal speed that they are used to and the inconsiderate assholes don’t give a shit when you explain why.

Well here are a few cron job tasks that I came up with to help relieve some of that pressure on your file server. Continue reading “BackupExec 2012 – How to Limit CPU Usage and Disk I/O on RALUS with Cron Jobs”

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Outlook 2010 – Crashes Upon Opening Emails with Embedded Pictures

Today I had a user that just had this problem pop up seemingly out of nowhere. I tried repairing Outlook, starting it in Safe Mode, disabling all Add-Ons, finding and deleting out Outlook’s temp files, and the problem still persisted.

After a brief web search, it appears the latest batch up Windows Updates, specifically KB3097877 that had installed automatically last night, was the culprit. Uninstall it, reboot and hopefully you’re good to go. Here are my references: Continue reading “Outlook 2010 – Crashes Upon Opening Emails with Embedded Pictures”

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Lyrical Writing Tools for the Common Phoneticist

This is just my own personal archive of online tools that I employ on a regular basis when crafting my next lyrical monstrosity.

Dictionary – Word spellings and meanings
http://www.dictionary.com
http://www.thefreedictionary.com
http://www.merriam-webster.com/

Thesaurus – Words that are similar, synonyms, antonyms
http://www.thesaurus.com
http://www.thefreedictionary.com
http://www.merriam-webster.com/ – This one has annoying pop-ups and is smoking crack if they think anyone will pay for a subscription.
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Song Writing Structure, Ideas, and Concepts

The majority of these were pulled directly from some other website with a few additions here and there. I can’t recall exactly where I found these at this juncture but if I do stumble upon it again at some point (which I wasn’t able to find it via a quick web search, I found this several years ago and don’t know what I searched for), I will give the proper credit where it is do.

When I get stuck trying to write a song or have writer’s block, sometimes looking at this list can help me find my way or at least point me in the right direction. A lot of songs follow this basic structure or template.
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