My Desktop

Sane way of setting up SBG901 with your own router

Recently I faced a complicated issue of interfacing Motorola SBG901 wireless cable modem which comes with all sort of bells and whistles but with the limitation of a single ethernet port. Having VOIP and linux server makes it imperative for me to connect the cable modem to a router (DIR-655 in this case).

SBG901 has an inbuilt DHCP server that needs to be disabled to have all my port forwardings to work properly from the router, however the modem manual does not indicate what to do to disable the inbuilt DHCP server.

After spending hours, I find out that you have to disable NATP mode. See the screenshots.

uscis contact mail ids

1. USCIS Service Center Inquiry Instructions - Aug 2009

The USCIS issued instructions (PDF 32.7KB) August 6, 2009 on how to follow up on cases pending at the USCIS service centers. These instructions should be followed by individuals and organizations inquiring about timelines and generic information. One should NOT rely on general information from the government for legal options, analysis of a particular situation, or advice on how to proceed in a particular immigration case.
First Step : Call NCSC's Toll-Free Number
The first step in the instructions is to call the National Customer Service Center (NCSC) at their phone number (1.800.375.5283). It is necessary to have the USCIS receipt number and other case-related, identifying information in order to make such inquiries.

It is suggested that one keep the name and/or ID number of the person with whom s/he speaks, as well as the date and time of the call. One should also keep any service request referral number, if there is action taken on the case.

Second Step : eMail Service Center after 30 days
If the NCSC has not been able to resolve the particular matter within 30 days, then it is possible to send an eMail to the service center that has the case. In order to use the eMail service, it is necessary to have the information regarding the initial call to the NCSC; that is, the name and/or ID number of the representative, date and time of the call, and the service request referral number. If no service referral was made, it is necessary to indicate why the NCSC did not take this action.
The eMail addresses for this purpose are as follows:

California Service Center : csc-ncsc-followup@dhs.gov
Vermont Service Center : vsc.ncscfollowup@dhs.gov
Nebraska Service Center : ncscfollowup.nsc@dhs.gov
Texas Service Center : tsc.ncscfollowup@dhs.gov

Third Step : eMail to USCIS Headquarters
If there is still no resolution in the case after 21 days of sending the eMail described in step two, it is possible to eMail the USCIS Headquarters Office of Service Center Operations. This eMail address is SCOPSSCATA@dhs.gov. The USCIS promises a response to these inquiries within ten days.

Conclusion : General Information No Substitute for Legal Advice

Potentially, the case follow-up procedures can be helpful for many situations. Each step requires a waiting time, however. In some situations, such as case denials with time-sensitive deadlines, it is not advisable to wait for NCSC action. There are deadlines (often only 30 days and sometimes 15 days) for challenging certain USCIS decisions. If a case is denied, or if one encounters serious problems otherwise, it is necessary to obtain proper legal advice and not assume that a call to the NCSC is all that is needed.
It should be noted that calls to the NCSC are answered by individuals who provide general immigration information based on scripts. Responses to one's inquiry should be considered only as a general guideline, and not as a substitute for proper legal advice. We at the Murthy Law Firm sometimes speak with individuals who wish to make an immigration filing, because they think that the NCSC told them they could do so. They may have been told that, in order to do what they wish to do, it is necessary to file a certain form. However, NCSC does not evaluate whether one is legally eligible to file, whether it is the correct procedure for that individual or family, or if other considerations exist that may completely change the equation. Speaking with a knowledgeable lawyer for case-specific, individualized advice as to one's immigration options is a safer and, actually, much less expensive option in the long run. The NCSC should be used for case follow up and general immigration information only.

Blackberry with cheap data plan on T-mobile- possible.

Blackberry is one of the phones which consistently delivers very good voice quality and I was hooked onto this particular aspect of RIM devices when I first got my perl flip for Tmobile last year. Things went to downhill on that silly Perl Flip device fairly soon. Automatic reboots, occasional lock-ups become daily routine. Long painful story was shortened by 3 replacements and eventually a new Blackberry 8520 came as final replacement from Tmobile- class act!
Now, I jumped into googling about running my phone off the $10 web2go plan instead of $30 BIS data plan. The morale of the story I found over my hours of search is- anything with RIM involved (such as, BB messenger/BB maps/BB weather/BB App world) will refuse to work without a blackberry data plan. However, most of the other functionalities can work just fine with a regular data plan; with some tweak.
When my 8520 was shipped to me, it was not showing up as a RIM device at T-mobile.com account. So, I had no problem to choose a Samsung model with internet capabilities at T-mobile.com as my phone and successfully add $10 web2go plan to my account. In my blackberry, under settings, I went to advanced settings and under TCP/IP set my APN as internet2.voicestream.com. Now everything works fine- I used Opera mini 5 beta 2 and web browsing is smooth.
However, I really needed couple of apps from BB appworld. One is Ka-glom and another is Callblocker pro. So I had to chat with TMO rep to get BIS instead of web2go plan. I installed BB app world, installed the necessary apps and cancell my BIS plan and select a Samsung phone to add web2go plan into my account. Surprise! surprise- in a wrong sense. Nothing is working anymore. The phone can not access anything that requires data plan. So I went back to the settings and under advanced options I looked at host routing table aka HRT. All HRT entries has one thing in common, under APN it is using blackberry.net. I believe, once you have your blackberry provisioned with BIS, it won't work with a regular data plan just because of the altered HRT. In a non-provisioned BB, HRT stays blank. So I picked up a blank SIM card for TMo and rebooted my 8520 with it. Voila- HRT table is now blank. Removed the SIM card, rebooted my 8520 with original SIM card and HRT stays unaffected. So now, I have a data enabled blackberry and I do not have to pay 30 dollars per month for accessing my gmail app, google maps and unlimited browsing.

Blackberry 8220 and Google apps without data plan works!

I have BB8220 and I do not have any sort of data plan thru TMO. All I have is wifi UMA for data usage. I just love the convenience of checking my mail right after I wake up without going thru the loop of starting up Vista PC, login, Outlook. And my Blackberry Flip works just fine for this purpose. However there are tons of contradicting report about what works and what's not without a data plan.
Here is a breakdown of steps that you need to follow to get Gmail app going.
1) Subscribe to $25 data plan at Tmobile website. This will download the necessary service book entries to your BB device.
2) Call Customer service (speak blackberry in voice prompt and it will take you to the right department). Ask CSR to enable "Blackberry feature enabler" in your phone.
3) Restart phone.
4) Check if Gmail is working fine (it should as you still have data plan on).
5) Cancel data plan (daily charge is about 80 cents).
6) check your Gmail app again.

My BB browser is set to use Hotspot Browser, so it works without any problem. So does Opera mini and GMaps/Gsync. It works fine for me. hope it will do the same for you too. Yahoo apps used to work fine, but for the last few days it is not.

Sending and receiving free fax

FAX is one of the arcane tools that we still have to use at times like a old floppy drive. Unsurprisingly it costs quite a bit to send and receive a fax. For sometime, I used to use faxzero.net for my outgoing fax; but recently switched over to Callcentric.com for my VOIP needs and they handle outgoing fax very well through an ATA adaptor. However receiving fax is not very easy in Callcentric with only one dedicated number (yes, you can purchase another number for fax receiving only for about $3.50). So I use nifty eFax for my incoming fax needs. Unfortunately, free account with eFax does not offer a local number, but that is not a big deal. Efax however loves to install junkware in order to view your fax (they email you a file with .efx extension which must be opened with eFax messenger, and I hate that program). But I found a very old copy of efax messenger that does not happen to install crapware and you can view your .efx files just fine; you can also export your fax to a more common tiff or jpeg format with this program. best of all, this one works absolutely well in 32 bit versions of Vista and Windows XP.

TVpack installation in Vista X86 PC

1. Prepare a machine with clean install of Windows Vista Service Pack 1.
1. The machine will need to meet or exceed the minimum hardware requirements for Windows Vista -http://support.microsoft.com/kb/919183
2. The Windows Vista Service Pack 1 operating system must be Windows Vista Home Premium or Ultimate (x86 or x64)
3. Following operating system install, do not launch Windows Media Center or go through Windows Media Center Setup
2. Install Windows Media Center TV Pack 2008
1. Windows Media Center TV Pack 2008 (x86)
2. Windows Media Center TV Pack 2008 (x64)
3. Install the PlayReady PC Runtime
1. PlayReady PC Runtime (x86) - http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=dadc6bf4-a615-4f23-a7cc-b7569c05d305&DisplayLang=en
2.
PlayReady PC Runtime (x64) - http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=ec9ac8f4-6209-4aea-a302-d9f33a7d4f64&DisplayLang=en
4. Install the following patches from the Download Center
1. KB951685 (http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/kb/951685) - The video playback application stops responding when you watch video or Live TV on a Windows Vista-based computer
2. KB950754 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/950754) - Noticeable problems occur in the video when you use the DirectSound renderer on Windows Vista
5. Install any required or recommended Windows Updates
6. Launch Windows Media Center and go through Windows Media Center Setup

Save the green

Hereby, I am making a pledge that I will go GREEN! I already use double sided printing and use e-statement wherever possible. And I will continue to use my savings for the future.
Linky

T-mobile rocks

After staying with At&T for the last 4 year, I moved to T-mobile this month and I can not be happier in my last 4 days worth of experience. The customer support folks are superb- they way they handle the calls and they way they know what they are doing are very much superlative compared to any other business I have dealt with in last few years. I hope to get a similar level of service once I am out of the 30 days return trial period.
Oh, I forgot to add- a human voice can be reachable in 2 minutes only- no more long term torture of jazzy music for me.

Xming rocks with XFce4

I run a tiny ubuntu server in my home network which basically does it all for me- Squid/Apache/Asterisk/FTP and offcourse as my NAS device through SAMBA. I restored two 10 year old Dell to make a single usable machine with 400MHz P3 processor and 128X3 SDRAM. The machine is slow by any means unless you want to comaper to a 486, but it does the work and it does the work really well for me. That P3 chip sips very little power being a 24W rated processor. I don't think the whole machine does not sip more than 50W daily, but I may be wrong.

Anyway, the point is, while I do most of admin stuff thru ssh, once in a while I really like to get into my servers X-server. From Windows machines, the only free option that really worked for me is Xming. However, Gnome works really slowly even under really stripped down form. What I found that Xfce4 works like a charm. All I have to do is invoke xfce4-session from Xming starting dialogue.

When people will learn to build a decent house?

The fire at this Conshocken Apartment makes me believe that the roofing material used is actually far from fireproof. It amazes me how Mr. Joe Blow spends thousands of dollars on his home without worrying about a bit about firesafe. A safety alarm sure saves life- but at the same time it almost warrants charred home. If average Joe spends more $ initially to build/buy a better home upfront, he can save a ton for future in terms of regular maintenance cost as well as insurance costs.
Its time average Americans realise that cheap wood is no substitute to cement and concrete as building material. Though expensive they are not only long lasting and maintenance free but also least fire friendly. So its time to make the right choice, choose cement and kiln baked bricks for all construction purposes and be assured that you stay in a fire proof home/office and not sitting over a pile of matchsticks waiting to be ignited.

A tiny little hotel guide for Vizag

It all happen on late October, 2006, that Rupa and I have to agree on a place where we will be spending a few very special days of our life. After way too many discussions and net crawling, it was quite clear that we will not be able to visit any of the so called exciting places, keeping in mind of time constraints. Rupa, since beginning, wanted to visit Vizag, but I wanted to go Bharatpur near Delhi. Scarce accommodation made it a no-no for a honeymoon trip. Henceforth, we settled on Vizag. I was lucky that Rupa made all the reservations, all I did was just to be there with her in right time. We booked a room at Punnami Hotel which is owned by APTDC (Andhra Pradesh Tourism Development Corporation Ltd.). Through out AP, APTDC maintains quite few hotels in nice locations and if price and quality needs to be balanced, APTDC hotels are by far the best. Rooms are nice, so are the locations. The hotel we stayed at was along the coast of Bay of Bengal and the beach was hardly 5 minutes walk.
The real bummer is, APTDC for some reason chose to be obscure over the web, the only way to get in touch with them is an old fashioned telephone or just be there in person at any of their branch offices. I am posting the details of the phone numbers and rates of Punnami Hotels and package tours from a brochure I got from my hotel. Hope this will help.

Semiful reset of HP PSC1315 series printers

Vuck HP, that's my impression when my PSC printer started giving problem, actually it started denying it's own cartridges. Low and behold, I started online chat with a support tech. Unusally good tech support give this little info, which can be included in manual in the first place.

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A semi-full reset will do the following:
The user settings to the factory defaults, Language and country settings on some models Reset the All-in-One to the factory default settings by using these instructions:
1. Disconnect and then reconnect the power cord.
2. When the lights begin to flash, press and hold On/Resume and Number of Copies. When only the On/Resume light is flashing, release the buttons. When the On/Resume light is steady, the reset is complete.