This article aims to help troubleshoot problems you may encounter when trying to set up a wireless bridge between two different models of routers. It isn’t a replacement for the tutorial on how to set up a wireless bridge , which may differ from build-to-build. Here’s where you’re most likely to get snagged, and what to do.

THE WHY

You’ve followed the instructions on how to set up a wireless bridge exactly. The problem is when you’re using two different routers, they may deal with speed, encryption, and channel differently. Both routers don’t have to be running DD-WRT, but they do have to have the same settings and things aren’t always as they appear…

The problem is, even if you’re running DD-WRT on both routers, if they don’t have the same chipset using an identical configuration through the routers GUI may not configure two different routers to operate exactly the same. For example, when using a 802.11G router to repeat the signal of a 802.11N router you have to limit the fastest router to the slowest router in your setup. If both of your routers are running on the same chipset (usually Broadcom, maybe Ralink) you’ll probably have a better time unless they’re of different generations.

My friend lives in the attic of a large three story colonial home in Pennsyltucky. Her landlords have a newer highend NETGEAR router running stock firmware on the 2nd floor. The reception was horrible, and she hadn’t been selling enough handmade jewelry on her website to get her own damn internet (shameless plug) so I decided to set up a wireless bridge. I used two routers: Buffalo WHR-300GN (Ralink) and a Linksys WRT54G (Broadcom), one on each end of her floor. So, if your DD-WRT won’t work as a wireless bridge, read on to find out how I made them all jive (finally!)

THE FIX

1. Check to see if the speed settings you have selected on each router are truly identical.
   Each router implements backwards compatibility for lower speeds and “fall back” for clients with poor signal strength differently, so you may need to explicitly pick an N, G, or B-only setting rather than a combination/compatibility option such as 802.11/B/G/N.When you’re dealing with two different routers you can’t expect any combination mode or backwards compatibility mode to function identically, pick a speed/band/frequency and stick with it!
2. Insure both routers are set to the same channel.
   Is either router set to Auto? If so, follow standard procedure for setting up  a wireless network and check for vacant channels using DD-WRT‘s built-in site survey tool* or manually check what neighboring networks are using and decide on a channel. Make sure both routers are explicitly set to this channel.
   *The site survey doesn’t work on all models even if it is present, so don’t get frustrated or waste too much time here.
   
3. Decide (or reconsider) what type of encryption you will be using to insure each router is truly identically configured.
   In any case you want to use the strongest encryption you can use, however, when setting up a wireless bridge you’re going to have to settle on an encryption setup that both routers explicitly support in similar manners.
   
   You have to deal with this the same as the speed and often you’ll run into trouble with backwards compatibility modes. Perhaps one router says TKIP/AES and the other says AES/TKIP. You need both routers to be set exactly the same, their preferred encryption scheme and fall back must be identical. Until you get the wireless bridge to work, just as with the speed and the channel it’s best to explicitly set the encryption to whatever both routers support, you can always go back and change it later. 
4. Try rebooting the routers when tweaking any of these settings; even if it’s not required.
   This may be the difference between finding the magic combination of settings both routers must have. You may end up setting up the routers the way they need to be for your configuration, but somehow the settings weren’t applied and you end up skipping over them, never to try that combination again because “you already tried it.” This is a good time to make sure you are fully aware that the Save and Apply buttons do different things! 
5. Use your intuition and Google
   Is there something we’re missing here? Think about what settings might be causing the routers to fail to properly route traffic even when the wireless bridge is configured correctly. It doesn’t matter if you followed the instructions to a T, if a single setting that influences how the routers interact with each other is wrong, it’s enough to make a wireless bridge to nowhere. A wireless bridge is like two routers dancing, they have to be moving to the same rhythm if they’re ever going to get down and dirty and show each other their LAN side. 
6. Let us know what works!
   If the setting you had to change wasn’t mentioned here, please help anyone struggling to set up a wireless bridge by commenting with what you had to do (be sure to include what models of routers and what firmware they are running) to get your bridge working so you could watch cat videos on YouTube right after you’re done donating to this website for ending your hours of frustration (shameless plug #2).

The post Setting up DD-WRT as a Wireless Bridge or Repeater first appeared on This P.O.S.

One minute you’re filling out a ridiculously long form, or fervently writing a massive blog post… when your finger slips, or you squeeze your mouse in frustration… and you hear the distinctive “click” noise, and suddenly you’re browser brings you back to the last page you were on… A glimpse of hope pops up, a window asking you if you’d like to “Resubmit your form input?” …  you click it, but alas, all your work is gone, all thanks to the third mouse button that nobody even asked for. I feel for you, I really do… Let’s put a stop to the problem that brought you here, it’s time to disable the back button on your mouse!

STEP 1:

Press and hold on your keyboard to bring up the “Start ? Run” window.

STEP 2:

Type “main.cpl” in the Open: box then hit the OK button.

STEP 3:

If you have a Microsoft® mouse and you have the Intellipoint® software already installed, you will see a window like the one pictured below. If you have a Microsoft® mouse and do not see the window, or you have a different brand of mouse, see below.

STEP 4:

Use the Large thumb button: pull down menu to choose  a new action it will perform. You can choose to disable the button entirely (pictured on the right) or pick whatever strikes you as being more functional and less catastrophic if accidentally clicked.

For example, the Flip3D option, lets you switch between open windows using a 3D flipbook style interface.

STEP 5:
Click the Apply button in the button left hand corner of the screen… Now squeeze and misclick away hamburger hands, you’re in the clear!

WHAT ABOUT ME?

If you have a Microsoft® mouse and see a more basic window, with no mentions of a third button, you need to head on over to the Mouse and Keyboard Hardware Download Software page. There you will select your hardware and operating system and will be provided a link to download the appropriate version of Microsoft’s fanciful mouse driver, dubbed Intellipoint®. (You can also check out FileHippo.com’s page for Intellipoint®)

If you do not have a Microsoft® Mouse and have checked all of the tabs in the mouse window that appears and there is no mention of a third mouse button you need to download the mouse driver for your mouse from your mouse’s software vendor.

Mouse Driver Links for Common Vendors (subject to change):

• Logitech > Support + Downloads > Downloads > Mice:
• Belkin: Support: Search: Downloads
• Kensington – MouseWorks download for Windows
• Targus | Support Downloads and Drivers

The post How to: Disable back button on mouse first appeared on This P.O.S.

Have you ever had a MP3 file appear in your iTunes library that simply won’t play in iTunes or on your iPod? It doesn’t give you an error, it just refuses to play singly, or if it appears in a playlist it just skips to the next song? If your iPod and iTunes won’t play an MP3 file and Windows Media Player or another media player can, there’s a good chance that Apple doesn’t like your ID3 Tags. Let’s find out how to prevent this specific issue, since there won’t be a patch for it.

If you’re “sleeping with the enemy” by listening or organizing your audio files with anything but iTunes it may just give you the silent treatment the next time you go try to play a “tainted” file. Apple has left this incompatibility in iTunes and the iPod’s operating system with the mentality “If you’re not listening to your music in iTunes or your iPod your not listening to it at all.” If you’re using iTunes you probably have an iPod, so that’s ok most of the time, but if you accidentally open something up in Windows Media Player, or want to use one of the many MP3 tagger and organization programs available, you should be able to without fears of reprisal from Steve Job’s money maker.  

THE WHY

When digital audio files first popped up, they were identified by filename.  This didn’t work out so well because if you name each file according to its Title, Artist, Album Name, Release Date, Genre, Track Number you’ll end up with something like this:

The Beetles – Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Heart Club Band (01.06.1967 UK) – Side 2 – 05 – Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (Reprise) [Psychedelic rock].mp3

Or even worse some songs filenames would exceed the length allowed by any respectable operating system. A tragic example would be any of the tracks from Soulwax’s October 22, 2007 release titled:

Most of the remixes we’ve made for other people over the years except for the one for Einstürzende Neubauten because we lost it and a few we didn’t think sounded good enough or just didn’t fit in length-wise, but including some that are hard to find because either people forgot about them or simply because they haven’t been released yet, a few we really love, one we think is just ok, some we did for free, some we did for money, some for ourselves without permission and some for friends as swaps but never on time and always at our studio in Ghent.

To address these issues and add flexibility to embed things like lyrics and album art a standard was created to enable storage of data inside the MP3 file (encapsulated in something called an ID3 tag.) This standard has changed over the years, but the last time it was updated was 1999, and iTunes was released in 2001, so don’t count on Apple ever supporting or implementing it properly. Some programs write tags that are incompatible with iTunes propriety tags. Microsoft’s Windows Media Player is one of many such applications.

However, Windows Media Player is written to allow you to play audio files with incompatible or even corrupt tags, way to play nice Microsoft! However, Microsoft isn’t the only company with evil geniuses… the masterminds at Apple found a great way to lock users into using iTunes. It gives users who deviates from iTunes just once the impression that x.y.z player “broke” my MP3 files and they won’t play on my iPod! I’m never using x.y.z player or music tagger and organizer again! Well guess what? I think you should be able to play your files or organize them however you want, wherever you want with whatever you want without fear of reprisal. Here’s how you can do just that:

THE FIX

Step 1: Highlight the silent file in iTunes and right click on it, when the menu appears click “Convert ID3 Tags…”

Step 2: Select either 1.0 or 1.1 in the version pull down menu, if the Reverse Unicode option isn’t grayed out, check that off as well, when you’re done click OK.

Step 3: Enjoy your “repaired” song by playing it normally. The next time you sync your iPod the file should be repaired as well.

Step 4 (Optional): If you have many problem files, or don’t have the time to weed through and find which ones aren’t playing properly you can repair your entire library at once:

1. Select the “Music” option in your iTunes library
2. Next to the green Apple display in iTunes, click the List View button (first on the left).
3. Click the first track that appears and press CTRL + A on your keyboard, OR choose the Edit option from the top menu bar and click “Select All”
4. Follow the same steps from above for a single file (it will take a while to complete depending on how many songs are in your library so be patient.)

If you’re still having trouble playing your files, want to check for and delete duplicate and missing files from your library, check out iTSfv – iTunes Store file validator, it’s FREE and open source. Even if you’re not having trouble, it’s pretty much the iTunes swiss army knife and I highly recommended it.

The post iTunes and iPod Won’t Play Certain MP3 Files first appeared on This P.O.S.

Microsoft gave Vista Premium and Ultimate users a DVD authoring tool aptly dubbed Windows DVD Maker. It’s so easy to use even grandpa can take it for a leisurely stroll and wait overnight for his DVD to burn. Why is it so slow? Conspiracy theories aside, the answer is a simple one… Microsoft made it that way! Read on to find out why and how to fix it.

Windows DVD Maker is reasonably responsive while designing your DVD, but when it comes time to encode things comes to a screeching halt. It’s no mystery, I know why and how to fix it.

…WHY IS IT SO SLOW?

Every program running on your computer is assigned a priority. This is how Windows determines who gets dibs on the computer’s processor. Priority is typically determined by how important a program is in maintaining system stability and insuring the system is still responsive to your commands. The browser you’re using to read this article has a higher priority than any number of non-critical background tasks going on in your computer. When you’re using Microsoft DVD Maker to design your DVD, it operates in the foreground and gets a generous helping of processor time out of your computers busy schedule.

However, once you’re done designing, and it’s actually time to burn the DVD, it becomes a background process and executes at a low priority. What gives? Microsoft quite literally decided where your priorities are (no pun intended). They thought you’d rather be able to watch cat videos on YouTube while your disc burns very slowly,  than to surrender use of your computer so Windows DVD Maker could have some one-on-one time to speed things up. While it was admirable, in the event you decided to walk away, and surrender your computer anyway, the priority is still set low. Now, that you’ve been enlightened… Let’s fix it!

HOW TO FIX IT!

Once the burn process has begun, press CTRL+ALT+DELETE and when the Vista Splash screen appears, click “Start Task Manager”.

1. Click the Processes Tab
2. Click the Image Name column, to order the programs in ascending alphabetical order
3. Right-click DVDMaker.exe
4. Position your cursor over Set Priority and then click to select High.

Take heed to the intimidating prompt (see exclamation below) and click “Change Priority.” Your DVD should now burn more quickly, but keep in mind it is a very intense process. Depending on the file size and duration of your videos it’s not unreasonable for it to take as long (sometimes longer) as the DVD’s actual running time.

The priorities of programs are set by the software developers who created them, they know more about that program and how it functions at different priorities than us mere mortals. It is not advisable to go willy nilly “custom tuning” your priorities (plus when you restart a program, or your machine, the priorities will be reset.) This isn’t a new trick to make your computer run faster.

KEEP IN MIND

Encoding videos is a slow process in general and is no fault of Windows DVD Maker; or Microsoft.  Here are a few cases where you should expect encoding to take a few hours:

1. If you are encoding videos from your Mini-DVD camcorder, even though they are already in DVD format, if you combine more than 90 or so minutes of footage, they must be recompressed, this is a very time consuming process.
2. High-definition content takes a good long while to downscale and recompress, this is not a process where you want to “sit and watch the paint dry.”
3. You are encoding video captured via Firewire (1394) from Mini-DV tapes. These videos don’t need to be scaled, however, the files are uncompressed and require a great deal of hard disk activity to read and encode. If you have the choice between a laptop and a desktop to perform this task, you will really benefit from the desktops speedier hard drive.

For more information, check out John “PapaJohn” Buechler’s excellent Windows DVD Maker page.

The post Windows DVD Maker: Encoding Slow first appeared on This P.O.S.