So today, a guy on our floor bricked his router. He was attempting to upgrade it to the latest linksys firmware, but it froze partway through, “bricking” it. It would show power lights and detect ethernet cords plugged into it, but would not assign IPs, had no internet functionality, and no wireless. So after alot of digging and experimentation, we found a way how… Before you start, you’ll need a replacement firmware file (Official linksys, dd-wrt, etc), a SMALL screwdriver, a computer with tftp (Standard on Mac/Unix/Linux).

Power down the router. Flip it over, and take out the 4 screws. You can use a helix screwdriver, or a SMALL regular head. After you take those out, put fingers from one hand on the ports, and the other to RIP the top plate off. Barbaric, but its the only way to open it.

Next, hook an ethernet cord to port 1, but DON’T ATTACH IT TO ANYTHING ELSE. Take a 1 foot length of insulated wire, and strip both ends. This next part is kind of tricky.

1: Unplug the router from the wall.
2: Put the wire in with the plug to the router, so it’s between the round plug and the socket it goes into on the router.
3: Plug the router into a power strip that you can quickly power on/off.
4: When it’s powered off, touch the wire to pin 16 of the below chip: (Click for larger)

While it’s still connected, turn on the power, leave it connected for about a minute, then disconnect the wire and leave the router on. The power light, should be blinking, and won’t stop.

On a computer, do the following: Turn OFF wifi, set your ethernet address to 192.168.1.1, netmask to 255.255.255.0, router/default gateway to 192.168.1.1. Plug the ethernet cable from the router. Open command line, and run…

tftp 192.168.1.1

Then, type in the following, hitting enter after each:

binary
trace
rexmt 1
timeout 90

And finially,

put firmware.bin

(Considering that firmware.bin is the firmware image). After a few, it should upload it. Give the router like 5 minutes to install it, then reboot it (Unplug and plug back in). Congrats, your router works again!

WHERE HAVE I BEEN?!

As you may know, I’ve just started college. It’s been taking up most of my time, not just the work, but between hanging out, doing things with other people from my dorm, issues with people back home, and actual work, I’ve not had much time to get creative and post something. Sorry this entry is not entertaining, but, we looked so much to find a guide for this, and couldn’t, but now there is one.

Peace.

So I know many of you are familiar with PoserChat (http://sigchat.xmop.org/), and you may have noticed I’ve been hinting at Poserchat 2 now and then… But hey here’s the official announcement, screenshots, and feature list…

Screenshot: One page of the new admin panel…

(Click for larger)

So, heres a few features I can list right now…

• Uploadedable Backgrounds in Jpeg, Gif, Png.

• Sizable 50×50 to 800×600

• Font alignment adjustment, (3 axis)

• Number of messages and font size changeable.

• MORE Fonts!

What I still need to do, and what’s done…

DONE:

Main GUI

Registering

Logging in

Admin Hime

 

WHATS NOT DONE:

All of image settings (~70%)

Message Management (Includes banning, censored words, filters, protected names, etc.

Posting messages!

Important: All Poserchat 1 accounts will be transferred to Poserchat II. No data will be lost!

Got any suggestions for features? Feel free to run them by me, here or on the forums!

I’m sure most people reading this have seen their ads on television and other places, and sure yeah, they look good. LOOK GOOD. That’s about it. First off, an example. This is totally worth the watch.

(Video - 4:56 - 9.4mb).

If you’re too lazy to watch it, here’s a summary - the news guy bought a BRAND NEW dell, and unplugged one small cable inside it, disabling CD audio. Then, they took it to two local shops, both of which correctly diagnosed and repaired the problem for less then 70$. Next, they broke it again, took it best buy’s Geek Squad. THEY diagnosed it (JUST DIAGNOSED, NOT FIXED) as having spyware/adware and driver issues! WHAT! Not only that, it cost 70$! To actually FIX it, it would been another 130$!. They confronted the the manager, who, basically avoided answering, then went and asked the actual technician who diagnosed the computer. Neither could produce an answer, and neither gave an explanation.

Now, here’s my experiences. After reading how crappy they are, I decided it would be better not to deal with paid services. So, I contacted them with their live chat thing, which, is another epic fail - you have to download it EVERY time you want to yell at them - and it’s not just a simple web interface, it’s an entire application you download. Any idiot who knows a decent web language could make a web interface for this for free. 

So anyways, I finally got in contact with them, and talked to an “Agent Salisbury”. (Mmmm… Salisbury…) I described the wifi driver error I’ve been having on my dell laptop (NO problems on my mac, TYVM), and he said….

[2:53 PM] Agent Salisbury says: This is a Software error that Could mean almost anything, You would need to bring this into the store so we can look in the Event Viewer and Determine the problem

So there’s an app that can be used to diagnose stuff? Cool I bet I could do it.

[2:57 PM] Agent Salisbury says: I apologize, i cannot give technical information, However if you check Google for Event Viewer, This will Give you steps on how to bring this up

[12:30 PM] Agent John says: Our in home service is $299.99 plus tax, which of course is a flat rate. It  comes with our 30 day in-home guarantee, meaning if the same problem reoccurs after we have left, we will come back to fix it in your home at no additional cost to you. 

Towards the end of my shift, I was called over to help install a security and customization package on a newly purchased computer. For those who do not understand, a security package is the ability for a customer to wait an extra 30 to 45 minutes for their computer, plus pay an additional fee on top of the cost of software they could have installed themselves. Customization is the word we used rather than, “We are going to uninstall all of the useless garbage that computer manufacturers pre-install on your computer.”

However, the situation almost immediately graduated from frustrating to infuriating. One of the three folders I had marked on the form was the “My Documents” folder. The icon for this folder on the hard drive indicated that the file size was 1 KB. The technicians at Best Buy had NOT backed up the “My Documents” folder, as I had requested: they had backed up only the shortcut. None of the files within the folder had actually been transferred.

 I was finally told that if my iPod did not come in the next day that I would be getting a brand new one. It came the next day.

….

A new iPod! I was very excited. In one week I got an iPod in the mail. The box said it was a refurbished 4th generation. Not exactly new. Oh well. Then I opened the box.

….

Well, I tried to turn it on, and the hard drive was also dead. Not just dead, but you could feel all of the parts inside shaking around!

….

I pointed at the box with a “Quality Tested” sticker printed on it (twice), and he just laughed

Before we start, groupies, BE GONE. If you reply to this and post absolute trash, nothing constructive, I will ban your IP and send your sorry ass to meatspin or some other nasty site every time you look at any page I have semi or complete control over. Be constructive. Don’t complain.

Ok, so as some of you know, I am an enthusiastic mac user. Why? It’s better. YOU SHUT YOUR MOUTH, windows is terrible.

It Is Slow, And The Windows Task Manager Lies & Fails.
You have obviously been lied too. Ever look at the task manager and seen 99% cpu free? COMPLETE LIE. That is IMPOSSIBLE, it’s never doing nothing. I’ve seen windows repeatedly limit the speed of processes, which is annoying and plain STUPID. If the CPU is 50% inactive, WHY NOT USE IT? Ever had a really frozen program? “END TASK” or “END PROCESS” never kills it and you will have to pull the stupid plug, and watch windows drop 3 nuts next time you boot it.

How does Unix & Linux compare to this?
*Nix is a straight up real gangster, keepin’ it real since 1969. Type yourself top to see your unix version of the task manager. You can even add -u to order by usage, -U <user> for a specific user’s processes, or -s <time> for update time. Right across the top you’ve got how many processes and threads, none of this splitting it all over the place bullshit. Next, load averages and percentages which actually tell you how bad you’re tanking, library files, and ram usage. Below there you’ve got the list of actual processes, and if you want, the actual command used to run them. How to kill them? KEEP YOUR HANDS OFF THAT MOUSE, it’s so simple you don’t even need that. kill <processid> or killall <processname> blows them out of the water in not even a second. And get this - IT ALWAYS WORKS.

Security Center Wastes Your Money, And You Know It
This is a familiar scene to everyone - you just turned on your Personal Sanity Remover running windows XP, and that f*cking word bubble that everybody dreads pops up 2 inches from your face and demands you install a billion updates that Bill Gates forcibly shitted into your hands through a tube. So you click the motherf*cker and, oh lord, now instead of the security center its suddenly the update center which really has nothing to do with security whatsoever. It just sets up more stuff for malware to tear right down. So now you just bought your brand new 2 million PC which Microsoft says has “Tons of improvements” and now you have to go spend ANOTHER arm and a leg to protect the damn thing from other PC assholes that think its funny to break other people’s PCs (Which it is).

RUNDLL Sucks, And So Does Your Face
How come every time you boot up the damn computer that you paid 3 body parts for, it tells you that BILL GATES FORGOT TO GIVE YOU A PART OF IT that the damn thing needs to run! Which, is BULL. Now, back to your good friend, Unix! They simply don’t forget anything! It’s easy as that! If you need something, you pretty much apt-get <it’s name> And BAM! You got it!

Shiternet Explorer Can’t Explore It’s Way Out Of An Ass Kicking
This is the final abomination that I have time to rant about. Microsoft must have some nerve to put this piece of shit on their computers. Why? Windows is an INSECURE OPERATING SYSTEM. Why the f*ck where they thinking, putting this INSECURE BROWSER ON IT FOR CHRIST’S SAKE!?! NOW THEY’RE ASKING FOR TROUBLE! Thats not even the half of it! Their design plan for this piece of crap was literally, “Web Standards? What’s that?!” Here’s a perfect example - These are pictures of Microsoft’s home page displayed, Properly In Safari, and Like Shit In Their Own Damn Browser! Are you kidding me? Your own browser can’t go on ITS OWN SITE? Rediculous. 

The Final Word
Go open source, it’s so much better. Don’t complain about not being able to fix something, spend some time to learn some C++ and improve it yourself. Linux is obviously the best choice, next to Mac.

Alight, I’m done ranting. Post it up and keep it real, all.