Well, before you pull out the doctor and restore to 3.0.4, you can try adding the old patches feed and reinstalling them. The patches will run just fine until the new ones are written and released for 3.0.5, and you won’t have to put up with a vanilla touchpad until then.

All you need to do is:

1. Fire up Preware, and press the drop down option in the top left hand corner of the screen marked Preware.
2. Select Saved Package List. This is a list of all the packages you have installed on your Touchpad
3. Press the update button to synchronise this list. A notification will appear in the top right to say that the list has been updated successfully
4. Press the back button to get back to the main screen of Preware. Tap in the search area at the top and search for Emergency
5. In the returned list of packages, tap “Emergency Patch Recovery” and select Install. This patch will remove all custom Preware patches and updates, then ask you to reboot your Touchpad
6. When your Touchpad starts again, it will be totally vanilla and ready to have it’s patches reapplied
7. Fire up preware, press the dropdown list in the top left, and select “Manage Feeds”
8. You should see one in there called “webos-patches” which has its address as http://ipkg.preware.org/feeds/webos-patches/3.0.5. This is the new one which doesn’t contain anything yet.
9. Right down the bottom of the screen, you’ll see a section to add a new feed. Call it something like “old patches” and set the address as http://ipkg.preware.org/feeds/webos-patches/3.0.4
10. Press “Add Feed,” agree to the security popup, then click the back button in the top left hand corner of the screen
11. You’ll be asked to refresh your package feeds. Press “Do it now” and let preware get the contents of your new feed
12. When you drop back to the main preware screen, select the dropdown list and choose “Saved Package List”
13. Press “Install All.” Preware will reinstall all your patches from the new feed, then ask you to restart Luna.
14. Once you’ve restarted Luna, restart the whole Touchpad as well to ensure all your patches are running correctly

You should now have all your old patches, which will automatically update as they reappear in the new feed.

Enjoy!

Here’s how I fixed it:

1. Fire up Preware, and press the drop down option in the top left hand corner of the screen marked Preware.
2. Select Saved Package List. This is a list of all the packages you have installed on your Touchpad.
3. Press the update button to synchronise this list. A notification will appear in the top right to say that the list has been updated successfully.
4. Press the back button to get back to the main screen of Preware. Tap in the search area at the top and search for Emergency.
5. In the returned list of packages, tap “Emergency Patch Recovery” and select Install. This patch will remove all custom Preware patches and updates, then ask you to reboot your Touchpad.
6. When your Touchpad starts up again, all your patches will be goneski. Not to worry, though – you don’t have to reinstall everything manually since you updated your patch list earlier.
7. Fire up Preware and select Saved Package List again.
8. Press Install All. Preware will reinstall all your patches and ask you to restart Luna.

You should now be able to install the new version of Muffle System Logging.

Instead, I had to directly download the software from Apple’s download server, then hold shift (or option if you’re a mac person) and click on restore. It’ll ask you where your software is you want to use,  and restore from there.

You can even install older versions if you want, although you might need to downgrade your iTunes as well.

iOS 4.3.3:  iPhone 4 (GSM), iPhone 4, iOS 4.2.8 (CDMA), iPhone 3GS, iPad 2 WiFi, iPad 2 GSM, iPad 2 CDMA, iPad, iPod touch 3G and iPod touch 4G

iOS 4.3.2: iPhone 4 (GSM), iPhone 4, iOS 4.2.7 (CDMA), iPhone 3GS, iPad 2 WiFi, iPad 2 GSM, iPad 2 CDMA, iPad, iPod touch 3G and iPod touch 4G

iOS 4.3.1: iPhone 4 (GSM), iPhone 3GS, iPad 2 WiFi, iPad 2 GSM, iPad 2 CDMA, iPad, iPod touch 3G and iPod touch 4G

iOS 4.3:  iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4 GSM, Pad 1, iPad 2 WiFi, iPad 2,2 (3G AT&T?), iPad 2,3 (3G Verizon?), iPod Touch 3G and iPod Touch 4G

iOS 4: iPod Touch 2G, iPod Touch 3G, iPhone 3G, iPhone 3Gs and iPhone 4.

iOS 3.1.3: iPhone, iPhone 3G, iPhone 3Gs.

iOS 2.2.1: iPhone, iPhone 3G, iPod Touch, iPod Touch 2G.

iOS 1.1.4: iPhone, iPod Touch.

A while ago I wrote a howto on installing the Windows version of the Airvideo server on Ubuntu using the Wine environment, because the Linux version of the Airvideo server was a little… well, confusing.

Since then, I was contacted by RubioJr (Gracias, Rubio!), who has put together a PPA (a list of packages) to allow Ubuntu and Debian users to enjoy a super simple installation method of Airvideo, without the need to install Wine.

Same as last time, I’ll be doing all my work with Gnome, so if you’re afraid of heavy terminal work, there’s no need to run for the hills.

Easy mode: Install Airvideo Server with (almost) no command line work.

Before we go to far, we’ll have to add RubioJr’s PPA. Basically, your software packages are all part of a big list of apps out on the net. Whenever you want to install a new app, or when the software update tool checks for updates, you’re looking at the remote version of this list and comparing it with yours. We need to add this special list to the main one so that we can install stuff from it.

Go to Applications > Ubuntu Software Center. Once launched, click Edit and select Software Sources.

Make a note of your system version in the first window of the sources screen. For example, mine is Lucid as I’m using Ubuntu 10.04.

Go to the Other Software tab and click Add Source. In the APT line field which appears, enter :

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/rubiojr/airvideo/ubuntu [yourdist] main

Then press Add to apply your changes. This means that when your software update checks for new versions of the programs you have installed, it’ll also check RubioJr’s list of apps. It also means you can install things from that list, which we’ll do now.

When you search in Software Center for Airvideo, you should now see the following entry:

Mine says that it’s already installed, because I’ve already installed it (obviously), but yours should have an install button. Click it, and all the required stuff to run Airvideo will download from the net and be installed on your machine.

Before we start Airvideo, we need to tell it which folders we want it to serve out to us. Click the Applications button, go to the Accessories menu and open terminal.

I know I promised as little terminal work as possible, and I’m hoping this isn’t too complex. In the terminal which appears, type sudo gedit and press enter.

You’ll be prompted for your password, and a big boy version of the Gedit text editor will start.

Press the Open button, and browse File System (in the left hand bar), opt, airvideo server. In this folder, you’ll find a file called AirVideoServerLinux.properties:

Open the file and it should look something like this:

In the folders section, we need to add some entries for the folders we want to serve. You’ll need to add them so it’s FOLDERNAME:/PATH/TO/FOLDER and each entry should be separated by a comma – like this:

Press Save to commit your changes and you’ll be ready to fire up Airvideo. In the Applications menu, under Sound and Video, you’ll see a new program called AirVideo Server. Click it to start AirVideo.

Once started, you’ll see the Airvideo logo in the notification area on the top right of your screen. Right click and select Start Server.

The icon changes to blue to let you know that your server is running.

You’re done! Fire up Airvideo on your iDevice and browse to your server for some awesome streaming streamyness!

Hard Mode: Install AirVideo Server from command line.

Actually, this is probably simpler than the point-and-click variant, but I understand that the terminal seems a little daunting to some users. For those who are OK with it, do the following steps:

Fire up a terminal and enter:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:rubiojr/airvideo

This adds RubioJr’s repository, allowing his package list to be installed/updated.

Refresh your apt repositories:

sudo apt-get update

Install AirVideo Server:

sudo apt-get install airvideo-server

Edit the config file:

sudo [nano|vi|emacs|your_text_editor_of_choice] /opt/airvideo-server/AirVideoServerLinux.properties

After folders, enter [Name you want the folder to be called]:/path/to/folder,[folder2]:/path/to/folder2

Save the file.

Launch the server:

airvideo-server

or launch in the background

nohup /usr/bin/airvideo-server

God Mode: Create an autostart script so AirVideo launches when your computer does.

This one’s best used if you have a Linux server humming away in the corner of your office, and it’s BIOS is set so it’ll resume after a power outage, so that no matter what, your AirVideo is going to be running.

Fire up a terminal and enter

sudo [text editor of choice] /etc/init.d/airvideo-server

In the file (which should be blank), paste the following:

#!/bin/bash
case "$1" in
  start)
    echo "Starting AirVideo"
    start-stop-daemon --start --quiet -b -m -p /var/run/airvideo-server.pid --chuid airvideo --exec /usr/bin/java -- -jar /opt/airvideo-server/AirVideoServerLinux.jar /opt/airvideo-server/AirVideoServerLinux.properties
  ;;
  stop)
    echo "Stopping AirVideo"
    start-stop-daemon --stop --quiet --pidfile /var/run/airvideo-server.pid
    rm -f /var/run/airvideo-server
  ;;
  *)
    echo "Usage: /etc/init.d/airvideo-server {start|stop}"
    exit 1
  ;;
esac
exit 0

Save the file out, then create the user which is going to be used to run the file. You should also double check to make sure that /opt/airvideo is readable by this account.

Make the file executable, then add it to the startup defaults.

When you next reboot your system, airvideo should start automatically.

Enjoy!

More info:

http://blog.frameos.org/2011/02/08/installing-airvideo-linux-server-in-ubuntu/

http://inmethod.com/air-video/index.html

http://wiki.birth-online.de/know-how/hardware/apple-iphone/airvideo-server-linux

http://www.inmethod.com/forum/posts/list/1856.page

https://launchpad.net/~rubiojr/+archive/airvideo

https://gist.github.com/905291 – Init script update – thanks aq1018!

Has anyone stopped to consider that it’s probably because the apps you’re using are still written for a single core device?

The same thing happened to computer users when dual core CPUs were released – sure, you could run more programs concurrently, but since each program only used a single core, until they, and the underlying operating system, were rewritten.

A more direct analogy might be the retina display on iPhone 4 – it took a while for apps to be rewritten to support it natively instead of just doubling their pixels.

I’m willing to bet that iPad 2 will go through a similar process – for the time being things will feel the same, or at least a little snappier (as mail, spotlight et al will use one core while your app uses the other).

As apps are rewritten to support multicore and iOS 5 is released (which will no doubt boast better multicore performance), iPad 2 should feel like it is speeding up.

You’ll need a few bits of kit to get you started. First, a 1700 or 1800 router (obviously) which is unusable. Second, you’ll need a Cisco console cable (light blue with an RJ-45 on one end and a DB9 serial connector on the other). Finally you’ll need a computer with a serial port and a VT100 program of some description. Hyperterm will do in a pinch, but something like Zoc or PuTTY is my preference.

Configuration procedure:

1. Turn the router off and connect with your serial cable. You’ll need to set your settings as 9600 baud, no parity, 8 data bits and 1 stop bit.
2. When you see the rommon 1> prompt, enter confreg 2×0142 and press enter. This says you want to boot from flash, but don’t want to actually enable the stored config. This means that you’ll have access to the stored-config, but won’t have any passwords in the way.
3. When you see the rommon 2> prompt, enter reset to reboot into the new configuration.
4. During startup, enter no when asked any questions and you’ll be presented with the router> prompt.
5. Type enable and press enter, and you’ll be at the router# prompt with full elevated privileges.
6. Use configure memory to manually change the stored config to your liking, or use a TFTP server to load a new config on the router. You can also copy startup-config running-config to load the startup config into memory – if you do this and it locks you out again, just reboot and you’ll be back at the router> prompt.
7. Whatever you do, don’t use copy running-config startup-config, or you’ll blow away your entire config and end up with a completely blank router and have to start from scratch.
8. If you’ve copied your config to running, use enable secret desired_password to change your password.
9. Issue no shutdown commands for any interface you intend to use, as using this procedure automatically sets everything to shutdown. If you’re loading a new config via TFTP, make sure that you include a no shutdown command on every interface.
10. Once you’re happy with your config, change your startup register so that the unit starts properly next time it’s rebooted. Enter configuration terminal and use the command config-register 0×2102 and hit enter.
11. Use write memory or copy running-config startup-config to commit all changes to flash. It’s probably a good idea to reboot and test your new config, ensuring that your passwords are correct and that all your interfaces are running with show ip interface brief. If it doesn’t work and you’re still locked out, rinse and repeat.

Configuration Example:

Router>enable
Password:
Password:
Password:
% Bad secrets

Router>show version
Cisco Internetwork Operating System Software
IOS (tm) C2600 Software (C2600-IS-M), Version 12.0(7)T, RELEASE SOFTWARE (fc2)
Copyright (c) 1986-1999 by cisco Systems, Inc.
Compiled Tue 07-Dec-99 02:21 by phanguye
Image text-base: 0x80008088, data-base: 0x80C524F8

ROM: System Bootstrap, Version 11.3(2)XA4, RELEASE SOFTWARE (fc1)

Router uptime is 3 minutes
System returned to ROM by abort at PC 0x802D0B60
System image file is "flash:c2600-is-mz.120-7.T"

cisco 2611 (MPC860) processor (revision 0x202) with 26624K/6144K bytes of memory.
Processor board ID JAB031202NK (3878188963)
M860 processor: part number 0, mask 49
Bridging software.
X.25 software, Version 3.0.0.
Basic Rate ISDN software, Version 1.1.
2 Ethernet/IEEE 802.3 interface(s)
2 Serial(sync/async) network interface(s)
1 ISDN Basic Rate interface(s)
32K bytes of non-volatile configuration memory.
8192K bytes of processor board System flash partition 1 (Read/Write)
8192K bytes of processor board System flash partition 2 (Read/Write)

Configuration register is 0x2102

Router>


!--- The router was just powercycled, and during bootup a
!--- break sequence was sent to the router.


!

*** System received an abort due to Break Key ***

signal= 0x3, code= 0x500, context= 0x813ac158
PC = 0x802d0b60, Vector = 0x500, SP = 0x80006030
rommon 1 > confreg 0x2142

You must reset or power cycle for new config to take effect

rommon 2 > reset

System Bootstrap, Version 11.3(2)XA4, RELEASE SOFTWARE (fc1)
Copyright (c) 1999 by cisco Systems, Inc.
TAC:Home:SW:IOS:Specials for info
C2600 platform with 32768 Kbytes of main memory

program load complete, entry point: 0x80008000, size: 0x6fdb4c

Self decompressing the image : ###############################
##############################################################
##############################################################
##############################################################
############################### [OK]

 Restricted Rights Legend

Use, duplication, or disclosure by the Government is
subject to restrictions as set forth in subparagraph
(c) of the Commercial Computer Software - Restricted
Rights clause at FAR sec. 52.227-19 and subparagraph
(c) (1) (ii) of the Rights in Technical Data and Computer
Software clause at DFARS sec. 252.227-7013.

 cisco Systems, Inc.
 170 West Tasman Drive
 San Jose, California 95134-1706

Cisco Internetwork Operating System Software
IOS (tm) C2600 Software (C2600-IS-M), Version 12.0(7)T, RELEASE SOFTWARE (fc2)
Copyright (c) 1986-1999 by cisco Systems, Inc.
Compiled Tue 07-Dec-99 02:21 by phanguye
Image text-base: 0x80008088, data-base: 0x80C524F8

cisco 2611 (MPC860) processor (revision 0x202) with 26624K/6144K bytes of memory.
Processor board ID JAB031202NK (3878188963)
M860 processor: part number 0, mask 49
Bridging software.
X.25 software, Version 3.0.0.
Basic Rate ISDN software, Version 1.1.
2 Ethernet/IEEE 802.3 interface(s)
2 Serial(sync/async) network interface(s)
1 ISDN Basic Rate interface(s)
32K bytes of non-volatile configuration memory.
8192K bytes of processor board System flash partition 1 (Read/Write)
8192K bytes of processor board System flash partition 2 (Read/Write)

 --- System Configuration Dialog ---

Would you like to enter the initial configuration dialog? [yes/no]: no

Press RETURN to get started!

00:00:19: %LINK-3-UPDOWN: Interface BRI0/0, changed state to up
00:00:19: %LINK-3-UPDOWN: Interface Ethernet0/0, changed state to up
00:00:19: %LINK-3-UPDOWN: Interface Ethernet0/1, changed state to up
00:00:19: %LINK-3-UPDOWN: Interface Serial0/0, changed state to down
00:00:19: %LINK-3-UPDOWN: Interface Serial0/1, changed state to down
00:00:20: %LINEPROTO-5-UPDOWN: Line protocol on Interface BRI0/0,
changed state to down
00:00:20: %LINEPROTO-5-UPDOWN: Line protocol on Interface Ethernet0/0,
 changed state to up
Router>
00:00:20: %LINEPROTO-5-UPDOWN: Line protocol on Interface Ethernet0/1,
changed state to up
00:00:20: %LINEPROTO-5-UPDOWN: Line protocol on Interface Serial0/0,
changed state to down
00:00:20: %LINEPROTO-5-UPDOWN: Line protocol on Interface Serial0/1,
changed state to down
00:00:50: %SYS-5-RESTART: System restarted --
Cisco Internetwork Operating System Software
IOS (tm) C2600 Software (C2600-IS-M), Version 12.0(7)T, RELEASE SOFTWARE (fc2)
Copyright (c) 1986-1999 by cisco Systems, Inc.
Compiled Tue 07-Dec-99 02:21 by phanguye
00:00:50: %LINK-5-CHANGED: Interface BRI0/0,
changed state to administratively down
00:00:52: %LINK-5-CHANGED: Interface Ethernet0/0,
changed state to administratively down
00:00:52: %LINK-5-CHANGED: Interface Serial0/0,
changed state to administratively down
00:00:52: %LINK-5-CHANGED: Interface Ethernet0/1,
changed state to administratively down
00:00:52: %LINK-5-CHANGED: Interface Serial0/1,
changed state to administratively down
00:00:53: %LINEPROTO-5-UPDOWN: Line protocol on Interface Ethernet0/0,
changed state to down
00:00:53: %LINEPROTO-5-UPDOWN: Line protocol on Interface Ethernet0/1,
changed state to down
Router>
Router>enable
Router#copy startup-config running-config
Destination filename [running-config]?
1324 bytes copied in 2.35 secs (662 bytes/sec)
Router#
00:01:24: %LINEPROTO-5-UPDOWN: Line protocol on Interface BRI0/0:1,
changed state to down
00:01:24: %LINEPROTO-5-UPDOWN: Line protocol on Interface BRI0/0:2,
changed state to down
Router#configure terminal
Enter configuration commands, one per line. End with CNTL/Z.
Router(config)#enable secret < password >
Router(config)#^Z
00:01:54: %SYS-5-CONFIG_I: Configured from console by console
Router#show ip interface brief

Interface   IP-Address        OK?  Method     Status                   Protocol
Ethernet0/0 10.200.40.37      YES  TFTP       administratively down    down
Serial0/0   unassigned        YES  TFTP       administratively down    down
BRI0/0      193.251.121.157   YES  unset      administratively down    down
BRI0/0:1    unassigned        YES  unset      administratively down    down
BRI0/0:2    unassigned        YES  unset      administratively down    down
Ethernet0/1 unassigned        YES  TFTP       administratively down    down
Serial0/1   unassigned        YES  TFTP       administratively down    down
Loopback0   193.251.121.157   YES  TFTP       up                       up
Router#configure terminal
Enter configuration commands, one per line. End with CNTL/Z.
Router(config)#interface Ethernet0/0
Router(config-if)#no shutdown
Router(config-if)#
00:02:14: %LINK-3-UPDOWN: Interface Ethernet0/0, changed state to up
00:02:15: %LINEPROTO-5-UPDOWN: Line protocol on Interface Ethernet0/0,
changed state to up
Router(config-if)#interface BRI0/0
Router(config-if)#no shutdown
Router(config-if)#
00:02:26: %LINK-3-UPDOWN: Interface BRI0/0:1, changed state to down
00:02:26: %LINK-3-UPDOWN: Interface BRI0/0:2, changed state to down
00:02:26: %LINK-3-UPDOWN: Interface BRI0/0, changed state to up
00:02:115964116991: %ISDN-6-LAYER2UP: Layer 2 for Interface BR0/0,
TEI 68 changed to up
Router(config-if)#^Z
Router#
00:02:35: %SYS-5-CONFIG_I: Configured from console by console
Router#copy running-config startup-config
Destination filename [startup-config]?
Building configuration...
[OK]
Router#show version
Cisco Internetwork Operating System Software
IOS (tm) C2600 Software (C2600-IS-M), Version 12.0(7)T, RELEASE SOFTWARE (fc2)
Copyright (c) 1986-1999 by cisco Systems, Inc.
Compiled Tue 07-Dec-99 02:21 by phanguye
Image text-base: 0x80008088, data-base: 0x80C524F8

ROM: System Bootstrap, Version 11.3(2)XA4, RELEASE SOFTWARE (fc1)

Router uptime is 3 minutes
System returned to ROM by abort at PC 0x802D0B60
System image file is "flash:c2600-is-mz.120-7.T"

cisco 2611 (MPC860) processor (revision 0x202)
with 26624K/6144K bytes of memory.
Processor board ID JAB031202NK (3878188963)
M860 processor: part number 0, mask 49
Bridging software.
X.25 software, Version 3.0.0.
Basic Rate ISDN software, Version 1.1.
2 Ethernet/IEEE 802.3 interface(s)
2 Serial(sync/async) network interface(s)
1 ISDN Basic Rate interface(s)
32K bytes of non-volatile configuration memory.
8192K bytes of processor board System flash partition 1 (Read/Write)
8192K bytes of processor board System flash partition 2 (Read/Write)

Configuration register is 0x2142

Router#configure terminal
Enter configuration commands, one per line. End with CNTL/Z.
Router(config)#config-register 0x2102
Router(config)#^Z
00:03:20: %SYS-5-CONFIG_I: Configured from console by console

Router#show version
Cisco Internetwork Operating System Software
IOS (tm) C2600 Software (C2600-IS-M), Version 12.0(7)T, RELEASE SOFTWARE (fc2)
Copyright (c) 1986-1999 by cisco Systems, Inc.
Compiled Tue 07-Dec-99 02:21 by phanguye
Image text-base: 0x80008088, data-base: 0x80C524F8

ROM: System Bootstrap, Version 11.3(2)XA4, RELEASE SOFTWARE (fc1)

Router uptime is 3 minutes
System returned to ROM by abort at PC 0x802D0B60
System image file is "flash:c2600-is-mz.120-7.T"

cisco 2611 (MPC860) processor (revision 0x202)
with 26624K/6144K bytes of memory.
Processor board ID JAB031202NK (3878188963)
M860 processor: part number 0, mask 49
Bridging software.
X.25 software, Version 3.0.0.
Basic Rate ISDN software, Version 1.1.

2 Ethernet/IEEE 802.3 interface(s)
2 Serial(sync/async) network interface(s)
1 ISDN Basic Rate interface(s)
32K bytes of non-volatile configuration memory.
8192K bytes of processor board System flash partition 1 (Read/Write)
8192K bytes of processor board System flash partition 2 (Read/Write)

Configuration register is 0x2142 (will be 0x2102 at next reload)

Router#

Thankfully, with a few programs and a bit of time spent on the front end, it can all be magically done for you.

I’ll be doing all of this on Ubuntu 10.04, as that’s my server operating system of choice. If you want to build this setup on a different system, your mileage may vary. Just be sure to check the individual requirements of each package to ensure that they’ll all work correctly (i.e. HellaVCR needs Apache to work).

Prerequisites:

1. A usenet provider like Giganews or Astraweb. (If you’re an Internode user, you have free access to Astraweb)
2. SABnzbd+, a newsreader client
3. HellaVCR, a download automator
4. an account at Newzbin or NZBmatrix, for searching and downloading NZBs.

Step 1: Install SABnzbd+

There’s a version of SABnzbd+ within the standard Ubuntu 10 repositories which is known as sabnzbdplus, but that’s generally a few versions old. If you prefer to stick with the latest and greatest, follow these steps:

Add a new entry to your apt sources.list

echo "deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/jcfp/ppa/ubuntu $(lsb_release -c -s) 
main" | sudo tee -a /etc/apt/sources.list

And its associated GPG key

sudo apt-key adv --keyserver hkp://keyserver.ubuntu.com:11371 --recv-keys 
0x98703123E0F52B2BE16D586EF13930B14BB9F05F

Update to check for new packages

sudo apt-get update

Install SABnzbd+ as well as its requirements

sudo aptitude --with-recommends install sabnzbdplus

Start the program with

sabnzbdplus

Step 2: Configuring SABnzbd+

There are more options in SABnzbd+ than you can shake a stick at, like automatic sorting, scheduling download times (so they marry up with your peak/off-peak times) and so on. I’ll cover the major bits you’ll need to get your download system off the ground, and you can poke about from there to see what else you want to change.

Config>General.

Change the SABnzbd username and password if you want to lock down the web interface. Handy if you plan on allowing access remotely and don’t want nosy people getting in and seeing what you’re downloading.

Take a copy of the API Key. We’ll need it for HellaVCR.

Config>Folders

Set up the folders where you want your incomplete and complete files to be stored.

Config>Servers

Enter the details of your Usenet provider and press “Add Server.”

Config>Scheduling

If desired, SABnzbd+ can start and stop downloads at certain times. Add pause and resume times to create a schedule.

Config>Email

Set up email notification so you’ll be alerted when a download completes, if desired.

Config>Index Sites

Without this, you won’t be able to download any NZBs, and the whole shebang will stop working. Fill in your Newzbin username and password or NzbMatrix username and API key.

Config>Sorting

Here you can define how SABnzbd+ sorts and renames your downloads once they’re finished. This means that you’re not lumbered with the horrible naming convention that the uploader chose to use when encoding the files. Personally I prefer the following:

%sn/Season %0s/%sn - %0sx%0e - %en.%ext

Which translates to: /tank/sab/complete/Show Name/Season 01/Show Name – 01×05 – Episode Name.avi

Step 3: Install Apache

Download and install Apache with apt

sudo apt-get install apache2

Wow, that was tough. I think I need a rest.

Step 4: Install HellaVCR.

You’ll need a couple of bits and pieces before HellaVCR will work correctly:

sudo apt-get install php5-curl php5-xmlrpc

and you’ll need to restart apache so they take effect

sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 restart

Then download HellaVCR from http://code.google.com/p/hellavcr/ and extract it to your preferred folder. I have mine in /var/www/hellavcr/, but you might prefer to put yours elsewhere.

Step 5: Configure HellaVCR.

TV.xml and the posters directories need to be writable by the system, so use chmod:

chmod -R 0666 /var/www/hellavcr/posters
chmod 0666 /var/www/hellavcr/tv.xml

Then fire up your favourite text editor (nano, vim, gedit, etc), open hellavcr.config.php and change the following fields:

‘xml_tv’ => change to a direct path, e.g. /var/www/hellavcr/tv.xml

‘nzb_site’ => change to newzbin or nzbmatrix, depending on which you’re using.

‘nzb_handler’ => change to sabnzbd

‘sabnzbd_server’ => set to localhost, or the IP address of your SABnzbd if it’s on a different computer

‘sabnzbd_port’ => leave as 8080

‘sabnzbd_apikey’ => paste in the API key you got from SABnzbd+ earlier

‘sabnzbd_username’ => the username you entered in SABnzbd+ earlier

‘sabnzbd_password’ => same again

Step 6: Add some TV shows.

Browse to http://localhost/hellavcr/ and you should find the main screen of HellaVCR. Click “Add Show” and follow the prompts, to create a show entry. This show will automatically be checked on TVRage.com and your NZB site of choice to download new episodes.

Once it’s set up, you can fire off a HellaVCR scan manually by browsing to the folder where HellaVCR is installed and typing the following:

sudo php hellavcr.php

You’ll see hellavcr parse through each show and check for updates. If there are any, they’ll automagically be sent to SABnzbd+, where they’ll either download immediately or when your next scheduled download time is.

Step 7: Automate the process.

The last thing to create is a way for HellaVCR to scan every fifteen minutes or so, ensuring that you’re totally up to date with what’s going on. Open up your text editor and create a new file at /var/www/hellavcr/hella.cron with the following info:

*/15 * * * * /usr/bin/php /var/www/hellavcr.php >>/var/log/hellavcr.log

and add it to your crontab:

sudo crontab /var/www/hellavcr/hella.cron

This cron will then execute a HellaVCR scan once every fifteen minutes and drop the output into /var/log/hellavcr.log. If you want to change the times so the scan happens less or more often, read man crontab.

Bonus Step: Twitter Integration.

While there’s email integration in SABnzbd+, I prefer to receive a tweet when something of importance happens. Set up a second twitter account and lock it so that nobody but you can see the twitter stream – after all, we don’t want any nosy people knowing what we’re downloading. For the purposes of this demonstration, the twitter account will be @loldownload

First, make sure that php-curl is installed

aptitude install php5-curl curl

Tweet when a HellaVCR scan is complete.

Instead of setting up a raw cron to run php hellavcr.php, create a script to perform this task and then tweet when finished:

#!/bin/bash
cd /var/www/hellavcr/
php hellavcr.php > hella.log
curl -u loldownload:password -d status="@yourname HellaVCR Scan Complete" 

http://twitter.com/statuses/update.xml

Make the script executable

chmod +x hellatweet.sh

Once cronned, it’ll send a mention to you when it performs a scan. This could be annoying if you scan every fifteen minutes, though.

Tweet when a show is scheduled in for download.

Edit /var/www/hellavcr/hellavcr.php

Set ‘twitter’ to true. Set ‘twitter_username’ to ‘loldownload’ and ‘twitter_password’ to whatever your loldownload password is.

Tweet when a download completes.

In SABnzbd+, go to Config>Folders and make note of the Post-Processing Scripts Folder. If there isn’t one there by default, create a folder somewhere in your SAB area and enter it here.

In the script folder, create a new bash script to automatically send a tweet when a download completes.

# nano tweet.sh

#!/bin/bash
echo "- Tweet, Tweet!"
curl -u loldownload:password -d status="@yourname Just finished download
ing $3" http://twitter.com/statuses/update.xml

Save the file and make it writable

chmod +x tweet.sh

Finally, tell SABnzbd+ that it should assign this as the default script when it queues a file so it’ll automatically tweet at the end of each download.

In SABnzbd+ go to Config>Switches. Choose your script in the dropbox marked Default User Script. You should probably also set the default post-processing to +Delete, and the priority to Normal.

Before you start, though, I have to point out that this is beta software,  so don’t upgrade if you’re worried about it breaking your phone. It’s also a developer build, so you technically shouldn’t be doing it unless you’re a developer, and while your UDID shouldn’t be checked, Apple may still get shirty that you’ve used a prerelease.

If in doubt, wait a week for the real 4.1 to release for reals.

Step 1: Download some stuff.

• Upgrade iTunes to version 10.
• Download the correct version of iOS 4.1 GM for your iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS, iPhone 3G, iPod Touch 3G or iPod Touch 2G.

Step 2: Put your iDevice into DFU mode.

You need to put your iDevice in DFU (restore) mode to make the process work smoothly. Follow the steps on the video below:

Step 3: Restore your iDevice with 4.1.

• Your iTunes should now pop up an alert to say that it’s detected a phone in recovery mode.
• Press Ok to clear the error.
• Click on your iPhone in the side bar of iTunes.
• Hold Shift (for Windows) or Opt (for Mac) and click the restore button.
• A prompt will appear asking where your firmware is.
• Select the file you downloaded earlier and press Ok.
• Your iPhone will now restore the older firmware and will reboot afterwards.

Step 4: Restore a backup.

iTunes is now smart enough to know that when you select to restore a backup of your iDevice, you don’t just want to restore the settings and leave everything else out. It’ll go through and restore all the apps, music and photos you had last time you backed up.

Step 5: Enjoy iOS 4.1 GM!

For those wondering, my iPhone 3G seems much snappier than it did on 4.0.x – almost as quick as 3.1.3, so the upgrade was worth it as I get to use all my apps again (a lot of developers don’t seem to care about anyone using an earlier version) and I don’t have a sluggish phone which is frustrating to use. Win win!

After a few weeks of frustration, I decided to take the plunge and roll my iPhone 3G back to iOS (or iPhone OS, as it was known at the time) 3.1.3. The speed difference was immediately noticeable, with every app performing much quicker, with load times improving and seamless music no matter what I was doing in the foreground (even PvZ can’t cause audio skips).

The process for rolling back your iPhone from iOS 4.0 or 4.0.1 to 3.1.3 is pretty simple, and you should be done in a half an hour or so.

Step 1: Get the Prerequisites.

Download these two files and put them somewhere easy to find, like on your desktop.

• iPhone OS 3.1.3 for your iPhone 3G or iPhone 3Gs
• RecBoot, a device for pulling your newly restored phone out of recovery mode. As a Windows user, I used this one, which worked perfectly.

Step 2: Put your iPhone into DFU mode

Time to put our phone into DFU (device firmware update) mode so we can restore the new operating system onto it.

The simplest way by following this video:

Step 3: Restore your iPhone with an older firmware.

Ah, the fun part! formatting that flash memory and loading it with some tasty old-school firmware.

• Your iTunes should now pop up an alert to say that it’s detected a phone in recovery mode.
• Press Ok to clear the error.
• Click on your iPhone in the side bar of iTunes.
• Hold Shift (for Windows) or Opt (for Mac) and click the restore button.
• A prompt will appear asking where your firmware is.
• Select the file you downloaded earlier and press Ok.
• Your iPhone will now restore the older firmware and will reboot afterwards.

Step 4: An error appears!

Once the restore has finished, an error will appear which says that the phone could not be restored, and your phone will display the “connect to iTunes” screen. Don’t panic – this is perfectly normal, and exactly why we downloaded RecBoot earlier. Essentially your phone is getting “stuck” in DFU mode. We just need to use RecBoot to give it a helping hand.

• Fire up RecBoot and click “Exit Recovery Mode.”

Step 5: Restore your backup.

If you made a backup of your phone before you rolled it up to 4.0, then you should still be able to restore all your settings, applications and so on. If you haven’t got a pre-4 backup, then you’re unfortunately stuck. You’ll have to set your device up as a new phone and restore everything manually. Sorry.

Step 6: Enjoy iPhone OS 3.1.3!

user@computer:~$ sudo awk 'gsub(".*sshd.*Failed password for (invalid user )?", "") {print $1}' /var/log/auth.log* | sort | uniq -c | sort -rn | head -5
 11 root
 9 admin
 6 sales
 2 user

So how do you secure your ssh server so that inquisitive people across the globe can’t access and harm your sensitive data?

Before we start.

Most of the settings we discuss exist in the SSH config file, /etc/ssh/sshd_config. To edit this file, use your favourite text editor (gedit, nano, vi, whatever) as root, as you’ll need elevated rights to save the file afterwards.

When you’ve made a change and want to apply it, restart the SSH server by performing the following command as root (or via sudo):

/etc/init.d/ssh restart

Finally, if you’re using this guide to secure a remote server, make a backup of sshd_config before you start, and keep your active SSH connection running when you do a restart. Perform your tests with a new SSH session, and if you can’t connect, go back to your original session, restore the backup of your sshd_config and restart the server to roll things back.

Step 1: Install SSH (if you haven’t already).

For Ubuntu or Debian:

sudo apt-get install openssh-server

Fedora should already have installed the required packages, so you should only need to do the following:

/sbin/service sshd status

to see if the service is running. If it’s not, then you can do this:

/sbin/service sshd start

to start it, and

su -
yum install openssh-server

to install it.

If you’re using a different Linux distro or a flavour of Unix, then jump on to google and type “install ssh server ” to hunt down a howto.

Step 2: Choose a strong password.

A strong password is crucial for every account on your machine – Especially root, as it’s the most commonly attacked account. You can test the strength of passwords on your system with John the Ripper – if it doesn’t take long to crack, then it’s time to change your passwords to something stronger.

Your password should:

• Be at least 8 characters long. 12 is better.
• Contain upper and lower case letters
• Contain at least one number
• Contain at least one special character
• Still be easy for you to remember

A strong, yet easy to remember password would be:

MyP@55w0rD42

To change your password, do the following from a terminal:

user@computer:~$ passwd
Changing password for user.
(current) UNIX password:
Enter new UNIX password:
Retype new UNIX password:
passwd: password updated successfully

Step 3: Restrict logins to protocol 2.

The older SSH protocol 1 is pretty insecure. Restrict connections to protocol 2:

#Protocol 2,1
Protocol 2

Step 4: Don’t use port 22.

Port 22, the default TCP/IP port for SSH, is the first place script kiddies are going to look when they’re attacking your system. It’s best to use a completely different port, either by redirecting port 2222 (for example) on your firewall, or by editing your sshd_config file as follows:

#Port 22
Port 2222

Step 5: Restrict which users can connect.

By default, your SSH server will allow every user on your computer to connect remotely. We can restrict who can connect in three ways.

First, we can disable the root account:

#PermitRootLogin yes
PermitRootLogin no

Second, we can define a white list of users:

AllowUsers fred bob jane

Third, we can restrict access to only a group of users:

AllowGroups sshaccess

and then add the required users to the sshaccess group like this:

user@computer:~$ sudo usermod -a -G sshaccess

Step 6: Restrict which parts of the ‘net can access your machine.

If you know that you’re only going to connect from work (let’s say it’s 210.215.55.243), as well as from other computers in your home network (assuming you’re using the 192.168.0.0/24 subnet), you can block all other IP addresses from accessing your SSH server. To do so, add the following lines to /etc/hosts.allow

sshd: 192.168.0.0/255.255.255.0
sshd: 210.215.55.243

So now the entire 192.168.0.0 subnet can connect, as well as your work IP address. You can then block everyone else from accessing by adding the following line to /etc/hosts.deny

sshd: ALL

Step 7: Make it harder for attackers to get a foothold.

By default, unauthenticated sessions (connections where the server is waiting for a username or password) allow ten connections to your machine, all of which will have two minutes to authenticate before the system boots them out. This means that attackers can potentially have a few attacks running concurrently.

You can cut these options by adding the following lines to your sshd_config:

#LoginGraceTime 2m
LoginGraceTime 30

#MaxStartups 10
MaxStartups 3

Thirty seconds is plenty of time to enter your username and password. The second section reduces maximum login attempts to 3 (which can increased if you have lots of people logging in). You can also add some extra options to MaxStartups to force the system to drop extra connection attempts at random – check man sshd_config for more info.

Step 8: Require keys.

Part of the SSH suite is public/private keys, where the server has a public key and your local workstation has a private key. Without the correct private key, connections will be rejected.

Step 8.1: Create a private key on your local Linux workstation.

user@local:~$ mkdir ~/.ssh
user@local:~$ ssh-keygen -t rsa

Enter a passphrase to further secure the key, or you can press enter if you don’t want one.

This will create two new files in the .ssh directory: id_rsa and id_rsa.pub, where the former is your private key and the latter is the one which you need to put on your remote server:

user@local:~$ scp ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub user@remote:/home/user/.ssh/authorized_keys

Then log in to your remote server and make sure that you’re the only one who can access it:

user@remote:~$ chown user:user /home/user/.ssh
user@remote:~$ chmod 700 /home/user/.ssh
user@remote:~$ chmod 600 /home/user/.ssh/authorized_keys

Step 8.2: Create a private key on your local Windows workstation.

PuTTY is my SSH client of choice, as it’s simple, lightweight, and offers a really complete feature set. It even includes a serial option, which is handy for logging in to routers, switches and phone systems, which I tend to do regularly. When you get a copy of PuTTY, you can also download PuTTYgen – an RSA key generator for creating a public/private key pair.

Launch PuTTYgen, Change the number of generated bits to 2048 and press Generate:

Move your mouse cursor around in the blank area to create some random information, which is used to generate the cipher:

Once the generation has finished, you’ll see a window like this:

The top field is your new public key, which we’ll copy over to the server in a moment. Moving down we have the key fingerprint, a comment for the key, and the key passphrase. If you want to have a passphrase in addition to the key, enter it here. If not, leave it blank.

Next, press “Save public key” and “Save private key” and save the two files to a safe place on your local workstation.

Next, we have to copy the public key over to our remote computer. Highlight the content in the top section and copy it to your clipboard:

SSH into your remote computer and paste the key into ~/.ssh/authorized_keys with your favourite text editor, then restrict the file so it can only be accessed by you:

user@remote:~$ chown -R user:user /home/user/.ssh
user@remote:~$ chmod 700 /home/user/.ssh
user@remote:~$ chmod 600 /home/user/.ssh/authorized_keys

Finally, tell PuTTY to use the private key any time you’re connecting to the server by editing the entry in your hosts list:

Step 8.3: Disable password logins on your server’s SSH config.

Again, keep a connection active after you’ve done this in case you’ve messed something up, because from this point on you won’t be able to access your server without your public/private key pair.

Add the following line to your sshd_config file:

PasswordAuthentication no

Once that’s done and you restart your server, anyone who doesn’t have their keys set up will simply be rejected outright.

user@othermachine:~$ ssh remote
Permission denied (publickey).

Your SSH server is vulnerable unless properly secured. Make a backup of your ssh config file:

sudo cp /etc/ssh/sshd_config /etc/ssh/sshd_config.old

Then save the following as /etc/ssh/sshd_config and restart your sshd service:

# Secure SSHD Config

# Listen on a different port
Port 2222

# Only accept more secure protocol
Protocol 2

# Don't accept root logins
PermitRootLogin no

# If you want to use secure keys instead of passwords
# change the following to no
PasswordAuthentication yes

# Don't allow your users to have empty passwords
PermitEmptyPasswords no

# Don't allow X11 Forwarding
X11Forwarding no

# Don't bother looking up remote DNS entries
UseDNS no

# Don't use Pluggable Authentication Module
# we'll use passwords or keys instead
UsePAM no

# Add your username below so only you can connect
# Then uncomment the line
# AllowUsers YOURNAME