The Net Gate

Using Firefox 3.0.x to connect to the Netgear Wireless Accesspoint WPN802v2, may fail due to an invalid security certificate error (see picture below):

Alert: <ip address> uses an ivalid security certificate

When this error occurs, you won’t be able to connect to the admin interface of the Wireless Accesspoint. I managed to fix this by creating a security exception in the Firefox Certificate Manager:

Select in ‘Tools‘ from the Menu bar, ‘Options’:

Select in the ‘Advanced’ tab – the ‘Encryption’ tab. Next, select ‘View Certificates‘.

In the Certificates Manager, select the ‘Servers’ tab. Next, select ‘Add Exception‘

Enter the IP Address of the Wireless Access Point in the ‘Add Security Exception’ window and select the ‘Get Certificate‘ button.

The Certificate Status will be displayed.

Select ‘Confirm Security Exception‘ and exit the Certificate Manager.

You should now be able to logon the Admin interface.

Squeezebox iTunes integration

Squeezebox Server supports iTunes libraries and playlists. It can fully integrate the music library, without scanning the music folders.

To make this work correctly, enter the location of the iTunes library. You can do this by following these steps (make sure the Squeezebox Server is running):

1) Click on the Squeezebox Server icon in the system tray and choose ‘Open Web Control’

2) Click on the ‘Settings’ button (at the bottom right) of the Squeezebox Server Web Control page

This will open the Server Settings web page.

3) Click on the ‘iTunes’ tab and enter the iTunes library (library.xml) location

Then press the ‘Apply’ button to save the settings.

At the next scan the iTunes library and all playlists will become available on your Squeezebox. You can manually rescan the library under the ‘Basic Settings’ tab (Rescan Music Library).

Follow these steps to switch a Belgacom b-box router into bridge mode:

Connect to the router and logon to the Admin interface (http://192.168.1.1):

Before changing any of the b-box settings, make a backup (Maintenance, Configuration):

Before you proceed with the changes, be aware of the following impact:

after you have applied the changes below, the b-box router will behave as an adsl-modem only, it will not provide IP-addresses and will not logon to the ISP, these functions will need to be provided by the router that you attached to the b-box; services for Belgacom TV however, will continue to be provided through the b-box

To proceed with the changes, you can follow the steps below:

Select Advanced Settings, WAN, ATM PVC in the Menu

All ATM PVCs will be shown; select VC1 (the VC with the PPPoE protocol)

Select Disable from the Protocol pull-down menu

Save your settings:

Reboot the b-box.

Here is how a Belgian ADSL connection looks like:

this is the general schema starting with the telephone line

Use the ADSL-filter for each telephone connection !

Insert the filter between the telephone socket and the telephone, the fax or the answering machine (see picture 2 and 3 below).

Note that the telephone wiring uses RJ-11 connectors.

Check out the Belgian ADSL forum for information on ADSL providers.

RJ-11 Cable lay-out

The RJ-11 cable is used for your telephone connection. Very often, only two wires are used to connect you phone line.

Notice the difference between the RJ-11 here and the RJ-45, which is bigger.

RJ-11 connectors are used for your ADSL connection.

RJ-45 Cable lay-out

The RJ-45 cable is used for the Ethernet Unshielded Twisted Pair (UTP) wiring.

Notice the difference between the RJ-45 here and the RJ-11, which is smaller.

Squeezebox

This streamer offers superb playback audio quality on hi-fi systems. Besides support of iTunes playlists, it performs very well for Internet radio streams.

The Squeezebox Classic is a streamer with a Remote Control.

you need to setup an account to manage your Internet radio streams

Squeezebox Server is the software that you need to manage the music streams.

Squeezeslave is a lightweight Windows Player for the Squeezebox Server.

Load this programme to playback on a pc (typically on the pc where Squeezebox Server is running).

Control of the playback is through the browser interface of the Squeezebox Server:

This system works fine for me with iTunes 9 installed on a Windows XP (SP3) system. The Squeezebox is connected to my wi-fi router.

Optimize Firefox (3.0.x)

Firefox can be manually tweaked by typing ‘ about:config’ in the address bar and then modifying the values of the respective fields of the Firefox control panel (i.e. the page that is displayed).

However, the easier way is to use FireTune, a freeware tool that helps to fine tune network related settings of Firefox.

If that is not enough, then you may consider the Configuration Mania extension to tweak many of the advanced (and hidden) settings.

Disable or remove any unused or unnecessary plug-ins, extensions and add-ons.

To minize page load time, I recommend to install these extensions:

Flashblock (to control Flash animation)

PDF Download (to control PDF files)

While Firefox can be instaledl without (Windows) administration rights, you may encounter problems to install plug-ins. Here is some good advice to install the Flash Player plugin.

How to cleanup orphan itunes library entries.

iTunes libraries will flag orphan entries with an exclamation mark!

These entries can be cleaned in two ways:

A) Create a new library:

Start iTunes by holding the shift key (keep the shift key pressed, while you select and start iTunes). iTunes will prompt you to create a new library (or choose an existing one).

B) Use a 3rd party tool:

iTunes Library Updater is a free utility to synchronize the iTunes database with your media collection. I run it with the ‘Clean orphaned entries’ option only:

note that .NET Framework must be installed to run this programme

iTunes 9 – settings

These settings I have applied on my iTunes 9 software to get the best performance on my Windows system. Some of these tasks (like 1 and 2) may need to be re-run after an iTunes upgrade. This environment work fine for all my iPods (shuffle, nano and classic).

1) Remove the help executables in the windows startup file:

Run ‘msconfig’ and disable (untag) the two lines in the startup file:

2) Disable the Apple Mobile Device (since I do not have such a device)

Run ‘services.msc’ – stop the service and disable this service (right-click on the item and choose modify)

3) Reboot and start iTunes

On the top menu, select Edit, Preferences and review the settings in each of the tabs: