Check Office License Status

To check the Office license status in the PC, we can run the ospp.vbs script to check the status of the Office 365 ProPlus subscription:

a) Determine whether the computer has the 64-bit or 32-bit version of Office installed. To do this, open an Office 2013 application, choose File > Account, and then choose About. The bit is displayed next to the application version.

b) Depending on the version of Office, open a command prompt (run cmd).
For 64-bit Windows with 32-bit Office, please type cd C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\Office15, press ENTER.

c) For 32-bit Windows, or 64-bit Office with 64-bit Windows, please type cd C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office15.

Then type cscript ospp.vbs /dstatus, press ENTER

FTP server Configuration - Huawei router

Hey!

1. Login to CPE through 192.168.1.1 through the browser.
2. Plugin the USB.
3. Go to "USB Management"
4. Go to the "Server Setting". If the USB is working fine it will show there. Click on submit button.
5. Go to "User Setting". Create a new user by clicking "Add item". Fill in all the details mentioned and make it "Read/Write" if you need to do that mode of operation. The directory will create a directory which can be accessed through FTP. Fill all details and submit it.
6. Run "cmd" command from the windows.
7. Run "FTP 192.168.1.1".
8. Give the user name and password based on the input you gave in step (5) above.
9. You can use all ftp command like mkdir to create new folder, put to copy something to that folder and so on.

Now if you want to copy files / folders into the FTP server, just open 'Computer' or just about any  icon for file explorer.  Key in ftp://192.168.1.1 into the address tab. Windows Explorer will ask you for user name and password. After providing this information, it will show you the directory.

Now you can copy files / folders into this directory and it can be accessed from within your network on as number of devices that can connect on to your router.

The advantage is that you can use your router as a dedicated FTP server for commonly accessed files, even if you are not using the router for internet anymore. Makes the router a bit more useful doesn't it? :D

Equalizer Setting for Samsung Galaxy S5, S4, Note 3 etc

Hey!

I don't know if you are crazy about bass like me when you listen to music. And I don't know if the music seems right for you when the using the music square and all, I personally didn't feel all that good.

So I decided to adjust the 7 band equalizer. I tried my best to balance it between bass and clarity and field tested it on a couple of songs I had and it seemed to be ok.

Here you go! Leave the Bass Checked on and place the bars as shown.

1) 60hz - (SUB BASS) If you still need more bass increase the 60hz bar (first one). Note that if you increase beyond this, the total volume willl reduce. That's what equalizers do, they attenuate to keep the sound distortion free.
2) 150hz - If you want to give a little more depth to each beat. Reduce it to -10db and you'll see that the bass's are dumb.
3) 400 Hz - boxiness
4) 1.1 KHz - punch, fatness, impact
5) 3.1 KHz - edge, clarity, harshness, defines timbre
6) 8 KHz - brightness, presence
7) 15 KHz - adding will give sparkle, treble, bring out details - cutting will smooth out harshness and darken the mix

With the above adjustment, I've made sure that the listening experience is 'bassy' for almost any volume, even as low as 5. (You can still feel the bass).

Hope this helps! Been testing different settings since morning and I like this the best. Unfortunately, you can save it as a custom setting. If you click on auto or anywhere on the music square, this setting will change and you have to manually adjust it again. :( That's where screenshots come in handy!

Happy Equalizing! :)

DNS can't resolve gmail.com but can resolve everything else?

Hey all!

I had this annoying experience this week on our office network. Gmail would not work on any of the PC's connected in the office domain via the Domain Controller. Before I go on, here is a sketch of the network.


The network consists of a Domain Controller (DC) running Microsoft Windows Server 2008 and 16 other client computers running windows 7, connected via a switch. A cisco ADSL modem is connected to the switch for the internet.

The DC has IP 192.168.50.1 and the DC is also the DNS server for the network.

Since a week, all of a sudden, gmail is not working properly on the network. It opens sometimes, doesn't work and sometimes fails to load. Ping gmail.com works sometimes, sometimes sends 2 packets and sometimes doesn't work at all.

When I change the IP configuration of the client/DC and make the Primary DNS server to the IP of the ISP, gmail works fine. So that means gmail is fine and the ISP DNS is fine... I concluded that something is wrong with the DC which is why gmail is not opening through the DC DNS. But can't figure out what.

Well, I still don't know what went wrong but adding a forwarding address for gmail solved the problem. 

For this, you will need the IP of the ISP (Internet Service Provider). 

Here's how it is done. 

1) Open DNS in Administrative Tools

2) Right Click your Domain 

3) Configure a DNS Server

4) Create a Forward Lookup Zone

5) Select "This server maintains the zone"

6) Type in the Zone Name. In this case gmail.com

7) Allow Only Secure Dynamic Updates

8) Select "Yes, it should forward queries to DNS servers with the following IP addresses"

9) Below - Key in the IP address of the ISP and click next to finish

In effect what we are doing is that, we ask the browser to contact the ISP's DNS server directly when it wants to access gmail, thereby by-passing the DC in the office. You could do this for just about any website which is having the above problem. If anyone knows why such an issue could happen at all, out of the blue, do share your ideas in the comments. 

Thanks for reading and hope I helped!

Good luck and God Speed! :) 

Contents page for blogger

Hey guys! If you want a nice contents page for blogger, open a blog new blank page (not new post) Click on "HTML" and then copy and paste the following code.


<div dir="ltr" style="text-align:left; "trbidi="on">
<script src="http://techieopus.googlecode.com/files/blogger_toc.js"type="text/javascript"></script>
<script src="http://XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX/feeds/posts/default?max-results=9999&amp;alt=json-in-script&amp;callback=loadtoc"
type="text/javascript"></script></div>

Replace the XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX with your blog address. ENJOY! Here's where I got this! http://www.1bloggin.co.vu/2013/12/how-to-create-table-of-contents-or.html

Configuring the Buffalo Router WHR-HP-G300N as a repeater through wireless

Hey guys. As far as I know, the new firmware from DD-WRT removes the option as repeater from the settings and calls it the WDS Station.

Here I was trying to configure this thing as a repeater but wouldn't accept the normal setup. It just kept connecting and disconnecting. Also, I'd like to mention that the router I was using was that of Huawei, so maybe it wasn't compatible with Buffalo or something. I don't know. TRY THESE STEPS ONLY IF EVERYTHING ELSE YOU HAVE TRIED FAILED.

So here's what I did.

1) First the router. Get it's IP address. This should be easy. If you are connected to the router through LAN or WIFI, just to command prompt (Press Ctrl and R and type cmd). In the command prompt type ipconfig. That should give you the IP address of your pc and other stuff. Look for default gateway. If you are connected directly to your router through LAN or Wifi, the default gateway is your router and that should be your router's address. In my case it was 192.168.100.1

2) Now that we know the router address, let's go the Buffalo Router WHR-HP-G300N and see what's happening here. Reset the device first (if you have played with it in the past). There's a small reset button under the device, hold it for few seconds till the "Diag" lights up.

3) Wait for sometime and then connect the device via the ethernet cable to your pc. Remember to connected it to the LAN port and not the WAN port. The WAN port here is the port that's blue in color. Plug it into any of the 4 LAN ports.

4) Wait for a few minutes while the LAN icon in your system tray stops turning and shows an exclamation mark (since there is no internet). Also make sure your wifi is switched off. Now open a browser and Type 192.168.11.1 in the address bar. If you have folowed everything till now, it should open a admin page and asking for username and password and confirm password. Go Ahead and key in the username and password of your choice.

5) Now don't go through the auto setup. Go directly to the Basic Settings. Make sure the Buffalo ROUTER switch on the router is set to ON. Now set the WAN Connection to DHCP. Give the router a name if you want. Go down and click SAVE. (Do not press Apply all settings now - Keep it for later since it requires modem restart).

6) Router IP address: Here, leave the IP address of the router as 192.168.11.1 unless your main internet router's IP is in that range. In my case, my main router's IP is 192.168.100.1 and it wouldn't conflict with this at all. Just make sure the subnet (second last number) is different. 11 and 100 are evidently different in this case.

7)  Subnet Mask will be 255.255.255.0 as it comes when clicked. Proceed to enter the Gateway as 192.168.100.1 (this is the main internet router IP) and also enter the DNS as 192.168.100.1.

8) Now click on Save (Not Apply all settings)

9) Go down, let the DHCP be on. It will show the IP as 192.168.11. ___ You can key in the any number except for 1 which is already your buffalo router address. DHCP users is 50 by default, leave it as is. This means the IP addresses for your devices will range from 192.168.11.100 to 192.168.11.149.

10) Let me explain. A lot of posts before and logic would have told you to continue setting this up as  DHCP forwarder so that the main internet router only handles the routing process and is the only one assigning IP addresses. However, I tried this several times and it did not work, even if DHCP forwarding was allowed on the main internet router. For some reason the main internet router was not able to provide IP's to the devices that connected via the buffalo repeater. This was maybe coz of some compatibility issue or something. So I did some background work and found this setting to work, which is, to allow the DHCP of the buffalo router to run. So that the buffalo router would automatically be able to assign IP addresses to the devices that connected to it. The only thing to be taken care of is that the subnet is different, so that each modem is free to give it's own IP's and never conflict.

11) Ok. Now that we are done here, click on SAVE. Then click on the wireless tab. Here, in Physical connection select the connection mode as WDS Station (Wireless Distribution Station) and set the SSID to be the same as that of the main internet router. (Suppose your wifi name was IronMan, put the same name here in SSID). :)

12) If you don't find a virtual network setting below this, click on Add. Otherwise select WDS AP below and enter the same SSID there too. Click SAVE.

14) Proceed to the next tab as Wireless Security. Go ahead with entering the password. Let the security be as TKIP+AES for the physical. Enter the same password as you do for the main internet router. Do the same thing for the Virtual, use AES for it and the same password.

15) Let me explain about the physical. Here the physical is about connected to the main internet router and the virtual is the configuration for the devices that connect to it.

16) Now click "Apply all settings"

17) Wait for the modem to boot. And connect your device to the buffalo router. This should now be showing as the same wifi name as your main internet router. The only thing is if you see the IP addresses, you will find that the one's connected to the Buffalo router are using the IP 192.168.11.100 and so on... While the devices connected to the main internet router is 192.168.100.2 and so on. (based on my examples here).

18) When you walk out of the range of one, your device will automatically connect to this router and likewise.

If you get the DHCP forwarding of the modem working, then you can use that so that there is only one set of IP's. But like I said, some devices are not compatible with the buffalo router or vice versa. In such cases, do what I have explained here. You can at least get the connectivity running and have a single wifi connection around the house.

Good luck! :) And don't forget to post success stories, ideas that I have missed, suggestions, complaints or advice. Anything! Thanks for reading! :)