Stream your media anywhere
Jul 20, 2011 Tech
Firstly yes, it has been a while since i posted. i’ve been busy / lazy :p
anyways. I recently figured out how to stream my media anywhere, for example to my phone or another computer. this not only works for the local lan but for the external WAN (the internet) too.
the major bottleneck in the whole system is the upload bandwidth on the machine you will be streaming from. if you have a decent ISP with a good upload speed, there should be no problem.
what you will need:
windows 7 (or an OS you can easily install and configure a VPN server on)
J Rivers Media Centre 16
Gizmo android app from the market (or a suitable DLNA client for your phones OS)
Now I should mention that this is probably possible, and much easier to do with Windows Media Player 12, as streaming is built in to it, and windows 7, and streaming via the internet is most likely possible via linked live accounts. unfortunately this doesnt seem to be working for me, plus I cant find a suitable DLNA app for android that will play/transcode my media properly. the only downside to using the J Rivers media Centre 16 software is that it isnt free.
So the first step for getting this setup working is setting up the VPN connections. when a remote device such as a phone or a laptop is connected to the VPN server, it essentially acts like it is connected to the network directly, so all the resources available on the local network become available to the remote device too, tunneled via the VPN.
Windows 7 comes with a built in VPN server so you only need to follow the steps below to set it up. if your using an OS other than windows 7 such as XP. you will need to search for a VPN server and set that up according to the instructions you get with it.
Setting up the VPN
Instructions for setting up a VPN connection for incoming connections on windows 7:
1. First go to Control Panel and open Network and Sharing Center.
2. Click on Change adapter settings.
3. Press Alt+F to open the File menu and select New Incoming connection.
4. Select yur user account in the list. This will ensure that only those with access to your windows local machine account have access to your network via the VPN. (make sure you have a strong windows password!)
5. Select “Through the internet” and click next.
6. Choose the protocols you want to enable for this connection. Click on Allow access. If you dont know which ones to choose here, you can leave the default ones applied.
7. After you click next you will be informed of the PC name of the current PC, make sure you remember his so that you can confirm this is the computer your connecting to when you later connect from the remote device. Click Close.
After you close the dialog you will notice a new icon in your adaptor settings window, this is the VPN connection yu just setup, at the moment ther will be no connections to it. once you connected a remote device, it will show up in this window as one device connected. You can connect as many devices as you want to the VPN, as long as you take bandwidth into consideration, for example, if you have 4 devices connected remotely, each device will recieve less bandwidth compared to when only 2 devices are connected. this is because the bandwidth by default is shared between devices.
Now that you have the VPN server setup, its time to setup your remote devices, again if you have windows 7, it is built in so you dont need to download additional software. if your using a relatively new android device, VPN connectivity is also built in. To setup a VPN connection for an outgoing connection follow these steps:
1. First go to Control Panel and open Network and Sharing Center.
2. Click on the Set up a new connection or network button.
3. Select “Connect to a workplace” from the list then click on Next.
4. Select “Use my internet connection (VPN)”.
5. Type in your public IP address and your connection name under the Destination name field. to get your public IP address, you can go to www.ipfoo.com your ip address is a set of 4 numbers seperated by periods.
6. Enter a User name and password that has been granted access to the host computer, these are the username and password for your local machine account (the account you chose earlier when setting up the incoming VPN connection.)
Now that you have created the outgoing VPN connection, it is time to connect to it.
To do this you can either right-click on the Network icon in the system tray and select Network and Sharing Center or go to Control Panel and open Network and Sharing Center, and click on Connect to a network. The connect VPN Connection windows will appear, chose the VPN connection ou created and click connect.
important note:
if the VPN server your created at the start is connected to a router or another NAT device you will need to forward a port on your router to allow the VPN connection to work. you can find more information about forwarding ports on your own router from this website. http://portforward.com/ the port you need to forward is 1723. make sure you forward it to the correct internal IP address on your local network. you should be able to find this information in your routers web interface.
Setting up the Media ‘Server’.
now that we have the VPN connection working. its time to get our DLNA enabled library up and running. download and install J. Rivers Media Centre 16 from http://www.jriver.com/download.html (there is a 30 day trial if you want to see if you can get it working on your system first) install it on the same machine that the VPN server is setup on.
add your media/music libraries and wait for them to be indexed. I didn’t use the auto find indexing options.
once that is done, install a suitable DLNA player on your remote device, such as a laptop or mobile phone even. the client i use for my android phone is Gizmo, this is also made by the creators of J. Rivers Media Centre so they both work well together. you should be able to find it in the app market. to setup gizmo you need an access key which you can retrieve from the options menu in the J. Rivers Media Centre. the only downside to this app is the interface s slightly lacking in organisation, but this can be mostly fixed by changing some view options in the J. Rivers media centre.
now that your remote device is connected to the VPN, it is essentially connected to the same network. once you open your DLNA enabled media client/player. your library that you index on the server machine will show up in your library on your connected remote device automatically. this is due to the DLNA technology which is a way to automatically share your media with other DLNA devices in your local network. this technology has expanded to be included on TVs and big screens, computers, laptops, and portable media devices such as mobile phones and tablets.
my experiences with using this method of streaming media have worked well, apart from the first mentioned problem of upload bandwidth. I dont have a lot of it, which causes playback to be slow, or degrade network speed for the rest of the machine/other devices on the network. of course this problem is only in effect when streaming the media over the internet via the VPN.
if you want to stream media to any directly connected devices on your local network, you dont need to connect to the VPN server, as long as both devices are DLNA enabled and connected to the same network, your libraries should show up n both devices. because DLNA has features such as “play to” and “play from”, it allows you to use any of the enabled devices to play to or from any other enabled devices, so for example, you could browse your library on your computer from your tv or your mobile and play them on the big screen, or alternatively, browse via your computer and play it to your big screen / tv.
As an added extra, when using Gizmo and J. Rivers Media Centre, there is also the option of using Gizmo to control the media played to the PC from the PC, for example if your using your computer to play music and your working somewhere close by, you can use the app on your mobile to control the music without having to go to the pc each time your want to skip a track or pause etc.
Well thats all for now, as this is already a rather long post. Good luck! 
my sexy new multifunctional bootable autorunning switchblade, drive.
Dec 18, 2007 Tech
So ive had my 4gb u3 enabled cruzer micro (I may actually buy a cruzer titanium because the plastic case feels a bit thin on this one) usb flash drive for a while now, and id been planning to setup a number of things on it.
- an implementation of switchblade.
- a portable applications menu.
- a bootable version of winPE.
Ive just finished setting up all of these on my drive, and now it rocks
The implementation of switchblade is pretty good as its sets to run completly from the u3 partition so that any anti virus software that thinks its a virus cant delete any of the files as the u3 partition is basically an emulated cd rom drive and as such is read only. log files are saved the the flash partition of the drive but theyre hardly likely to be detected as viruses this autoruns in the background on the drive when i plug it in. no popup windows or anything, thanks to CHP.exe 
the options of this ‘payload’ are configurable from a configuration program that is kept on the root of the flash drive, which is handy. One improvement to this that i might consider looking into is packing some of the ‘detected’ files with a uPX packer or something similar this should make them less detectable by anti virus softwares.
Btw, for the uniformed, Switchblade is a set of applications and scripts setup in such a way that they run silently when the drive is plugged in, these scripts applications, rip & decrypt usernames and passwords for windows, IE, firefox, email accounts, IM accounts such as MSN/WML/IRC etc, /network usernames and passwords, wireless keys, internal and external ip addresses and probably a lot more. it also sets vnc up as well as a mail server that sends email thorugh a secure tunnel to a specified email address, the emails contain attachments of the files that are ripped from pendrive and usb drives that are plugged in after mine. yeah im nosey. there is an option rip the contents of the my documents folder to the pendrive too, but ive left that option disabled just incase the mydocuments folder turns out to be like 8gb and then a copy error shows up, that’d be hard to explain lol.
the portable apps menu doesnt run automatically, but thats because its contained in a portable truecrypt partition. when plugging the drive in, truecrypt will auto start up and ask me for a password to the partition, upon entering this password i have full access to a whole load of applications tyhat i use normally on my home pc (the whole encrypted truecrypt partition only takes up 512mb so theres penty of space) if i dont enter the password i can just use the drive as a normal storage drive if i dont need to access my applications. Im also using a forked version of the portable apps menu which gives a lot more functionality and flexibility in terms of menu organisation.
The drive is also formatted as FAT (yes just FAT) so that it can be set bootable, there is an installation of BartPE on the drive which boots when you plug the drive in. Unfortunatly my motherboard doesnt support USB Booting 
So i havent been able to test it, VMware doesnt give me much luck either, but it should work depending on if the motherboard supports it, hopefully more motherboards will start to support it soon. This brings me onto my next project which i will talk about in a bit.
Also on both the u3 volume and the flash partition there are custom autorun.inf files that define custom context menu items ahd control what the default action is on a double click of that drive. I always hated that “autorun” or “autoplay” because the default action when there was a CD or autorun USB stick in the drive. So ive changed those back to “open” which just opens the “Files” folder on the flash drive when you double click it. same for both partitions, except for the u3 partition where its the root of the drive. but you wont find much there as all the files have been hidden. (as in hidden from windows too, you cant access them from explorer or DOS.) the context menu entries include an option to run truecrypt and an option to dismount all truecrypt partitions, as well as the autorun option which i cant seem to get rid of but that doesnt bother me really, and then theres the other uselless options that windows adss like explore and search. the autorun files also define the icon and the label for each drive, the icons are kept on the flash part so they dont default to windows icons, bu you know what windows is like, it still refuses to set my virtual drives to the same icon as my actual optical drive but never mind. the icons arnt a big deal tbh, just a nice feature.
Some more techincal details of how the drive is setup:
I used UltraISO to create a custom ISO to be ‘flashed’ to my u3 partition using universal customiser, my custom ISO is about 9.30MB so the original sandisk installer wont work, i think it can only handle an ISO thats around 3-4MB.
The custom ISO contains:
- Smithtech applauncher.
- Custom autorun.inf
- Switchblade implentation.
the autorun file is set to automatically run applauncher on start. this application will then run the 3 programs defined in its configuration. the configuration file is kept on the flash partition. in addition to running the defined applications it will also set a system variable of my choosing (I chose “U3CD”) this means i can use %U3CD% in paths to certain files and applications and it will point to the letter currently assigned to the u3 partition of the pendrive. this is because the drive letter may change from pc to pc due to the different drive letter configurations.
the first application the applauncher runs is drivevar. this program is solely for setting a system variable (%PA_DRV%) from the flash partition of the usb drive, I dont mind that you cant customise this one though, its still usable . this runs with the paramenter -a which will add the system variable without prompting the user.
The next application it runs is “chp.exe” this small .exe file is used for creating and starting hidden processes, hence the name CHP (Create hidden process) this is run with the parameter of go.exe (this is a small .exe file i made myself that simly runs a .vbs file from the u3 flash partition. this is what starts the payload running. Yes that is a long winded way of getting it to run but thats because applauncher has a few limitations when it comes to running programs/files. the applauncher cant run an application from the drive its running for (e.g. the u3 partition) and it also seems it can run anything but .exe files. (hence not being able to just put the vbs file on the flash partition – plus this saves it from deletion by an anti virus as mentioned earlier).
the 3rd program that is set to run truecrypt, this runns with a few paramenters which means it just pops up a password box asking for my password, which is handy.
the way the switchblade is implemented also has some error ‘managment’ too, if for some reason the system variable for the u3 partition doesnt get set, instead of not doing anything or producing error messages on screen, it runs a substitue vbs file that simply pops up a dialog welcoming me. this is so that i know the payload hasnt run but anyone watching would just think it was a cool ‘toy’ that i’d set up. this works because there is an identically named vbs file on the root of the flash drive, if the system variable isnt set then the .exe file assumes it should run the vbs file from “\” (current directory) which turns out to be the vbs file that pops up the “cool” welcome message.
as well as error managment the switchblade is setup to check for a certain file on the root of the c drive before running, if it finds this file it will not run (it wont do anything at all) this is so that i can plug the drive into my own machine safely without owning myself with my own payload :p
as i said earlier, the drive is formatted in FAT and has been set bootable, also the volume boot sector id has been set to 0×80, this is what makes the usb drive bootable. (again, this depends on the motherboard/BIOS and if it supports booting from usb devices).
To do all this I used PetoUSB. You’ll need a bartpe build source directory. this will copy bartpe to the disk too so all you need to do is setup your bios to bott from usb, restart and test if it works.
As I said earlier, this beings me onto my next project:
A Bootable DOS CD.
Yes, I know it doesnt sound as exciting but this will enable me to use my bartPE stick on a lot more computers, for example if the computer doesnt support booting to usb devices, like mine, then i can boot from a CD and launch bartpe from that.
for this to work i’ll have to look into loading usb drivers in DOS and accessing devices from DOS.
maybe setup an autorun so that when the CD boots up it automatically looks for the USB drive and boots bartpe from there automatically.
I’ll probably attempt this sometime in the new year, get christmas over with first.
after that my next project will be something similar but with the ability to emulate drives or mount .iso files in DOS.
this is so I can create a customised version of a windows install, maybe an unattended install, and install it from the usb drive, without having to carry around CDs all the time.
When i finally get one of these other projects finished, i may post here to say how i did it
I might post a tutorial sometime on how to do this, although this post pretty much explains the majority of it.
Thats all for now, folks.
Yes, that was a very long post.
In other news: I’ve recently discovered the awesomeness that is ill nino, it really is a mystery why I havent heard of this band before.
Tags: autorun, bartpe, computer, portable, portableapps, software, switchblade, Tech, usb, windows
A visual representation of my hard drive
Dec 6, 2007 Tech
So I recently downloaded something called WinDirStat that scans all your hard drives and gives you a visual representation of whats useing up what space, it really is pretty cool because each little block shows 1 file and the size of the block shows up the amount of space used by that file, it gives some other interesting stats too. heres mine:
- Physical Hard drives: 3
- Partitions: 6
- total space: 1000.8GB
- Used space: 843GB
- 741,733 items
- 694,062 Files
- 47,671 Folders
(I Actually added the first two stats myself). Yeah i have too much stuff lol, I’d really like to get like a 2TB NAS at sometime, just so i can backup this up really lol, I only really backup the important stuff atm. here is mine. (yeah thats a pretty, wide pic. ) Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: computer, hard drive, space, wordpress
A Solution to removing the OS boot menu after vista removal
Jun 30, 2006 Tech
So, you’ve installed vista, played around with it and its all great, new and good, but now your bored of it and want to reclaim your disk space back, so you boot into windows XP (by selecting it from the boot menu) and proceed to format the drive Vista is on. On rebooting you discover your boot menu still exists! what is one to do?! Well here for your please is a possible solution :p
- Turn on your PC
- Insert your XP CD, yes the one you install from
- Choose the option to go into the recovery console
- choose which installation you would like to “login” to, in most cases this will be “1″
- after typing that in, along with the administrator password, your at prompt similar to this:
C:\WINDOWS>
- your next step is to type either of the following commands: fixboot OR fixmbr
- once thats finished and you have a success message you can restart
Note: Choose to boot from CD if asked
The menu should now be gone and you should be booted into XP automatically
There may be other ways of fixing it, but this is the one ive, used.
Post any questions etc in the comments
Site updates, Office 2007 Screenshots, Microsoft origami, NASA finds life in space….possibly
Ooooh site updates….ive added pics of the latest vista build (5308) to the galleries, also shots of 5270 because i was supposed to upload those a while ago, but i must have forgot..also added a few new pics to the babe galleries, a few new ones to the funny pics galleries, not many, but i found them on my hdd while i was clearing up, thats about it really, one thing i do need to do is get a posts permission plugin for wordpress.
Next up, Microsoft office 2007 screenshots!, this is only a beta refresh mind, so there arnt many.
The update will ship to 10,000 beta participants in the private Beta Place testing zone next week. It’s expected that the refresh will sport more UI enhancements and much more stability than the previous Beta 1 release last year. Microsoft is expected to release Office 2007 Beta 2 in Spring with a full retail release expected before year end.
Source: neowin.net
Also having being hyped all week, microsofts new project, “origami” was revealed this week..
Microsoft Corp. finally took the wraps off its mysterious Project Origami on Thursday, unveiling a computer that’s about the size of a large paperback book but runs a full version of the Windows XP operating system.
The ultracompact, wireless-enabled PC is everything a full computer or laptop is, minus the keyboard. Weighing about 2 1/2 pounds, the 1-inch thick device sports a 7-inch touch-sensitive screen that responds to a stylus or the tap of a finger.
Also this week NASA has a “big annoucement”, supposedly relating to finding life in space..
NASA is planning to make a huge announcement today, about possible life in our own solar system.
Exact details of what we can expect to hear have not been released. We do know that evidence has been found that could point to life relatively close to the earth.
Official word is expected this afternoon at 2 p.m. We’ll have complete coverage of today’s big news when it is released. Tune to News 13 for the complete story.
Source (Currently down due to heavy server load / maintenance.. )
Tags: beta, computer, funny, life, site, Tech, updates, windows, wordpress
Blue-ray disc pricing, MS OnceCare, Ram Prices increase..
Feb 8, 2006 Tech
Sony this week announced pricing for blu-ray discs & UMD. Catalog Blu-ray titles will wholesale at $17.95, which is roughly the same price that DVDs debuted at in 1997. New releases will wholesale for $23.45, a 15 to 20 percent premium over new release DVD titles.
Sony also said they are also planning a “bundle” type thing with different formats as a taster for the consumer of whats to come in the future. Combos will be priced at $28.95, which is considerably lower than the retail price for each format purchased individually. see here for more info on that. I think thats actually a decent price, shame the writers will cost so much, but thats to be expected really.
Also this week microsoft have released prices of thier OneCare Service. Already in beta, the subscription-based package will be officially released in the US in June from retailers and via the Web. A year’s subscription will cost $49.95 and will cover up to three personal computers. The service will offer anti-virus, anti-spyware and firewall components, as well as performance optimisation utilities and back up and restore tools. Technical support – in the form of e-mail, phone and chat, will be included as part of the package. more details on that here. I Dont think i’ll be buying it from people ive spoken too its rather slow and buggy atm, although it is still in beta. I think this will be like Microsofts version of Symantec’s “Internet security suite”.
Also announced this week, DRAMeXchange, a research company which tracks prices of DRAM modules and flash memory, increases in contract rates from major RAM manufacturers have sent up DDR2 prices 18 percent from the second half of January.
Hynix hiked prices 5-10 percent, while Samsung, which chose not to give specific numbers, raised prices “significantly”. More info here.
That doesnt really bother me, im not going to be buying DDR2 for a while yet :p
*hugs kin*
Windows Vista – The Next-gen OS
Jul 25, 2005 Tech
Windows Vista – The Next-gen OS
The new Windows will be called Windows Vista. From now on the name Longhorn will not be used by Microsoft anymore, but it’s possible that you’ll encounter the name Longhorn in the two upcoming beta’s.
This article contains information about how Windows Vista will handle 2D and 3D graphics and information about Vista’s new features.
Vista uses the Windows Graphics Foundation, or WGF. WGF 1.0 will use DirectX 9.0c as its primary interface, but Vista will also have the Next-Gen 3D API build in. You can see it as DirectX 10, but it’s officially called WGF 2.0.
One of the important features of WGF is the Longhorn Display Driver Model (LDDM). It is possible with LDDM to install a new graphics driver without even rebooting your system. LDDM will ship in two stages. The first, called basic, supports current generation graphics hardware: shader model 2.0 and 3.0 capable hardware. The second stage of LDDM, advanced, will support hardware features that ship at the same time or after Vista is released, but will work with the new features in WGF 2.0. Because of the competitive way of graphics hardware development, we’ll probably see advanced LDDM capable hardware before Vista is released. The current Windows XP driver model is still supported, but will be frozen going forward. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: beta, computer, rant, software, Tech, updates, video, windows