The Wiert Corner – irregular stream of stuff

Jeroen W. Pluimers on .NET, C#, Delphi, databases, and personal interests

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Archive for the ‘Hardware’ Category

When Windows suddenly starts mixing up keys for various applications.

Posted by jpluimers on 2018/05/14

Since:

  • many people use the left-alt key as it as it is more accessible
  • development tools uses a lot of Alt-Shift based keyboard shortcuts
  • Windows by default has the Left Alt+Shift shortcut enabled to switch language+keyboard layout combinations
  • In most countries, Windows by default has more than one language+keyboard combination installed
  • Windows remembers per application instance which language+keyboard combination is used

every now and then you will get strange characters in only your development tools.

You can change this Windows setting, but be aware that every now and then, various Windows versions will re-enable the Left Alt+Shift even if you have previously disabled it. As of Windows 7 this occurs far less often, but still seems to occur.

Source: Question: Does anyone else have instances in the IDE (Berlin but has happened…

Comments at https://plus.google.com/+JeroenPluimers/posts/ektRa2qW92L

 

Posted in internatiolanization (i18n) and localization (l10), Keyboards and Keyboard Shortcuts, Power User, Windows | Leave a Comment »

Intel SSD 600p Series NVMe SSD Temperatures: ensure you cool it properly even for moderate use

Posted by jpluimers on 2018/04/30

A short while ago, I installed a pair of 1TB Intel 600p NVMe SSD devices.

Performing a straight rsync backup of some 100 gigabyte of data managed to shutdown both of them: the throttling was so much that VMware ESXi lost the volumes on it and showed “Permanently inaccessible device”.

I was quite surprised as the initial reviews did not mention any temperature problems, but apparently there are.

Since then I’ve put a 120mm fan near to it which made the problems go away, but it still every now and then jumped to over 60 degrees Celsius.

Later I “fixed” it in a better way for cooling getting the idle temperature around 30 degrees Celsius and heavy duty temperatures around 40 degrees Celsius:

I did not have to mount any M.2 heatsinks on them yet; they probably won’t fit under the fan anyway

Related links and products:

Related:

–jeroen

Posted in Hardware, NVMe, Power User, SSD | 1 Comment »

Backup & Sync: The ridiculous steps you need to move the Google Drive from the C: drive to the D: drive

Posted by jpluimers on 2018/04/27

Unlike for instance DropBox, Google Backup & Sync does not allow you do move the Google Drive location in a one-step way. You have to go through below ridiculous steps to move it around yourself.

A comment on G+ indicated I should try Insync. Not free, but way more stable and more features.

[WayBack] Insync: A Mini Desktop File Manager For Your Google Drive

Insync adds Google Drive functionality to your Windows, Linux and mac OS desktop. Sync, backup, edit and share files easily with one or multiple accounts. Team Drives syncing for G Suite accounts now available! Try Insync free, no credit card needed.

[WayBack] Unlike for instance DropBox, Google Backup & Sync does not allow you do move … – Jeroen Wiert Pluimers – G+

I got them via [Archive.is] Change default location of Backup and Sync Folder on disk. – Google Product Forums, rephrased and added screenshots:

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Fujitsu ScanSnap, Google, GoogleBackupAndSync, GoogleDrive, Hardware, ix500, Power User, Scanners | Leave a Comment »

If you never updated your Intel 320 SSD firmware, you should

Posted by jpluimers on 2018/04/23

Somehow I missed this:

So I made a file and an image backup, then updated the firmware.

–jeroen

Posted in Hardware, Power User, SSD | Leave a Comment »

BensonApproved – USB Type-C

Posted by jpluimers on 2018/04/13

Cables that really work well: [WayBack] BensonApproved – USB Type-C

Related to USB-C charging cables: not always as good as you’d think.

–jeroen

Via: [WayBack] [Q] Goeie USB-C kabel(s)? Ik ben op zoek naar een goeie usb-c kabels, liefst een beetje betaalbaar. Als ik bijvoorbeeld bij de Mediamarkt kijk (I know,… – Roderick Gadellaa – Google+

 

Posted in Development, Hardware Interfacing, Power User, USB, USB-C | Leave a Comment »

iSesamo Opening Tool – iFixit

Posted by jpluimers on 2018/04/09

Great tool for opening electronics. Use with care as it’s metal.

[WayBackiSesamo Opening Tool – iFixit

via: Teardown of an IKEA Koppla USB power supply.

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Hardware, LifeHacker, Power User | Leave a Comment »

Teardown of an IKEA Koppla USB power supply. – YouTube

Posted by jpluimers on 2018/04/06

Seems like  a good USB power supply:

Posted in IKEA hacks, LifeHacker, Power User, USB | Leave a Comment »

Solid state drives in Linux: Enabling TRIM for SSDs – fstrim command and mount option discard | Opensource.com

Posted by jpluimers on 2018/04/06

When using SSD drives on Linux, mind the discard option in mnt and the fstrim command: [WayBackSolid state drives in Linux: Enabling TRIM for SSDs | Opensource.com

–jeroen

Posted in *nix, *nix-tools, Hardware, Power User, SSD, Trim | Leave a Comment »

Urgent security advisory – MikroTik – upgrade to 6.41.3 if you can change your bridge implementation, ensure SMB and WWW are not WAN accessible

Posted by jpluimers on 2018/03/31

I both understand the [WayBack] Urgent security advisory – MikroTik and the users reluctant to upgrade: Mikrotik has a history of updates breaking existing behaviour and underdocumenting features and release notes.

The attack is over the www or www-ssl services which by default run on port 80 and 443. You can see on which networks they are bound using this example from the terminal:

> ip service print where name=www
Flags: X - disabled, I - invalid 
 #   NAME       PORT ADDRESS                                        CERTIFICATE   
 0   www          80 192.168.71.0/24                               
                     192.168.171.0/24                              
                     192.168.124.0/24
> ip service print where name=www-ssl
Flags: X - disabled, I - invalid 
 #   NAME       PORT ADDRESS                                        CERTIFICATE   
 0   www-ssl     443 192.168.71.0/24                               
                     192.168.171.0/24                              
                     192.168.124.0/24

Note that if your device was infected, not all upgrades will remove the infection on all machines (even though it is mentioned in the FAQ below!). This is one of the “underdocumenting” aspects I mentioned.

There is no way to officially check if your device is infected. If you suspect it is and cannot upgrade to 6.41.3 or more recent, then you need to use [WayBack] Manual:Netinstall – MikroTik Wiki to wipe clean your router and re-install.

Be careful which version you upgrade to:

Somewhere in the middle of page 2 of the above post [WayBack], this is slightly addressed:

1) Upgrade to 6.38.5 fixes the botnet scanner and removes it.
2) Upgrade to 6.41.3 fixes SMB vulnerability.

Later this morning further below on page 2 of the above post [WayBack] it was elaborated more:

I recommend that you re-read all the posts from “normis”. Seems that we are going into circles.

1) Winbox port is used only to find out that this is RouterOS powered device (Winbox is not affected by vulnerabilities that we know of);
2) WWW service (“/ip service”) is used in order to “hack” your router if Firewall did not drop connections to this port (affected service was Webfig which by default is running on port 80, but you can change port under “/ip service” menu and then this other port must be protected). For example, “/ip firewall filter add chain=input action=drop in-interface=WAN connection-state=new”;
3) Issue with SMB is completely another thing but the same rules apply. If device (in this case SMB port) is protected by firewall, then no one can use this issue in order to mess up with your router. Usually attacks come to your router from public Internet (not from LAN) and in normal situation SMB access is not open for public Internet;
4) There is not and will not be an official way to gain access to routers shell.

You will be safe from both of these issues if you upgrade your routers (6.38.5 for WWW issue and 6.41.3 for SMB). In order to upgrade many devices at the same time – you can use MikroTik tool called The Dude or use scripts.

From the above post, at least read the FAQ:

FAQ:

What is affected?

– Webfig with standard port 80 and no firewall rules
– Winbox has nothing to do with the vulnerability, Winbox port is only used by the scanners to identify MikroTik brand devices. Then it proceeds to exploit WEBFIG through port 80.

Am I safe? 

– If you upgraded your router in the last ~12 months, you are safe
– If you had “ip service” “www” disabled: you are safe
– If you had firewall configured for port “80”: you are safe
– If you only had Hotspot in your LAN, but Webfig was not available: you are safe.
– If you only had User Manager in your LAN, but Webfig was not available: you are safe.
– If you had other Winbox port before this: you are safe from the scan, but not from the infection.
– If you had “winbox” disabled, you are safe from the scan, not from the infection.

– If you had “ip service” “allowed-from” set to specific network: you are safe if that network was not infected.
– If you had “Webfig” visible to LAN network, you could be infected by an infected device in your LAN.

How to detect and cure?

– Upgrading to v6.38.5 or newer will remove the bad files, stop the infection and prevent anything similar in the future.
– If you upgrade device and you still see attempts to access Telnet from your network – run Tool/Torch and find out a source of the traffic. It will not be router itself, but another device in local network which also is affected and requires an upgrade.

–jeroen

Posted in Internet, MikroTik, Power User, routers, Security | Leave a Comment »

Interesting ways to obtain MTU and MSS sizes – via Troubleshooting Bitbucket Cloud MTU/MSS issues – Atlassian Documentation

Posted by jpluimers on 2018/03/29

I will probably need the netstat/tcpdump/wireshark tricks here in the future: [WayBackTroubleshooting Bitbucket Cloud MTU/MSS issues – Atlassian Documentation

via: [WayBackAtlassian Bitbucket Status – Network maintenance; MTU/MSS changes coming

–jeroen

Posted in Communications Development, Development, Internet protocol suite, Network-and-equipment, Power User, TCP | Leave a Comment »