thecybergurus.com

I just have to post this somewhere, Vista simply just doesn’t work, it breaks all rules of pc troubleshooting. My most recent problem, that caused me to spend hours troubleshooting, and even reinstalling was an error I would get when trying to register PowerDVD, and when trying to sign in to my Zune software.

“You do not appear to be connected to the internet” although I could click the web help, and get right out to the internet.

I am behind a cisco PIX firewall at home, I have no need for a software firewall, so I never turn on the windows firewall. This was actually the problem, once I enabled the firewall, I was able to get out to the internet. HOW DOES THIS MAKE ANY SENSE!? All computer admins know that all you need to get to the internet is a ip address, and a gateway address to the properly configured router, or firewall connected to the internet, and any device will get out to the internet…. that is unless your running vista I guess…

** I’ll be moving this article and future information to the class action site, I’ve had so many responses to this article, that I think I’ll try and push for a class action suit with an attorney. As soon as I collect 100 names, I’ll forward it along to the legal dept. and see what happens. Thanks to everyone for their comments, please share this information across the internet.

My story:

Over the last 5 months I’ve been fighting with Nissan to get my 2005 Titan repainted or replaced due to a defect in the paint that cause it to chip extremely easy. I’ve only had it for 15 months, and 13k miles, but it has more large “rock chips” on the hood, roof, fenders and doors then my last truck of 10 years had.

I first noticed the chips in Aug of ‘06, 6 months after I purchased it while washing it. It was a large chip on the hood, so I went to the local autobody shop and bought some touch-up paint, to fill in the chip. While I was filling it in, I noticed some other small chips in the front of the hood, this seemed odd to me, and a little too many for a truck only 6 months old.

In Dec. of ‘06 I notices another large chip while filling up with gas, it was a large chip in the rear driver side window well. I then decided to look at my hood chip again and noticed several large chips in the middle of the hood. it was at this point I decided to have the dealer look at it.

In Feb. of ‘07 I took it to the dealer to have the breaks looked at, which turned out to be the Nissan break issue that so many owners have had, and required complete replacing. They told me that the chips looked like ordinary rock chips, and they didn’t cover that type of damage, but they would send out a Nissan rep. to do some further testing. I had to take my truck in to have a paint thickness test done, then again the next day because they didn’t get a photo of the guy acutally doing the thickness test. The rep. stated that the paint was within thickness specs, and there was nothing they would do to correct it since it was normal rock chips. So I escalated it to Nissan consumer affairs, after review and a couple more weeks, they came to the same conclusion, without even looking at the truck!

At this point, my only option was to open a case with the BBB Autoline. But first I wanted to do some more research and ammunition gathering, so I went to a local autobody shop for an estimate. Well as it turns out, they had to have their paint rep. come in the next day, and look over the truck before they could do an estimate because they thought there must be a defect in the paint, and didn’t want to warranty it if it wasn’t done correctly. Sure enough, the paint rep. did a tape test, where he put masking tape on the hood over the chips, and proceeded to pull of more paint in 2 different spots. So he said they would have to do a full strip on the truck in order to warranty their work, which added about another $1,000 to the quote, total of around $5,300.

*Update* I just had an arbitration with the Better Business Bureau last Thursday, and I’m waiting on the decision whether or not they will replace my truck or not.

*Update* I found out that my claim from the BBB was declined, now my only course of action is a law suit which I am considering. I am currently in the process of getting people together to fight this, as well as visiting other body shops to gather information on repair costs and opinions about what is wrong if anything with the paint. If you have the same problem, any information or can help in any way please comment below.

Some pictures of my truck, there are also large chips, similar to the one in the 4th picture on the rear passanger side door, and another about the same size in the rear driver side door window well, as well as some on the roof. Too many chips to post them all, but you get the idea.

*Update* 8/8/2007

I heard back from my attorney today, and he said that paint issues are very difficult to win. He has had hundreds of Titan brake cases, but never paint claims. At this point Nissan is only offering me $1000 to settle, while this is better than nothing, it is far below what a full paint job, plus decrease in value equals.

I would say that everyone needs to also file suits before going to BBB since he says this is now evidence against me. This is where I filed my suit, it’s easy, only takes a few min. and can be done online. http://www.nissanlemonlaw.com/ He said it takes at least 100 people to get a class action suit off of the ground, so we will need a lot more people. I’ll be posting online on my site as well as other websites to help spread the word. Nissan should not be allowed to get away with this poor paint! Needless to say this will be the last Nissan I ever buy!!

With the cost of gas now over $2.50, and my new truck averaging around 14mpg I decided it was time to look for “alternative” gas solutions. Since my new truck is e85 ready, I began searching the net for e85 fill stations around my area, and found out that the price of ethanol is only about $.07 cheaper per gallon, and you get far worse mpg with e85 then standard gas. But, during my searching I came across this website ,which explains how I could make my own ethanol for about $1.10 – $1.50 a gallon!

Part 1:

Well this sounds like a project for me! I consider myself a pretty handy guy, and felt up to the challenge so I’ve decided to give it a whirl.

I purchased the plans for making the still, and a couple “how-to” pdf’s for making the fermentation mash from the above website. A couple days later I had my blueprints, and complete instructions as well as a detailed parts list and tools list.

My last job was a computer network consultant, so I traveled all over the city fixing computer networks, and it just so happens that one of my clients that I became good friends with is the president of a mecanical piping company, and hooked me up big time with all the hard to find copper pipe and fittings and temp. control valve that are required. Otherwise this project could have been much more difficult and expensive.

I will update this article as I go, posting pictures and comments. Hopefully when I’m done I will have given you a better and more comprehensive resource for doing this project yourself then what I had when I started. I found myself searching all over the internet for information on this subject.

4/4/2006, Shippment of parts arrives!!

I have received most of my parts, from my friend at the pipe shop, I’m only missign a few key peices that I will need to order because they were out of stock. I also need to make a trip to good old Menards to get some of the tools necessary. Notice the temp. control valve there on top, that is by far the most expensive piece of this still at around $250. It controls the temp. of the still by allowing water through the valve once the probe reaches 170 degrees.

4/7/2006 Start of build!

Today I began the build. I only did a little work, cut the 3″ pipe down to size, drilled a few holes, pretty much just getting my feet wet and my mind wrapped around this project.

4/9/2006 Day 2 of build

Build 2 key pieces, these are the pieces that go in the bottom of the still, in whats called the bubbler section. The steam from the boiler comes into the bent piece with the holes in it, and “bubbles” out into the still. The base circle object goes in the very bottom of the still.

4/10/2006 Day 3 of build

Things are really cooking now, I have finished the bubbler section and drain at bottom of still. The hardest part so far was sealing the pipes sticking out of the 3″ pipe. I’m still not sure I got the large inlet stub sealed, I may have to hit that again with my solder. One thing I have noticed in the last few days, is the importance of having the right tools for the job. The biggest tool that I would recommend is a strong, big bench vise. It’s so nice to have something sturdy holding your work, especially when soldering and it’s very hot. Also several metal files and a good set of leather gloves and eye protection are a must.

4/14/2006 Day 4 of build

Major progress today, I completed the condenser and reflux sections of the still. I made my cooling coils and secured them in the top and bottom sections of the still. This was by far the hardest part of the build so far. Making the coils wasnt too tough, but getting them in the pipe, and then getting the end through the 1/4″ hole in the pipe without crimping the tube was really tough. And then finally sealing the gap around the area where the 1/4″ tube protrudes the main pipe was also tough. I did learn that flux is your friend, you can never have too much of it. Also while sealing the gap, I heated the pipe from the inside, and put the solder on the outside of the pipe, and let it get drawn into the gap from the outside in, this worked really well for sealing all the stubs sticking out of the main pipes.

4/15/2006 Day 5 of build

Another very productive day of building. I connected the bubbler section to the condenser section of the still with a screen inbetween the sections to contain the marbles. I then filled the bottom section with the glass “marbles” and then connected the reflux section and the top cap, I actually used decrorative glass jewls instead of marbles because I could buy them in larger amounts at a time for less. Finally I connected the top half of the still’s cooling coils the the bottom half so that water can enter the top and flow all the way down to the bottom of the still. Finally I added the drain extensions at the bottom of the still, only a little more work to do!! Note: I’ll post some full size picture links at a later date so you can see more detail. I have several more pictures of the process that I will post as well.

Part 2:

5/20/2006 Day 5 of build

I have completly finished my still and boiler at this point. The boiler was a great find, it’s actually a turkey boiler that I bought at the local hardware store, and modified the lid with an outlet. For the outlet, I found a shower head adapter that you use in a standard bathroom shower, it is a 90 degree bent pipe, with threads on one end, and 2 plates that screw together, one on each side of the lid, sandwiching the lid inbetween. I used brass hose fittings to connect everything together, these are threaded on one end to connect to copper pipes, and have a tapered end on the other that you simply slide the hose onto, and clamp down. I have also mounted the still in a wood frame, and made all the hose and water hookups. The instructions that I purchased are very acurate for both blueprints, step by step instructions for the build as well as the parts list. The only thing extra I had to buy were some fittings for my boiler and some tubing. As you can see it looks pretty good, and works great, it blows my mind everytime I fire it up and watch it work so perfectly. I’ve only run beer through it one time since I am still waiting on my permit, and want to be legal, but I have run plain water through it 3-4 times to make adjustments and tweaks to the automatic valve etc. I’ll update again once I get my mash and fermenting receipe all figured out, as well as posting links to where I got all of my supplies, and receipies.

My on going project to build my own home theater got a nice addition when I decided to upgrade my screen with Goo!

Screen Goo by Goo systems www.goosystems.com is special screen paint that is applied in a 2 step process, base coat, and top coat, that creates a beautiful home theater screen at a fraction of the cost of a store bought projector screen.

You start by completing a short form on goosystems website, that helps you determine how much and what type of Goo you should purchase. Goo comes in 3 flavors, CRT white, Digital Grey Lite, and Digital Grey. I chose the Digital Grey Lite, since my theater has a small amount of ambiant light. The Grey color is supposed to lessen the reflectivity of ambiant lite, making your screen look good in a room that isn’t perfectly dark. I also orderd my Goo in the Kit, which included rollers, paint tray and black boarder paint as well. I recommend purchasing the kit, it’s not that much more, and you know that the rollers are the correct nap thickness for their product.

I applied the product per the instructions, and the video that they have on their website. It was pretty straight forward, but you do have to follow them exactly. If you go over the same spot that you have applied your finish stoke on, it really does mess up the finish.

All in all I am very pleased and impressed with the final result. The colors are much more “real” than just the plain white painted wall I was using before. The only thing that really scared me, was the fact that you are supposed to overlap slightly each section when doing the final stoke on the top coat, this caused some darker vertical lines on the screen where the overlap was. After about 3 days, these lines are almost completely gone. It does take 3-6 weeks for the product to completely cure.

Here is some pics of my project.

Picture after my 2nd base coat was applied but not dry yet. The base coat is really thick like pancake batter, and light grey in color.

Final product:

The top coat was a really cool metalic grey, that dries to a dull grey.

Final pics coming soon.

(This is an old article I wrote 4 years ago, but still valid info.)

Networking Basics

So, you want to hook up to the internet well you found the right place for some true information, first off, basic network hardware information:

Whats a hub?:

A hub is basically a “dumb” cable splitter, a good way to think of it as a power strip that you plug into the wall in order to get more outlets, the downside is that all data communication is sent to all the ports, thus taking up the available bandwidth from all other ports. For example, I have 3 computers plugged into a 4 port hub, If computer 1 wants to talk to computer 2 it blasts the data out of the network card and to the hub, which in turn blasts that same data to all of the ports on the hub, so computer 3, even though it wasn’t being talked to will see that data. Bottom line, the more computers you have on a hub, the slower the connection will be. That being said, with only 2-3 computers on a 100mb hub, you’ll never notice the slow down, especially if your only browsing the internet, and or using your xbox to share your internet connection. If your tight on cash, buy a 100mb hub rather than a switch, 10mb would be fine too, but you may see some slow down if your downloading a large file at the same time your trying to frag online with your xbox.

Whats a switch?:

A switch performes the exact same function as a hub, but with some added brains. Like a hub, it will split the connection into as many ports as the switch has, but a switch contains some circity that gives every port dedicated bandwidth, Using the example from the hub description, 3 computers hooked to a switch, if computer 1 wants to talk to computer 2, computer 1 sends the data to the switch, and the switch is “smart” enough to know what port computer 2 is plugged into and send the data only to that port, and comptuer 3 never sees that traffic. So, on a 100mb switch, all comptuers get 100mb of bandwidth reguardless of what all the other computers are doing on the switch.

Whats a router (linksys reference)?:

A router is the next evolution in data transmision. A router IS NOT A SWITCH OR HUB!! it basically has some software in it that can be altered to “route” traffic based on the needs of the owner. It is used to control the flow of data between networks, or computers. For example, if I want all of my data to be transmitted on port 1245 I would program my router to do that with all traffic that comes into it, and have it sent out of it on that port. Or, it can be used as a firewall to block all traffic on port 54321 etc. In the case of the comsumer brand Linksys router, most modles have a built in switch that allows you to plug computers directly into it. With some other models, you have to hook a hub/switch into the one port in order to connect multiple computers. Again, routers, swithces and hubs are all seperate hardware, the manufacture has just combined 2 of them to make it easier for novice users to use. The router then directs all traffic out the Wan connection, or cable/DSL connection thus sharing the internet connection between all of the computers connected to it.

Cat 5 cable info:

I have noticed that people get confused about cables sometimes, weather to use a crossover cable or a straight through cable. First off, there are only 2 types of cables that you need to be concerned about, crossover, and straight through. If a cable is not labled crossover in the store, then it is a straight through cable. The difference in the cables is that in a straight through cable, all the pins line up on both ends of cable, ie. pin 1 on one end goes to pin 1 on the other end, just like an ide ribbon that connects hard drives to your motherboard. In a crossover cable the pins do not go straight through ( hence the name ) When data is going through a cat5 cable, only 4 wires are used, 1,2,3,6 out of 8. in a crossover cable, pin 1 connects to pin 3 and pin 2 connects to pin 6 on the other end.
Also, do not get hung up on the 350mhz cable or other premium cables, it’s just a waste of your money to purchase it. With comsumer level products you will never notice a speed difference between the high end stuff and the premium stuff.

Reason for crossover:

In an ethernet connection there are send and recieve wires that match up with the send and recieve pins on your network card. So if you want to hook 2 computers directly to each other, you can’t use a straight through cable because you would be hooking a send to a send and a receive to a recieve on the network cards. So you use a crossover cable, that connects, send to receive, and send to receive, makes perfect sense huh?

You also need a cross connection when hooking 2 switches or hubs together. Lets say that you need 5 computers hooked up, but only have 2 4 port hubs, you can connect the hubs together and essintialy create one larger hub. The line that connects the hubs has to be crossed somewhere, wether you connect a crossover cable to 2 standard ports on each hub, or you use a straight through and plug it into an uplink port on one of the hubs and a regular port on the other hub. Do not hook a cable to the uplink port on both hubs. Also do not connect a computer to an uplink port. The uplink port is used only for connecting multiple hubs/switches together. I know someone out there knows how to make it work, but for simplicity, and standards, just don’t do it.

Hooking things up:

PC to PC conncetions can be done in 2 ways, directly with a crossover cable, or through a hub that only requires 2 stratigh through cables plugged into 2 ports in a hub, no crossover required.

To hook a pc to a hub, or a switch you do not need a crossover cable!

If you want to share your internet connection with another computer, or an Xbox, you will need something to provide a link to all of the devices, like a hub, and something to route the internet traffice to and from each device, like a router. The perfect solution to this problem is a linksys router, or similar product, or a computer running some type of internet sharing program. My experience with programs that run on a pc are either not as easy to setup, or do not work as well as a linksys type device. View the diagrams and descriptions below to match your setup.

Dhcp:

Dhcp is used to automaticly assign computers or other devices ip address information that it will need to communicate on the network. If your a newbie, then I would use this option, it will make things much easier. I believe that Linksys by default will do this. So, if your computer’s netowork card is set to automaticly obtain an ip address:

Then as soon as you plug your computer into a numbered port on the Linksys, then it will pull an ip address, and you will be able to communicate with it by typing “http://192.168.1.1″ into your web browser and putting in the default password of “admin” no username.

Basic pc hookup, showing that you need a crossover cable to accomplish this.

PC to PC via. hub connection, straight through cables only are needed.

Hooking up 2 pc’s to the internet via. a Linksys router. Notice: you must have an ip address that is on the same subnet as the Linksys in order to communicate with it. See the image below for example. the first 3 sets of numbers in an ip address have to be the same on all devices and the last number has to be between 1 and 254. NOTE: If you are using xboxconnect to play online, you must put your computer in the DMZ or forward port 8602 tcp and udp to the computer running xboxconnect.

Hooking up the xbox and more info. about using the Linksys. All cables are straight through, the modem is hooked to the wan port of the linksys, all other devices are hooked to the numbered swithch ports, the lan port on the Linksys is not used in this illustration.

If you have any questions, or comments, just post a comment below. Good luck,

Thanks,
-Brian