Convert Nero image (.nrg) to ISO9660 (.iso)

n case you need to convert Nero image file .nrg into regular ISO9660 .iso utility nrg2iso might be helpful then.

It’s included into apt repositories of Debian and Ubuntu, so to install it execute:

sudo aptitude install nrg2iso

When it’s done, convert file by command:

nrg2iso image.nrg image.iso

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Is The Internet Down? 5 Common Home Network Problems

Sometimes home network problems are as easy to fix as plugging in a cord, yet “check your cords” is almost all the advice you’ll get from overworked help desk operators. Sometimes you get onto a help desk operator that wants to take you through every simple step, even the ones you have already performed. The average computer user gets very frustrated with troubleshooting methods used over the phone when trying to diagnose their home network problems. If you do not have time to sit there and listen to an hours worth of pre-recorded troubleshooting tips will give you a few ideas to try when having home network problems. If you have a wireless connection you should also see 5 Threats To Your Home Wireless Connection.

Here are 5 common home network problems:

These common  Home Network Problems may be responsible for the Internet not working as you expect. We also have an article about 5 uncommon home network problems.

Common Home Network Problems #1: Router Failure

Although computer hardware is increasingly reliable these days, I find that routers are one of the devices most likely to fail when having home network problems. Unlike most computers, routers stay on all of the time and perform millions of complicated electrical connections every second, causing them to wear down faster than most other hardware.

All modern routers run a stripped down operating system (usually Linux or NetBSD) which can suffer from its own errors besides the possible  home network problems that can occur. Here are three steps to follow to diagnose and possibly repair your router:

1. Unplug the router, count to three, and plug it back in to the wall. Routers often suffer from micro-blackouts present in home power supply (also called brownouts) which can screw up the operating system on the router. Unplugging the router and plugging it back in will force the operating system to reboot.
2. Most routers start with all of their lights on and then turn off the lights for any unused network ports. If the lights all come on and stay on, it usually indicates the operating system failed during boot. If your device is under warranty, contact the manufacturer or your service provider. If you need to repair this problem yourself, follow the instructions in your router’s manual for resetting the software; if that doesn’t work, you need to buy a new router.
3. If none of the lights on your router light up, make sure it’s plugged into a working electrical socket and that you have at least one computer plugged into it. If it still doesn’t work, then the router is dead and probably not worth repairing.

Common Home Network Problems #2: Wireless Interference

In the United States, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) never gave computer companies permission to create wireless devices. The companies just started doing it using a special part of the wireless spectrum the FCC calls unlicensed.

Anyone can run a device on this part of the wireless spectrum for any purpose (except for the purpose of deliberately jamming other people’s connections). Because the unlicensed part of the spectrum is free, many companies besides computer companies use it to transmit wireless communications for their devices. Devices using the unlicensed spectrum include cordless telephones, bluetooth devices, wireless speakers, small FM radio transmitters used with iPods, walkie-talkies, and baby monitors.

People with an FCC-approved amateur radio license, such as your author, can broadcast at high power on the unlicensed frequency.
All of these other signals can significantly reduce the quality of your wireless Internet connection and cause network problems. The only way to deal with the annoying error is to find the offending device and try to turn it off or move it away from your laptop or router. Here are some steps you can use to find the offending device:
If you have a walkie-talkie or a baby monitor, walk around with the hand-held part until you hear a lot of noise. Keep trying to get closer to the noise until you find the offending device.
If all you have is a laptop and wireless router, you need special software. For Windows, I suggest the free inSSIDer 2 from metageek.net. Install it, open up its Time Graph, and start walking around where the interference is greatest until you find the offending device.
If the offending device belongs to your neighbor, there’s nothing you can do legally (unless you can prove your neighbor is using too much power or is purposely trying to block your signals). However, I find that an amicable solution can usually be reached: ask your neighbor to move the device to end of his or her house which is furthest from your house; then, move your router to the end of your house furthest from your neighbor. In most cases, this should be enough distance to eliminate the interference and give you full-speed wireless networking.
The problem can also stem from having two wireless routers in the same house.
See how to setup a home wireless network.

Common Home Network Problems #3: Too Much Upload

Everyone knows that downloading a big file makes downloading any other files or Web pages run slow, but did you know that uploading a file can make downloading run slow too?
The most common networking protocol on the Internet is the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP). TCP says that your computer must send an ACK packet (for acknowledgment) to the computer it’s downloading from every time it gets a big packet of downloaded data. This prevents the other computer from sending data to your computer after you cancel a download.
If your network is using all of its available upload bandwidth, your computer can’t send its ACK packets, so other computers stop sending data to your computer.
If your Internet connection is running slow, check the computers on your network to see if any are uploading a lot of data. Here are some applications that often hog the upload:

• Filesharing applications like BitTorrent
• 3D multi-player games like World of Warcraft
• Voice over IP (VOIP) Internet phones like Skype. See making conference calls with Skype.
• File uploads like uploading your pictures to Shutterfly or sharing files with family using Dropbox or uploading a video to YouTube

Common Home Network Problems #4: Bad Network Drivers

Microsoft Windows ships with over 100 different network drivers, which is a great convenience–you can usually just insert a new wired or wireless network card and start surfing the Internet. The only problem is that Windows only gets major updates once a year, so any drivers it ships with are usually out of date. This can cause home network problems as the driver will be out of date very quickly.
If you just purchased a new network card and it isn’t performing as well as you expect, you can try a very easy solution: install the driver that comes with the card (or download the driver from the card manufacturer’s website).

Common Home Network Problems #5: Zealous Firewall Rules

Firewalls provide essential security to Windows computers, but they can be a huge hassle when you try to share resources on your computer with other computers on your network and around the world. This is one of the most common home network problems that can interfere with your internet connection.
If someone is trying to connect to your computer and they get a “Connection Denied” error or a strange error, check your firewall rules to see if you’re blocking the other computer. If you are, you need to make an exception–but be careful, too broad an exception can open your computer to attacks from hackers.
The best exception only lets a specific computer connect to a specific port. You can figure out the port by searching Google for the name of the service you’re attempting to share. For example, a search for “windows printer port” brings up a Microsoft Technet article indicating the printer port is 9100.
To only allow a specific computer to connect, you need to know its IP address. If the computer is on the same network as you, open the start menu on that computer, click the Run… icon, type in cmd, type ipconfig on the command line that appears, and write down the IP address. Use that IP address in the exception you create to your firewall rules.
If the computer is running on the Internet, open a Web browser on the other computer and go to whatsmyip.org. Write down the IP address they give you and use it to create the exception to your firewall rules that fixes the problem with your home network so the other computer can connect.


If you didn't solve your home network problems please see this article about 5 uncommon home network problems. 

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Home network problems are a common occurrence now days. Just think about it? Everyone is now on the internet and most houses have some type of network setup to enable more than one computer to use the internet connection. Unfortunately this means that there are more Home network problems because people are settings these up themselves. There is no problem setting up your own home network and usually the hassles only start when you run into a problem that you cannot solve. It can be very frustrating when you have home network problems but hopefully we can help. This is not a tutorial on how to get a faster internet connection but rather to find network problems that might cause connection problems.

5 uncommon Home Network Problems

You’ve probably read our article about 5 common home network problems, but you didn’t find your problem listed. If you have not red this article you really should! After that, read on because we’ve got solutions to five more uncommon home network problems listed below.

Home Network Problems #1: Server Not Found

Sometimes you’ll try connecting to a website you know is still working and get a “server not found” error. This especially happens when you try to connect to new websites or websites you visit infrequently.
This isn’t an error with your home network, but rather a problem with your Internet Service Provider’s (ISP’s) Domain Name Server (DNS) setup. It most often occurs when your ISP changes DNS servers and you’re stuck using the old server.
Among the many home network problems, this is one of the simplest to fix, although it can be annoying. You need to get the list of updated DNS servers from your ISP. To do it, you first need to purge the current list of DNS servers from the two places it’s stored on your network—your computer and your router.
First turn off your computer. Then unplug your router, count to five, and plug it back in. Wait for it to start flashing like normal, then turn on your computer. Of course, if other people share your home network, you want to give them fair warning before you restart the router.
Restarting your router will force it to ask for network settings using the Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP), which sends IP addresses, DNS server addresses, and some other network information. Restarting your computer tells it to get its own network settings from your router also using DHCP, and your router will pass along the address of the DNS server it just received—which will be your ISP’s current DNS server.

Home Network Problems #2: Intermittent Cable Signal Loss

There are may kinds of intermittent signal loss, but in this case we’ll describe the inability to connect to any site on the Internet due to apparent problems with your cable modem. If you don’t use a cable modem, this isn’t your problem.
Cable providers send Internet signals along wires originally designed for mediocre television, and even in the days before cable broadband, it wasn’t too unusual in many places to lose television signal occasionally. Now, the Internet was designed to work even over horrible connections, but unfortunately, your cable modem is probably more picky than any other networking hardware in your house. Cable modem-powered Internet requires a good, strong signal, and that’s what you’re missing when you have intermittent cable signal loss.
Of the home network problems described in this article, intermittent cable signal loss is most often easily traceable to its cause by recording when you lost signal. If you lose signal most often during days of extreme heat or humidity (especially during rain or fog), then the problem is probably your cable wires.
There are a few ways to boost your signal. Go through your house and see how many times your cable signal is split—how many times one wire connects to a box with two or more wires coming out of it. The cable that goes to your cable modem shouldn’t go through more than one splitter. You also need to make sure all the splitter connections are connected to wires or have ends on them, or you’re wasting precious cable signal on dead air.
Making sure your use every bit of signal that comes down your cable line can significantly improve the functioning of your cable modem. Not only will it reduce the number of intermittent signal failures, but it can improve your download and upload speeds.

Home Network Problems #3: High Latency

If you use your Internet connection for voice or video chatting or gaming, significant lags in the applications you use can ruin your fun. Sometimes these lags can be caused by something besides high latency, but there’s an easy test for high latency so it’s a good place to start diagnosing:

1. Open the Windows terminal by opening the Start menu, choosing Run…, and entering cmd.
2. At the command-line, type ping google.com. Windows will send four special Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP) packets to Google’s nearest server and Google will kindly return four responses. Windows will then calculate how long it took for the packets to get to Google and back—this is your latency.

How long it takes for packets to get to Google and back to you depends a lot on how close you live to Google’s nearest server, but for anyone using broadband and living within 50 miles of an affluent city or a major population center, it should take between 20 and 30 milliseconds (ms). If all four packets take longer than 50ms, then you may have a problem—longer than 100ms and you definitely have a problem.
High-latency has two main causes: your network can be overloaded, in which case the answer is to shutdown all Internet-using applications on your computer and every other computer on your network and try running ping again. The other cause is bad wires or wireless signal. Try swapping wires between your computer and another computer without problems, or try moving your wireless laptop closer to the wireless router.

Home Network Problems #4: Can’t Connect To Router Admin

Many of the articles you read on this site tell you to change settings in your router administration interface, but if you don’t have the manual that came with your router, you may not know how to access the administration interface. Almost all routers use the same simple instructions:

1. Open a Web browser and try each of the following links in a new tab (Ctrl-click) until you find one that displays a username and password prompt:
   • http://192.168.0.1/
   • http://192.168.1.1/
   • http://192.168.2.1/
   • http://10.0.0.1/
   • http://10.0.0.2/
2. If you changed the password for your router before, enter it now. If you haven’t, these are the most common defaults (username/password):
   • admin/admin
   • root/root
   • admin/1234
   • admin/password
   • Administrator/admin
   • (leave empty)/admin

Home Network Problems #5: Forgot WPA Password

It can be embarrassing when you invite a friend over for a work or study session and they ask you for the password to your wireless network—and you don’t know what it is. Windows will let you see the password as you type it but, for security reasons, you can’t go back into the Wireless Connection Manager to get the password after you save it.

One option is to log into your router admin and go to the Wireless Security screen to figure out the current password—but what if you forgot the password and you don’t have your laptop? Is your only option to reset the router and set it up all over again? Luckily, there’s another solution.

Almost all routers include ethernet ports. These ports don’t include any security—if you’re close enough to plug in to them, you’re probably authorized to be on the network. So just find some ethernet (CAT–5) cable, plug in your friend’s laptop, and log into the router using the instructions above to find your password and eliminate your home network problems.

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Large VM crashes during snapshot commit

Snapshots can be your friend but they can most certainly also make your life miserable. The other day we had a rather large VM (with 20 GB mem, 8 vCPUs and 28 TB storage divided on 22 .vmdk's) that crashed during a snapshot commit. The error stated: "Performing disk cleanup. Cannot power off." The snapshot had been taken while the VM was powered off and only a few changes had been made to the VM before the snapshot was committed.


After the crash, the VM would not power on. The error stated: "Reason: Cannot allocate memory" and in the error  description (see screendump below) there's an indication of disk a lock or disk error. Fortunately, the VM could be started from the service console (ESX 4.1 classic) with 'vmware-cmd'.

After boot, vCenter stated that there was no snapshots on the VM. However, 22 delta files on a single LUN was telling otherwise.

A normal procedure to do cleanup is to power off VM and clone it. However, with 28 TB storage in the VM, this was not an option.

Instead, the following did the trick: Log on to the service console, change directory to the folder where the .vmx file for the VM resides, take a new snapshot and then do a remove all snapshots (see this KB article for more info). This removes the new snapshot as well as the 'defect' snapshot.

To see if any snapshots exist (that will probably not be the case): 

vmware-cmd vmname.vmx hassnapshot

To take new snapshot (with no quiesce and no memory, see this KB article for details)

vmware-cmd vmname.vmx createsnapshot snapshot-name description 0 0

As you can see in screen dump below at first I tried to run the command without the two boolean arguments that relates to QuiesceFilesystem and IncludeMemory. 

To remove all snapshots:

 vmware-cmd vmname.vmx removesnapshots

In the screendump above the removesnapshots command returns an error code '1' which means that all is well and snapshots are gone.

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iPhone Error 3194 and Solution

If you have been using iOS 4 on iPhone and if you have downgraded iOS4 to 3.1.3 then you might have encountered this Error 3194. This error is associated with firmware.

This error occurs when you have an unsigned firmware. This is because, Apple now signs the firmware and if your firmware has no authenticity then you are bound to get this error. However, getting back on the signed firmware might not solve this error.

So, how do you fix this error?

Solution to Error 3194

In order to fix the Error 3194 and enable the users to downgrade iOS 4 to 3.1.3, you need to follow the steps discussed below.

It is important to note that this solution is applicable to all the operating systems and any version you are using.

Now quickly follow these steps:

• First, you have to quit iTunes.
• In  Mac OS X, search out for host file: /etc/hosts
• If you are using Windows OS,then locate c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts
• Now using the administrator privileges open the host files.
• Now, at the bottom of the host file, you have to add the following line:

• 74.208.105.171 gs.apple.com

• Once you have done this, connect your iPhone to your computer or laptop.
• Plus, now launch the iTunes.
• Now put your iPhone in the Device Firmware Upgrade (DFU) mode.
• In order to put the phone in DFU mode, first turn off the phone.
• Now hold the Home and Power button simultaneously for exactly 10 seconds.
• The computer should give you a beep sound and the screen would turn black and blank.
• Now you are in the DFU mode.
• Now use the normal Restore option in iTunes.
• After your upgrade is finished, you will have to remove “74.208.105.171 gs.apple.com” from your host files.
• This will update the iTunes properly.
• This is the IP address of signing server to associate with apple.com

This process is applicable to iPad and iPod as well.

So, now that you have learnt this process, you can be free from Error 3194.

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To save any image while surfing the internet

Tap the image you want to save and hold it for a moment. A save picture option will be prompted and you can save that image very easily.

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To Enjoy Multi-Tasking in IPad

If you want to switch between any task without closing the running program, you should,

• Double click on the ipad HOME button.
• Touch the application you want to open from the list shown at the bottom of the home screen.
• You may need to swipe the icons to find yours when many tasks are running.

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