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1
Living Room / Re: Gadget WEEKENDS
« on: March 16, 2024, 08:17 AM »
You like the ZimaBoard 432?

Looking for a small device that can act as a OPNSense router (with at least 3 ethernet connections for 2 ISPs and at least one large(r) POE switch. I saw reviews on the internet, which are mostly quite positive, especially the 8GByte RAM version. Only a few talk about the existence of a 4GByte version, not really a part of their review.

For the envisioned router needs, 4 GByte of RAM is more than enough for at least the coming 5 years.

2
The tool type you search for is called:  Web Scraper.

There are many tools like that, the search engine of your choice will provide more than enough links. Some of these tools have a notification feature, email support is often included.

These tools are not that easy to use/configure, but once you get your head around these, they are pretty reliable at what they do. Realize though all these things you yourself will need to figure out as only you know on which information change has to trigger the notification. As most tools actually provide manuals and sometimes even step-by-step instructions, that shouldn't be too big of a problem.


3
Which version of PowerShell are you using? The one included in Windows itself or the open-source version?

The open-source version is at version 7.x, Powershell included with Windows isn't.

You can run both versions next to each other, that is not a problem on any of the Windows computers in my care (which all run Win 10, Win 11, Server 2019 or Server 2022). The open source version exists, because MS wants PowerShell to be adopted into every operating system, so it is possible to run PowerShell scripts on Linux servers. Not WSL, but real Linux servers.

The open-source version gets more "love" from everyone, incl. Microsoft, so it may be possible that your script works in the open-source version.

Currently I am using the open source version to "play around" with projects that include LLMs to make the computer create all the scripts it needs to accomplish requests I make. Been using the OpenAI LLMs with that, but also with LLMs I run locally. I only mention it, because OS PowerShell works well with this, while the included PowerShell does not.

4
DC Gamer Club / Re: Latest Game Giveaway
« on: December 25, 2023, 08:31 PM »
Caveblazers is free on GOG until January 5th.

That appears to be regional, A$1.19 until Jan 5 here.

It was free in South-America. Usually a region that isn't part of giveaways either.

5
Something like the DNS requests feature in the Adaway app for android. I know there is wireshark but thats too bulky, it logs everything and all I want is to track which domains a program (chrome for example) connects too so I can block the tracking with a hosts file like someone did with Edge.

https://www.reddit.c...acking_in_microsoft/
Thanks in advance.

While computers are pretty fast nowadays, the parsing of a large HOST file isn't that much of a deal as it once was. But still, if you can prevent having such a file, do so. It is better to have a (separate) computer running a DNS server, where you put the entries that you would fill your HOST file up with.
Then you point any and every device in your house to use that DNS server instead of what you have setup now.

Much easier on the resources in each device, more efficient as a wholesome solution too.

For example, I have an OPNSense router. This is a firewall with a DNS server built-in. A 10+ year old PC I had lying around was used for that software. I added an Intel NIC with 4 Ethernet ports to this computer, because I get internet via 2 different providers (and technologies), so I use 3 of those ports.

This computer barely gets out of its 'idle' state, doing all the routing, firewalling and DNS'ing. Setting it up was involved, as I needed to address many situational quirks in the network. The software itself is easy enough. Once it was setup, it barely needs any maintenance, besides physically cleaning it every 6 months or so.

All devices in my network use this router, my internal DNS server is set as default option and I reduced the amount of maintaining blocklists to one single device, the router. When you see how little maintenance work this is (after setting it up once), you'll wonder why you yourself went without for so long.

6
N.A.N.Y. 2024 / Re: NANY 2024 - WordStar to Markdown converter
« on: August 26, 2023, 01:30 AM »
It may be a colorful opinion, but the people behind both AsciiDoc and Markdown editors appear to be of the same stubborn breed. If you want to stir their hornet's nest, just mention a desire for a WYSIWYG editor.

At the time I depended a lot on PanDoc for converting documents. it came with support for MarkDown (different dialects) and AsciiDoc already built-in.

For my own documenting needs, I have been using xWwiki lately. While the web-editor that comes with it it certainly has it quirks, it has practically all the features Wordpad has and many of its WYSIWYG capabilities. The source it generates is very human readable, imports MS Office and Libre Office documents directly. Even PDF works well. It takes some doing setting it all up in a Linux VM, but now that I have it, it quickly has become my goto application for making documents.

7
Living Room / Re: Looking for Raspberry Pi with Pass-Through Power
« on: August 17, 2023, 08:09 PM »
https://shop.hak5.or...hrowing-star-lan-tap

A device that monitors, without drawing power. While it is sold out (on that site at least), it looks to be small enough to be built into something. Because of the the 2 network port requirement, I expect that a commercial is out of the question.

Sure, there are many SBC's that have 2 NIC's built-in but those are usually on the larger side, so obvious to any observer and often in need of more (passive) cooling than a Raspberry Pi SBC.

ZimaBoards is such a device. Most likely overkill for your purpose, but dimension-wise you will be very hard pressed to find anything smaller that supports
 2 NICs. The ZimaBoard is propably major overkill for what you want to do with it.

A device like this would be much more preferable, whenever it actually comes to market. Perusing that site could be interesting, as it discusses many different makes and models of very small SBC's. Perhaps there is even one with 2 NICs. Here is an industrial Raspberry Pi model with 2 NICs. Perhaps that one is easier to alter, to make it a power through device.

Still, I don't expect you will escape from having to home-built one yourself.

8
https://svg-edit.github.io/svgedit/

That is an online svg editor, which has an option to host it yourself, on your own computer or personal website. You could then take the output and make adjustments in an text editor, and see how your changes affected the image in this tool again.

Do that long and/or often enough and you'll be able to envision what you "draw" by typing text in any text editor. Something not easy to do, but not impossible. Better spend your time more wisely and use any SVG drawing program and see what you are doing. 

9
I tried searching for this and did run across a few answers that would work in Linux using Sodu but unfortunately I need the same option for Windows. 
At the office, there is a Network folder that is used for special purposes and it contains about 200 subfolders with each of them containing a single file.  I am trying to solve a riddle that would require knowing the owners of the single file stored in each subfolder.  There are two possible owners for the files.  The answer to that question might tell me if the reason for a recent problem what i think it is, or not.
What I need is a list showing each subfolder on the network drive along with the name of the owner(s) of the single file inside each subfolder.  The single file in those folders has the same name so the list has to show the name of the each subfolder or I wont be able to tell them apart.
I was doing this manually and realized there had to be a better way :)  And I knew exactly where to look for an answer :) 
Thanks for pointers



Two questions. Does the ownership of files need to remain as it is? Or is there a need to reduce the amount of file/folder owners to just one?
If the ownership needs to be reduced to just one, just use a freeware tool called:  SetACL Studio
Well, the software is not really freeware, the maker of the software used to license it, but nowadays he gives you a registration code with your download.

It looks simple and does its task much better than what NTFS itself does. This software disregards any pre-configured settings/policies and changes ownership of files and folders to what you want. This disregard may not 'float your boat', but it has helped me out in the past. I only install it when I need it and remove it when it is not needed anymore, preventing any misuse. As is always, with power comes responsibility and this software might be regarded as basic, but do not kid yourself, it is powerful.   

Lets just say that as long as I manage Windows systems that work with NTFS, SetACL Studio will be part of my software-toolkit.

10
Software like WireShark can do this already. Not recommended though, it has a steep learning curve.

Perhaps the tool Process Monitor from SysInternals (part of Microsoft) will be of more help to you. You'll have to create a filter for the process you'll need to track. When this filter is active, you will see which sites have been opened. You can export the output from Process Monitor to a more (human) readable format, if that is needed.

block them in the hosts file, this way, you can still use spyware but it blocks it from sending your info.

You think that malware/spyware respects the the content in the HOST file? Maybe the most simple ones do. Smarter/bigger/"better" spyware keeps their own list of domains to connect to and do not care at all what you do with your HOST file. Not to rain on your parade, but why would you want to use the spyware? It is a breach in your security and the makers behind the spyware can land a worse payload into your system if they choose to do so at the time it is convenient for them. And if you cannot think of a worse payload than they already have saddled your system up with, in that case you lack imagination.

And even worse, if you use your system to log into a bank or governmental website, that data could be stolen as well as all your money. And there won't be much you can do. If you have some kind of insurance for your computer, when the insurance people detect the spyware, you are automatically denied any claim you think you have.

Spyware is primarily associated with cracked software and/or games. Seriously, spend the money on getting the original software or games. Because it is much cheaper in the long run. Just don't use the computer with the spyware on it to make those purchases.

11
If playing games is the purpose, Pop!_OS seems to be very capable of playing Windows games (via Steam/Proton). That aspect of Pop!_OS I have not tried, but I read on multiple forums that it is one of the better distro's to play games on.

My old clunker of a laptop works fine with Pop!_OS. As sphere already said: Most, if not all, Linux distros give you the option to run it from a pendrive first, to get a feel for that distro and if you like it, you can commit to it. Tried Ubuntu Studio on that laptop, as well as Mint, ElementaryOS, OpenSUSE and the last one was Pop!_OS. It just stood out to me more than the others, so I kept it. As said in a previous post, all the hardware in that laptop worked without having to do anything after installation from Pop!_OS. The amount of times a Windows installation went as smooth as installing Pop!_OS, I can count on one hand.

On Linux distros I would get set up then think "now what?  There's nothing to fix."   ;D

Now I would not go that far. While the base system works just fine, by trying out different distros I found that some small/minor things from one distro would appeal to me, I went out and looked for scripts etc. to mimic those small/minor things in Pop!_OS. It took digging and applying scripts in order, but did manage to do so. After that, I did not have a real need to fix anything else. So your sentiment is understood, and mostly true. Just not always.  :D

12
Linux Mint (version 21, Cinnamon edition) I have tried extensively myself. Found that the start menu to be quite like Windows 7. The graphical style of icons is not the same, but the way the menu works is very similar. And for basic computing usage, Mint will be a great choice for "new" Linux users.

While Pop!_OS (version 20.04, Gnome) does not look or feel like Windows 7 or newer, I found that Linux distribution to be very friendly towards beginning Linux users as well.

Tried both distributions on Lenovo laptops (Yoga and IdeaPad 5), which was a very good experience. All hardware in those devices was supported and working as well in Linux as in Windows.

I have also tried out Deepin (v15) and ElementaryOS (v0.5). These distributions look initially like very good options, but the experience changes quickly if you need something that is not part of their set of tools. ElementaryOS is worse than Deepin in this regard. Whether it is a thing for you or not...Deepin is made in/by China. There was a whole section that was made to be used in China. Simply wouldn't work without an IP address assigned for use in China.

13
Living Room / Re: Windows Club 27: Season's End.
« on: March 23, 2023, 04:37 PM »
Good luck with your Apple endeavors. And I agree that Windows 11 isn't as great as Microsoft is trying convince its users of. I actually own a now 1 year old laptop with Windows 11 on it. S edition initially, then converted it to Home via the Microsoft tooling that came with the laptop on it. It also came with Edge and Teams. Edge doesn't start at all anymore and Teams...the Teams installer for work/business terminates itself right after it starts and the Teams version that came with Windows 11 is useless for me.

One of the features that sets Windows 11 apart from any previous version is its ability to remember and apply the way/order of open Windows on a second monitor when the second monitor is re-connected. That hasn't worked once in a full year of use. The only things I have installed are AnyDesk and now RustDesk clients. Oh, and I altered a registry setting to disable the "new" context menu and just show me the old one. No more changes have been applied to this laptop. All other applications I use are "portable". So I don't understand why this Windows 11 installation is such a mess that Edge and Teams do not work. To me Windows 11 is a sub-par Windows experience and starts to feel more and more like Apple's "our way or the highway"-approach to computing.

From your post I gathered that you think Microsoft is taking the wrong direction with Windows yet again. Given my experiences with Windows 11, I happen to agree with you.

Sincerely, good luck with Apple, but going from one cage to the other? Several Apple devices from different generations passed through my hands, usually for software repair. Didn't like the way Apple worked way back with OS 9 or with OS X or MacOS. Again I have to agree that the amount of fun in computing is reduced with each new iteration.

To me Linux is the most fun forward, but then in combination with Raspberry Pi or similar devices. Where (mostly) the hardware and your ability to work with electronics are your constraints, not whether you are "nickeled and dimed" out of your money by subscription fees and nowadays the absolute need to have a working internet connection to get anything trivial done.

14
Or go to a site like
Spoiler
Rarbg.com

and download full seasons sets there. Those have the folder name format you require, plus all files neatly sorted and more often than not subs included.

You'll need to be a little more patient this way, but getting better sources saves you a lot of work. That or figure out how the
Spoiler
SONARR/SabNZB

tools work and fully automate the retrieval and optional renaming of the file types you show in your screenshots + storing these in folders (with formatted names). Which can then be used in a solution like Plex or Jellyfin to have a sort of Netflix-like experience in your home network.

Spoiler
SONARR

can already be used for sorting with the collection of files you have obtained.

Note to moderator: Feel free to remove this post, if you deem the spoiler content too controversial or going against rules I'm not aware of.

15
@4wd:
Is that an image of Lionel Croft? The long lost brother of Lara Croft?

16
Living Room / Re: How to setup KVM switch?
« on: December 28, 2022, 09:54 PM »
Yes, you'll need to connect the video output of your laptop and a USB cable for the mouse and a USB cable for the keyboard to the KVM switch.
So yes, that is a lot of cables. But you can buy a single cable that has all the necessary plugs on both ends. While it reduces the amount of cables, those cables are usually ugly to see, a lot stiffer than normal cables and only available at certain lengths, so for one system the cable is too long, for another perhaps too short. Those cables can be bought via Amazon if all those problems are not an issue for you.

The webcam will be an issue. At least I have not seen a KVM switch that supports a webcam. Keyboard Video Mouse is where KVM stands for.

KVM switches usually do not need drivers, Some may come with software to manage these if you buy a fancy model. A standard 4 computer KVM switch is already quite expensive. Fancy models are very expensive.

In 2 different companies I have worked with KVM switches. In the first job, I got to use a fancy one for 4 computers (but only 3 connected). That was a nice one and at the time more expensive than a decent desktop. In the other job I got a very old-fashioned and basic one. Very unreliable, as is was using the PS2 ports for mouse and keyboard. With both KVM switches no drivers were needed.

Managing the video, keyboard and mouse from 4 laptops via one USB-C cable is in principle not a problem. But you'll need USB-C cables that actually can transport all those signals. And no, USB-C cables are made according to very different standards and even if the packaging states it support transfer of signals you need, you better check as those manufacturers are more often than not less than truthful. Expect to pay dearly for USB-C cables that are actually capable.

Oh yeah, you'll need laptops with USB-C ports that can handle all those signals as well, so you end up buying 1 or 2 or perhaps 4 laptops to be able to use a single USB-C cable KVM switch solution. And then we'll probably also need a new KVM switch that works with USB-C as well. Blame the governing body behind the USB standards and the way they give leeway towards device manufacturers with their vague/unfinished requirements for the mess that is USB in general and USB-C in particular.

For a single cable solution, there is also the Ethernet KVM switch. Not cheap either and you'll need one for each laptop, but it works through a sigle Ethernet cable. These do require drivers and are not as easy to work with as traditional KVM switches.

If all of the above sounds complicated, expensive or both, you can also use a piece of freeware, called: Barrier
You'll need to setup one laptop as the master and the others as slaves. And all laptops need to be in the same network segment. That is not a problem in your home network, it could be in AD environments. The way you have to configure which laptop is which, may be a bit weird the first time you'll need to do it. But once you get your head around it, it is actually easy.

With the Barrier software you'll still need to screens from the 4 laptops visible to you. When everything is configured, you can drag the mouse cursor to any of the 4 laptops and use the mouse/keyboard/trackpad from the master laptop to type on the laptop the mouse cursor currently resides. If all laptops use Windows, it should also not be a problem to have a shared clipboard between all laptops. I personally use Barrier between a Windows 11 laptop and a Linux laptop and the shared clipboard feature barely works when the Linux laptop is the master. It doesn't work at all when the Windows 11 laptop is the master. But that is only an issue in a mixed environment like mine.

Barrier is not a full KVM switch solution, because it doesn't do video, only mouse and keyboard. But it is free, very usable (once you have seen it in action) and besides a bit of time getting your head around the configuration screen, a solution that can help you out almost immediately. Best of all, it doesn't require any extra cables. Lets just say that since I know about software like Barrier, I rather spend money on a larger desk and possibly an extra monitor for a desktop, than on any KVM switch solution.
 

17
And what if the drive in your laptop would die tomorrow, without any indication/warning?

In your case, you would get a new drive, restore a backup and probably spend the rest of the day tweaking things just like they were just before the drive died.

Now imagine that your laptop acted as a server and that you had an employee who needed that server to do his/her work. You were losing your own time, money and effort and the time, effort and profits from the work your employee does.

Increase that scale again to a company of 100 people, 1000 people etc. Preventative maintenance is a thing. Having the ability to move software/services inside a container to another server, without interruption of service to your employees and/or clients, to do the actual preventative maintenance on the original server, reduces the risk of failure or unplanned downtime.

Usually an enterprise grade server operates for about 3 years after it was purchased new. In that period it is unlikely that there is risk of failure/unplanned downtime. After that period the risk goes up, so the server is being repurposed for less important tasks or sold altogether. By that amount of time CPU's and other hardware have been either expanded upon or made much more efficient energy-wise. So in datacenters/serverparks (cloud and on-premise), servers are being replaced on regular intervals. And such things need to happen without interruptions, else it costs the business too much. If setup correctly, Kubernetes/containers help out with that.

Kubernetes also allows you to scale computer resources up at a moment's notice, when you need these resources. And scale down when you don't. Without the concept of Kubernetes, the cloud as you experience it today would not exist.

From the tone of your last post I gather that these things don't matter to you. And that is fine. But for those that run a business, it is. The extra layer of abstraction behind these concepts provide, keep their whole computing environment available to employees/clients, enabling those to generate their profits. Within enterprise environments availability exceeds performance, not by lot of course.

If you have a free weekend and the budget or have access to old, yet reasonably modern computers, I would suggest to start playing with containers/Kubernetes and ProxMox, so you'll get a first hand "feel" of what these concepts do. Likely you will not see a use case for yourself, but there is also a good chance that you'll come up with a use case that does work out for you.

18
General Software Discussion / Re: Lastpass hacked proper
« on: December 23, 2022, 10:07 PM »
Once Hackers have enough of your (meta) data, it can be reconstructed and will either help them make educated guesses or go for brute force as they have the time to do so.

HomeAssist is a tool that allows to make your home a lot smarter. But that is not its only function. You can use add-on's to enhance the feature-set. DNS, proxy, NTP are also very possible to manage with it. The reason I bring it up is that there is the 'Vaultwarden' add-on, which is a password manager. It is one that doesn't require the cloud. But as it is available to you in your home network, you can use it for many devices and do any kind of syncing when your devices are connected into your home network.

If you desire, you could also make your HomeAssistant instance accessible from outside your home network, so you could use your 'VaultWarden' setup also when your devices are outside your own network. Personally, I wouldn't go for such a setup, as one is usually at home when secure access to whatever service/software is required.

HomeAssistant is a project intended to be used in combination with the Raspberry 3 and 4 computing boards. But if you look well enough, you'll find that there is also an installer that works in a Linux VM or directly on an old computer. There is also a Docker-container of HomeAssist available, if that is more your thing. I elected to use a Linux VM inside my ProxMox environment and that works wonderfully well. I must add that there currently quite some add-ons installed, as well as HA keeping track of 10 security cameras (IP cams, 1080p) where I am figuring out how to use OpenAI for person recognition after motion is detected. I would not undertake those things with a Raspberry Pi.

Is HomeAssist with the 'VaultWarden' a good idea for anyone on the DC forum? I don't know. But it is worth a mention, as password managers do have their use. And if you are willing yo put a bit of effort into it and don't mention that you make use of it on social media, it should be a lot safer than having all those secrets permanently on cloud servers, which are under continuous attack from hackers.

19
According to Youtube channel 'Dave's Garage' Docker containers can be up to 15% slower than running the same tool on bare metal. He also tried VMs on the same hardware and performance losses were between 1 and 3%.

So containers are most of the time not the smartest choice, if pure performance is your goal. Containers do make things more convenient.

Containerization is actually a pretty old concept, thought up around 20 years ago. Meaning it is not something new, so you could have known about it already.  ;D

Containerization is not like sandboxing, but if one would need to describe it in a few succinct words to a layperson, then perhaps you should mention sandboxing. Container software, like Docker, embed themselves into the operating system at a pretty low level. It detects the hardware resources that are available and assigns these resources to the active containers as they need those resources.

Having a few active containers, you can be sure that the container software is managing the containers as efficient as possible withing the resource parameters you have configured. The operating system does come with such functionality, and it is good at it. But processes can sometimes bring the whole system down. Much less of a problem with containers.

Portable apps and sandboxes require to be run inside the operating system. Containers, in essence, do not.

Containers can easily be cloned and recreated, by scripts if you so prefer, hence these are ideal for automating the deployment of a test-/acceptance-/production-environment, adding and removing compute capacity when you/your company needs it. Making containers ideal for cloud computing and/or the enthusiast that owns his/her own testlab at home.

If you decide to get your feet wet and start playing with Docker, setup a Linux VM in your Windows installation and install Docker in that VM. Docker works very well in Linux. They do create a Windows installer of Docker, but that is not nearly as good an experience as the Linux version is. If you think that the Docker version for Windows works well, than you haven't seen it in action on Linux. The Docker installer also affects what other software you can install in Windows, especially with regards to virtualization and networking functionality.

If your Windows is modern enough to run WSL2 from Microsoft, you could use that to install the Linux version from Docker.

Containers, when setup well, occupy a lot less storage space on your drives than VMs do. Containers and Virtual Machines have very much in common, but containers have the advantage of occupying (much) less storage space. However, that is not always the case, as not every containerized project is setup that well. 

Containerization is a pretty well thought out concept for the Linux operating system. Windows and MacOS are much more lacking in that regard.
While a Docker container will work on Linux as well as on MacOS or Windows, other forms of containers do not. At least, I have not heard of them, but I have been playing with these things for a month and a half myself.

'LXC' and 'AppImage' are more mature Linux containers. And it doesn't matter which distribution of Linux (Debian, Ubuntu, RedHat, OpenSuse, Arch, Gentoo etc.) that these containers are executed on, they simply work. No need to install anything, just execute and you have working software.
Docker, Flatpak, Snap all require you to install their software first and each system is not interchangeable.

Now, if you are playing around with 'Proxmox' (open source virtualization software that put many similar commercial offerings to shame), You can directly run LXC containers as a VM in Proxmox. That is more or less all the advantages from containers and VMs all rolled into one.

I haven't played around with Kubernetes, and I only know that Google uses this software to run all the services they provide to end-users. I know that Google uses the most standard computer hardware as much as possible inside their server parks all over the globe. Much cheaper and easier to repair/maintain than server grade hardware, which can be hard to get and is always very expensive to buy. Running Kubernetes divides the workload of all their services over the hardware that is active. So when some cheap server fails, Kubernetes diverts the Google services to the remaining hardware without the end-user knowing there was any kind of hardware problem.

Haven't learned much more than that about Kubernetes.

20
Living Room / Re: ChatGPT Adventures
« on: December 13, 2022, 01:13 PM »
I understood that the results from ChatGPT are already banned from StackOverflow. See this article. Human responses proved to be of better quality than the ChatGPT results. How the level of quality was measured, I don't know.

But something to think about.

21
General Software Discussion / Re: any shit browsers I can use?
« on: November 22, 2022, 08:21 AM »
If you are security conscious....why not try to open that site using a text-based browser, like Linx. That way you can see if the site has been compromised or not. And as it is a text-based browser, javascript infections are not too big of a deal. And those are obscure and limited enough that other forms of infections are also hardly any problem.

When you think the site is still safe enough to use, go to a website like portableapps.com and look for any older version of FireFox/Chrome/Opera, download and run whichever one tickles you to visit that URL again.

If there are no old enough versions available, send me a PM and a location where I can dump an old portable version. Think I still have FF from 2015, Chrome from 2018, IE 6.0 (eolas) from 2006, which is a portable version of IE and if you really need to go old school, I can provide you with a portable version of Phoenix 0.5 from 2003.

The Phoenix browser was renamed to Firefox many moons ago. Still, they are available in my pack-rat software archive, if you need them.

22
General Software Discussion / Re: Internet Timer
« on: November 03, 2022, 10:32 PM »
Most modem/router devices provided by your ISP come with a web-interface, where you can create all kinds of configurations, including scheduling the hours/days where internet is allowed and when it isn't.

The interface to such settings varies a lot per device and ISP, but more often than not it is there. Most ISP's do not block you from adjusting any settings inside their modem/router device. But I encountered the first ISP in 25 years of internet experience who does block those settings, so your mileage could vary too.

If you have a generous ISP, their device could consist of a modem/router/switch. There may even be settings for creating virtual LANs, specific Ethernet ports to disable/enable on separate schedules, etc.  Don't count on that though, ISPs provide usually the cheapest/simplest device they think they can get away with.

You could introduce a managed switch between the ISP device and the rest of your network. Then you'll definitely have all what you ask for and more. I'm of the opinion that scheduled network access should be managed on the router or managed switch. More reliable and, if properly secured, practically impenetrable.

23
Use a tool like 'Process Monitor' from SysInternals. Run that in the background and go through your procedure once again then stop 'Process Monitor'. You haven now gathered a lot of data of each process that started and stopped, registry adjustments and where which files were opened/stored/deleted.

This data can be filtered and then you should have the location of the file you seek.

24
Assuming there are very little power failures in your house, you'll keep all your music on a server, running locally in a network. That reduces startup times to practically zero. Just keep your server and network (incl. WiFi) powered and you are good to go very, very quickly.

There is an Android app for Jellyfin. When your phone is connected through WiFi to your own network, it will play music and video. Your phone should also work as a remote control.

Depending on your what your ISP allows and your networking skills, the Jellyfin app on your phone will be able to connect to your Jellyfin server outside of your local network too. But be sure to secure things properly, there is the possibility you'll invite the internet to wreak havoc. Or worse, the German courts come knocking on your door for facilitating piracy.

A Raspberri Pi (v3.x or v4.x) computer doesn't consume much energy in idle or when it is active, so it shouldn't be too much of an issue to leave it running 24/7. Those cost around 35 USD, spend 10 to 15 USD on a decent case for that Raspberry Pi, a SD card with enough space for your library & the operating system for that computer and a cable to connect it to your HiFi set/DAC, if you don't already have one.

You'll need a keyboard, mouse and monitor for the initial configuration of the RPi computer and installation of JellyFin server. Afterwards you can take those parts away and manage the server from a web-interface.

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General Software Discussion / Re: Firewall Tester
« on: September 27, 2022, 03:32 PM »
I don't think cstatus is going to work for me.  I have many servers where PING is not enabled and have to use the telnet command to see if the port is open. 

nmap is great at what it does, but Windows quite often flags it as malware. Or at least a piece of software the user needs protection from (according to Microsoft). When you get it from the creator's website, it is a false positive.

On a general note: in your network you have telnet enabled, yet ICMP (ping) disabled? Telnet is kinda infamous for being unsafe, in (much) more ways than the ICMP protocol is.

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