Author Archives: Brian Agrawal Goodacre

SmartRG router cheatsheet

The SmartRG router (supplied by Sonic ISP) has a bad user interface. There is no easy mode, just very network centric terminology to maneuver.  Local Server Walk-through Let’s say you plug in your laptop to Ethernet or connect to the … Continue reading

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SmartRG network hard drive – SAMBA version too old

The SmartRG router (supplied by Sonic ISP) has the option of mounting a hard drive for access by all computers on the network via the SAMBA protocol. But the SmartRG router supplied has an old version of the SAMBA protocol, … Continue reading

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Nextcloud on AWS with S3 and Lightsail

Running a Nextcloud instance in AWS rather than at your home has some benefits: S3 storage means unlimited storage Static IP Fast bandwidth Always able to SSH into machine and restart it I suggest this blog that provides a few steps … Continue reading

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Temporary fix for updating external HPFS/NTFS/exFAT hard drive’s permissions so Plex can access

When I plugged in my external hard drive that was on Windows to a Linux machine (Raspberry Pi 3), it was automatically mounted at /media/brian/Brian-HD, but the permissions were drw- — — 1 brian brian. I needed Plex to be able … Continue reading

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Factory Resetting Nexlux LED Light Strip

The Nexlux LED Strip Lights sold on Amazon have a confusing set of “How to restore factory settings?” instructions First, to add a device, install their app (Magic Home Pro app on Google Play or Magic Home WiFi on App Store) and … Continue reading

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Google Location Sharing Review

Google’s version of Apple’s Find My Friend is Google Location Sharing. You can set this up to share your location with friends for a limited amount of time, or you can set it to always share your location with family … Continue reading

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Secure Messaging Apps Review

This is a problem amongst the secure messaging app space, they all have security tradeoffs or usability tradeoffs. Continue reading

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[NO SOLUTION] Lenovo Thinkpad shuts down after exactly 30 minutes

I recently received a rather new Lenovo Thinkpad Ultrabook for free because the machine running Windows would shut down after 30 minutes exactly. It was running Windows and I thought it was a problem with Windows, well… Installing Linux, it … Continue reading

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Saving Tree Style Tabs into Bookmarks with Firefox

On Firefox, my favorite add-on is Tree Style Tabs (download), because you can see all of your tabs and their names tabs have hierarchy (parent > children > grandchildren) Once you use it, you will always want to use it, especially … Continue reading

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NAT Loopback on Xfinity

The current Xfinity routers (end of 2017) do not support NAT Loopback and have no options for enabling NAT Loopback. What is NAT Loopack? NAT Loopback or Hairpinning is when Device_A behind a router tries to access another Device_B behind … Continue reading

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