How to switch off safety Mode for Youtube when no user is logged in.

It looks like with a recent update on Youtube, on older versions of Firefox it is hard to switch off Safety mode when no user is logged in. This is a problem when you have shared computers. After some research I figured it out that the "Safety On" preference is stored in the following cookie:

Capture 1 - cookie that stores the Safety On preference

You can get to this by clicking on Tools/Options/Privacy/Remove Individual Cookies.

While the easiest way would be just to ask users/Helpdesk Staff to remove the cookie, in real life this will not work or it will cause users extra stress. I believe on these computers  the cookie cashing for Youtube should be disabled completely. This can be done by removing the above cookie and followed by:

1. Loading a Youtube page

2. Right click anywhere on the page

3. Select: View Page Info

4. Select Permissions

5. Scroll down to Select Cookies

6. Select Block

Capture 2 - Block Cookies for Youtube

I believe this could be done also on the Enterprise version of Firefox by group policy. 

I hope it will help somebody, feel free to leave me a comment with suggestions.

Csaba

Battery powered Ethernet link tester

Recently I was seconded to the Networking Team. In one of the days I was required to trace down a network port which was wrongly labelled. Luckily, I had my cable tracer with me, however the solution was not ideal. There were 8 possible ports and only one tracer.... I knew that 4 out of the 8 ports must be live. But which ones?

While having a mobile device like a laptop is helpful, carrying a laptop with you only for live port detection is far from ideal. I started to look for an alternative solution.

After a bit of research, I found a site where one of the users describes a process of converting a CentreCom 210 TS Tranceiver into a live port detector. The process is fairly easy, it involves some soldering and it requires a small switch and a battery.

Since I had no available transceivers, I started to look for a different solution using something that I have. Basically any small switch, hub or even a Raspberry Pi (quite an expensive solution for port detection) would do the job as long as the device has a link light and can be powered with 5 V. I had a look around the house and I found  a small USB print server that had a 5 V input. Great! Now the only thing needed was a 5 V power source. Obviously EBay had the solution and it does not need any soldering just a bit of electrical tape and double sided tape.

What you need:
- small USB  print server (I had a DLink DP-301U one but there are plenty others on EBay and Amazon, just make sure they have a 5 V power input)
- battery box holder (I've used this.)
- electrical tape
- double sided tape
- 4 AA batteries

The steps to create the port tested:

1. cut the power adaptor wire
2. take of the insulation for approx. 2 cm
3. take of the insulation for approx. 2 cm on the battery box
4. identify the + and - cables (most of the times the + is the internal part of the jack)
5. connect red to + and black to -
6. using double sided tape, tape together the print server and battery box, making sure that you will still be able to use the switch and you don't cover the MAC address
7. insulate the cables using the electrical tape
8. connect the cable to the print server
9. add the batteries
10.test the device

That's it.

And here is the result:

the size of the end device

End product in operation

Nexus 7 2012 - Rooting

It has been a while since I did not post anything. I was quite busy with other things.

I've recently bought a Nexus 7 3G 2012 and I've decided to root it as I do with all of my devices. However, I did not install any custom roms as I usually do. I like the original one and I do not see any reason why I would want to change that at the moment, it might change however soon.

I did quite a bit of research online and I found out that the easiest way to root the Nexus is with the Nexus Root Toolkit that you can find here: http://www.wugfresh.com/nrt/

I think that if you are able to follow straight ahead instructions, even if you are not a tech guy, you should be able to root your device.

There are many reasons to root a device, I specially need root in order to automate tasks with Tasker.