Tuesday, October 09, 2007

Airtel 220BX router forgot password

If you are reading this, you like me belong to the forky lot, who just cant rest without forking around in something unitl its messed up. Why do we do it, "thats how we learn!!!" right?
So, you know that blackbox in your home is not some magic but a Beetel DSL router, whose default username is admin and password is password
But that was default, the moment you you got to know of it, you had to change it. So you did, and couple of boring office days later you decided to access the router again, but alas you had forgotten that password, that secret known only to you 6 letter phrase.
Although your internet still works but this being denied access to a box sitting right in front of you, no I cant take it.
So what do you do?
Warning: This might lead to your internet not working for sometime, till you configure it right.

  1. Get your username and password: For most people your ADSL router works using PPPoE
    , which requires a username and password. You will need this to restablish your connection to the internet. It could be
    username:<stdcode><phonenumber>@touchtelindia.net
    password:<accountnumber>
    You can confirm this by calling up the helpdesk and asking them to tell you your username, and reseting the password.

  2. Reset your router: Now make sure your router is on and then reset your router by pressing that black button hidden inside a hole at the back of your modem using a pen or some pointed thing, See screenshot below:


  3. Switch off and Switch on your router.

  4. Open Router Management Console: Now fireup your browser and access your router using http://192.168.1.1/
    As the router has been reset you will be able to log in using the default username: admin and the default password: password
    1. Once you have logged in Click on WAN.
      Now you might see a couple of entries here, delete them by selecting the checkboxes
      next to them and clicking on remove. Reboot the router by clicking on save/reboot.
    2. Login to the router again. Click on WAN, and click on Add to add an entry.
    3. In the ATM PVC configuration screen Enter VPI value 1 and VCI value 32
    4. Next you will see the connection type screen, select PPPoE in that screen.
    5. In the Next screen enter the PPPoE username and password.
    6. Keep default values in all subsequent screens and save this newly created entry.
    7. Reboot your router, by Switching on and Switching Off.
    8. Once up again, Login to the router again and click on the WAN.
    9. The entry you created should show status UP. This signifies you internet is back up and running.
Access your favourite website and voila, ur back again. Happy surfing!

Wednesday, October 03, 2007

Enabling Indic in Firefox on Ubuntu

Do you have problems reading Indic lanaguage websites? Do you see incorrect rendering such as misplaced matras, aadha akshar appearing with a halant? Have you been blaming firefox/Ubuntu for not getting such basic stuff right?
Well not to worry as the fix is a very simple series of steps.

  1. First check if your browser has been compiled with the --enable-pango flag. To check this, type "about:buildconfig"(without quotes) in your address bar and look for the string --enable-pango (See screenshot below). For most people on Ubuntu, this flag should be there, but in case you have one that doesnt have this flag, you will have to obtain a firefox build that was compiled with this option.



  2. Now you will need to set two environment variables, naemly MOZ_ENABLE_PANGO and MOZ_DISABLE_PANGO. To set these variables(On Ubuntu) open the file /etc/environment in your favourtie text editor, and type the following lines at the end:
    MOZ_ENABLE_PANGO=1
    MOZ_DISABLE_PANGO=0

  3. Now you will need to install certain fonts (in case these are not already present), to install these fonts type the following in your terminal(See screenshot to know where to open the terminal from),

    sudo apt-get install ttf-indic-fonts



  4. And thats it, you are done just log off and log in and you should see Indic text being rendered properly. To check, see if you can read this beautiful poem in Hindi properly,
    http://manaskriti.com/kaavyaalaya/kaho_kaise_ho.stm
    If you cant read Hindi open your favourite website and see if it renders properly.
Troubleshooting: In case you still cant get Indic script to render properly, before asking your LUG or any help group gather the following Information:
  1. Your Operating System details: You can get display operating system details by typing uname -a on your terminal.(See above on how to open the terminal)

  2. Your browser version details: In firefox go to Help -> About Mozilla Firefox

  3. Your Browser Build Details: Go to address bad type about:buildconfig

  4. Font Details: On Ubuntu Go To System->Preferences->Fonts and check what Hindi/Tamil/Your Language fonts(if any) you have.
Notes:
  1. For more detailed information on enabling Indic on your system, please visit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Enabling_complex_text_support_for_Indic_scripts

  2. Pango is a free and open source computing library for rendering internationalized texts in high quality. Different font backends can be used, allowing cross-platform support, that was written as a part of GTK+ widget toolkit.
    http://www.pango.org/

The "I have 2 orkut accounts problem"

This is a problem that a lot of people tell me about. I have 2 orkut accounts or separate Gmail and orkut accounts but how do i open them both in Firefox. Opening 2 separate windows doesn't work.

Well the solution is pretty simple if you follow the following Step by Step. This is a solution on Windows which i believe is the majority audience here.


  1. Close all firefox windows, including any download windows.

  2. Right click on My Computer. Click on properties. You will see a tab "Advanced". Click on that and then click on the button "Environment vairables".
    Now click on New and a small dialog box will appear asking you for Variable Name and Variable Value. In the variable name field write MOZ_NO_REMOTE

    Make sure its in Capital Only. In the variable value field enter 1.

    Now click on OK in the dialog Box, and then OK in the System Vairbales Dialog.

  3. Go to Start->run. Type firefox.exe -ProfileManager.You will see a window like below. Here Click on "Create Profile" and then create a profile named "Separate Gmail". Once you do that and click on finish you will see 2 profiles "default" and "Separate Gmail". Click on default and Make sure "Don't ask on startup" checkbox is selected. Now click on "Start Firefox". This opens a Firefox window, login to your orkut/gmail account.

  4. Now for opening a separate window with your other account, we will first create a shortcut. Go to your Desktop, right click and click on New->Shortcut. This will open a Create Shortcut dialog. In the location box enter the following String
    "C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe" -p SeparateGmail
    In case you selected some other directory while installing firefox navigate to that directory and select firefox.exe. Once you do that at the end add " -p SeparateGmail"(without quotes).
    Now click on Next and give an appropriate name to this shortcut, say Separate Gmail Firefox.

  5. This will add another Firefox icon to your desktop, with the above name. Now double click on that to open another firefox window. Now go to orkut/gmail , you will see the login screen, login with your other account and you are there.
    Please Note: The Firefox window opened through this shortcut will not have your settings like proxy settings, addons etc. You will have to add them again for this profile.



Tuesday, October 02, 2007

Google News Strange Behavior

Last night I was up till about 2 AM watching the English Premier League Game between Totenham Hotspurs and Aston Villa. Spurs have had a horrendous start to the season, so I slept off when it became 1-3 thinking it was a done deal.
Then today through a news report on TV i got to know Spurs had actually drawn level at 4-4. Now i wanted more of this news. Fired up my browser went to Google News India and searched for "totenham", href="http://news.google.co.in/news?hl=en&ned=in&ie=UTF-8&q=totenham&btnG=Search">here here is the result page I got. Strange part was it had only one result a Sky Sports news report. This was a pretty strange, had everyone in UK slept off not written anything about spurs Liverpoolish achievements?? Obviously not, Next I searched for "totenham villa", and here is the result page i got, with all the results I wanted.
Isnt it a little strange that when i include more terms i actually get more results, shouldn't more terms mean narrower results.
I am not a search expert but something has to explain this.

Monday, October 01, 2007

Quote Unquote

The idea
that the value of the system will be discovered rather than known at the time of
installation implies, in turn, that product flexibility and adaptability, as well as ongo-
ing account service, should be critical components of any buyer’s evaluation check-
list.

Geoffrey Moore