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pc engine - pfsense as router / firewall

Thu, 26 Feb 2015 00:00:00 +1300

Just built a pfsense router on a pc engine to replace my aging 7390 fritzbox…. Very very awesome and fast!

Perfect for UFB (ultra fast broadband) here in New Zealand - FTTH has arrived :)

I’m currently running these services on it (2 x 1GHZ cpu, 4GB RAM, 16GB msata SSD);

dhcpd - DHCP server
miniupnpd - UPnP server
ntpd - NTP server
squid - Transparent Proxy & Reverse Proxy
snort - IDS (Intrusion Detection System) / IPS (Intrusion Prevention System)
ssd - SSH server
unbound - DNS Server
ipsec - IPsec VPN (site to site VPN)
openvpn - Open VPN (client VPN)

Check these links for some great advise…

MediaPortal - Codecs

Sun, 13 Sep 2009 00:00:00 +1200

SAF seems to be one of the best option out there, the author has a nice post here : http://forum.team-mediaportal.com/codecs-external-players-55/saf-v4-00rc1-standalone-filters-dxva-ready-mpeg2-h-264-vc-1-a-44614/

I was previously using the mega codec pack, but found lately there was some issues with it jerk zooming? - in dark scenes it was jumping in and out. I’ve gone through all the filter settings and ensured everything was disabled, but still the problem comes up. Installing SAF has removed these problems.

PC Build - May be time to upgrade my rig soon

Sun, 30 Aug 2009 00:00:00 +1200

This is my current gaming machine which i built earlier this year - i decided to have had a play with water cooling before i put anything too expensive into the case. :)

Its a Intel E8400 running at 4.14Ghz, i’ve only got 2Gb of ram and 2 x 120Gb HDD’s in raid 0

I’ll keep the case and water cooling setup when i move to i7. Probably just grab a 1366 mount kit for my fusion v2 waterblock.

Encoding Vids - Atomic advice on mencoder

Wed, 26 Aug 2009 00:00:00 +1200

One of the writers for Atomic mag spent some time upscalling his dvd collection to 720p. This is the commandline he used in the end to get a great clear result.

commandline ;

mencoder -sws 9 -vf scale=1280:720,hqdn3d=6:5:8,unsharp=17x5:1,pp=ha:128:7/va/dr/al - ovc x264 -x264encopts subq=9:b_pyramid:weight_b:8x8dct:me=umh:cabac:partitions=all:trellis=2:mixed_refs:direct_pred=auto:psy-rd=1.0,0.2:qp=16:threads=2:nodct_decimate:nofast_pskip:bframes=6:frameref=6 -oac copy dvd://1 -o output.avi

Of course it may change depending on what you are encoding, but its a good place to start. Check the atomic fourms (au) for more detail etc…

Gaming - Sept PCG 09 cover

Mon, 06 Jul 2009 00:00:00 +1200

Heres the cover for september 09 PCG. Apparently it is due to contain a 10 page article on Supreme Commander 2.

Truely looking forward to this one, might give me an excuse to update my gaming rig! :)

Gaming - Starcraft 2 says bye bye to LAN networking

Sun, 05 Jul 2009 00:00:00 +1200

A few days ago the NDA’s were lifted on Star Craft 2. One of the most shocking features was that there is NO LAN option for multi player? (i’m ignoring the split into 3 games thing - as i don’t really mind that too much)

Was just a bit worrying to me, since myself and quite a few of my friends still continue with the dying tradition of LAN parties. I can under stand blizzards move from a business perspective, as rumour has it they wish to get a piece of the pie when it comes to large competitive gaming events.