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ConnectMeNow v4 – Mounting Network Shares Quick and Easy on a Mac

ConnectMeNow v4 – Mounting Network Shares Quick and Easy on a Mac
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As a macOS fan I keep being surprised that Apple still hasn’t implemented some obvious improvements, like a dual pane Finder or … an easier way to mount network shares. The latter is what ConnectMeNow tries to address, which is nothing new to those familiar with previous versions of ConnectMeNow (CMN).

We are more network connected than ever before – at home, in school and at work. We have network shares on our computers, want to access company network shares, or have a dedicated file server or NAS (Network Attached Storage) to store our information or make our backups. Unfortunately, it is still cumbersome under macOS X to connect to those “shares” (also known as mounted network “Volumes“).

For this reason I created ConnectMeNow – initially just for personal use.
Its sole purpose being to mount network shares quicker and easier, and have easier access to SSH connections.
ConnectMeNow supports protocols like SMBCIFSFTPSSHWebDAVNFS and AFP.

Note: if “mounting” doesn’t mean anything to you, then know that mounting (in this case) refers to making network drives, for example from another computer or NAS, appear on your Mac so you can access them quicker and easier.

Besides this being a fully from scratch build version, this version now is available as 64bit application for Intel and Apple Silicon – signed an notarized.

How to find the IP Address of your Default Gateway

How to find the IP Address of your Default Gateway
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While exploring a suggestion of a visitor here, I wanted to find a solid way to retrieve the IP Address of the Default Gateway in a given network.
The most common reason is probably so you can access the modem or router and do some verifications or configurations.

So in this article I’ll show you how to determine the IP address of the default gateway of your network, on several platforms (Window, Linux, macOS, iOS, and Android).

How to use Email Templates in Apple Mail (macOS)

How to use Email Templates in Apple Mail (macOS)
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In certain scenarios, it can be a timesaver, and avoid mistakes, to have one or more templates for common emails.
Unfortunately, Apple Mail, that comes with macOS, doesn’t have a template mechanism … or does it?

With a simple trick we can use “templates” in Apple Mail under macOS and in this article I’ll show you how …

How to create a Self-Signed SSL Certificate

How to create a Self-Signed SSL Certificate
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Sometimes we need a Certificate so we can encrypt and decrypt network communication, for example for all kinds of network devices (eg. NAS, IoT devices, local web server, etc).

Unfortunately, for some of these applications, we cannot obtain a legit certificate from a CA (Certificate Authority), due to certain limitations.
In this article I’ll show you how to create such a free Self-Signed (self-created) certificate yourself, for Windows, macOS and Linux.

I’ll also briefly point out limitations and potential problems that come with a Self-Signed certificate or CERT.

How to Flush your local DNS (Mac, Windows, Linux)

How to Flush your local DNS (Mac, Windows, Linux)
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Flush DNS – Sometimes we do run into network issues, and sometimes this is caused by a corrupted DNS cache on your computer.

In this article a quick and easy overview on how to flush the DNS cache on your computer for several operating systems:

  • Windows (Windows 95 up to Windows 10)
  • macOS (10.6 Snow Leopard up to 11.0 Big Sur)
  • Linux (several methods)

Getting started with the ESP8266 as an Arduino replacement

Getting started with the ESP8266 as an Arduino replacement
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In this article, I’ll show you how I did get started with an ESP8266, as a replacement for an Arduino, and they are dirt cheap!

The ESP8266, appears to have been sold as a shield for an Arduino, to provide WiFi functionality to an Arduino. Pretty cool!
But what is even cooler: For most applications you do not even need an Arduino, as the ESP8266 can run as a standalone microcontroller with WiFi on board, and is even more capable than most Arduinos.

This may sound odd, but after my first experiences with the ESP8266;
I’m beginning to wonder how often I’ll be using my Arduino Uno in the future. The little ESP8266 is so cool, faster, more powerful, and has more memory, at a ridiculous price of about $5. And all this in a smaller package with WiFi included!

ConnectMeNow v3 – Mount Network Shares Quick and Easy on a Mac

ConnectMeNow v3 – Mount Network Shares Quick and Easy on a Mac
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macOS is great – I really like it a lot – but one thing it doesn’t handle all that great is … network shares.

In this day and age a little weird to still see this, especially from a company like Apple. We are more network connected than ever before – at home, in school and at work. We have network shares on our computers, want to access company network shares, or have a dedicated file server or NAS (Network Attached Storage) to store our information or make our backups.

Unfortunately, it is still cumbersome under macOS X to connect to those “shares” (also known as mounted network “Volumes“).

In Finder, a server doesn’t always appear right away, we need to go through a list of shares on a given “server”, get confused if we need SMBCIFSFTPSSHWebDAVNFS or AFP, and I’m not even mentioning the need to enter a username and password on protected shares.

For this reason I created ConnectMeNow – initially just for personal use.
But the arrival of the 64 bit requirement, mandatory signed applications, and notarization requirements, and Catalina issues, my original old version was simply outdated.

So after months of work, I’d like to present ConnectMeNow v3, which hopefully makes working with shares easier for you as well.

SSH Login without a Password

SSH Login without a Password
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In this article, I’ll show you how you can login to SSH (Secure Shell) more secure, without not using a password, by using SSH-keys.

SSH allows several types of services to connect securely (encrypted and such) to be used, but the most common one is Shell (command line) access.
It is mostly used as a much more secure replacement for Telnet, rlogin, rsh etc.

Quite often, when starting to use SSH, most users will use a username and password to get SSH access, but this not the most secure method.
More secure, and easier to use, is by using so called SSH-keys, and in this article I’ll try to explain as simple as possible how this works and how to get started with this.

miniWOL v2 – Quick and Easy Wake On LAN Utility

miniWOL v2 – Quick and Easy Wake On LAN Utility
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Waking up devices that are network connected, can be done with the so called “Wake On LAN” feature provided by certain devices (like for example a NAS, FileServer, or even a PC). A while back I created a simple application for this – miniWOL – keeping in mind that the user may not be too familiar with all the configuration details (see: previous miniWOL versions).

I wanted just a simple menu in the System Tray (Windows: next to the clock, usually the lower-right corner of your screen) or Menubar (MacOS X – top of your screen, Linux often at the bottom of your screen). Well, after a bit of searching I could not find anything suitable or to my liking and I decided to just write something myself.

The old miniWOL has been good so far, and plenty folks seem to have a good use for it privately and professionally. However, Apple had to change a few things (moving to 64 bit, using Cocoa instead of Carbon, and the need to sign and notarize applications – I suspect Microsoft will probably follow soon) so while revamping the Mac version, I revamped the Windows version as well, and added a 64-bit Linux version as well (by request).

pfSense 2.x – How to fix Strict NAT for XBox One

pfSense 2.x – How to fix Strict NAT for XBox One
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I’m always up for playing with new toys, and this time I did build a firewall using pfSense. I wanted to play with OpenVPN and my NetGear R7000 Nighthawk (running Asus xWRT) capped out at 5Mbps. So I migrated to pfSense.

However, doing so, my XBox One decided to not like this and detected STRICT NAT – which results in limitations with online gaming.

In this article I’ll show you how I fixed this with pfSense so NAT now shows as OPEN (keep in mind that I’m NOT an expert).

Note: This may apply to PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, XBox 360 and other consoles as well.

Windows 10 Quick Assist – Troubleshoot a Friend’s PC Without Any Extra Software

Windows 10 Quick Assist – Troubleshoot a Friend’s PC Without Any Extra Software
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Ever needed to help a friend or family with their computer issues with remote access? Quick Assist is the way to go for Windows 10 users for remote assistance!

If you’re reading this, then there is a good chance that you’re looking at the same challenge I have every now and then; a friend or family member is having issue with their PC and if you can please help them … like right now! In that case (or when you live on a different continent) remote access is the way to go, unless you’re pretty close by.

In the past I used LogMeIn, it was probably the best tool I’ve every used for remote access, but unfortunately it’s no longer free or affordable.

For a while I’ve used TeamViewer, but in all honesty – I really dislike how the tool works even though it is free. The fact that both parties need to install software and those funny codes, weird screens, and sometimes confusing settings – well, it’s just not for me.

This weekend I had to assist my nephews, both of them using Windows 10. And again I was stuck with the same question: what tool to use?
Well not entirely … seems Windows 10 is equipped with everything we need and in this article I’ll show you how it’s done.

QNAP FTP Client by using File Station

QNAP FTP Client by using File Station
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Occasionally I have those FTP jobs to either download or upload a truck load of files – for example when I want to make a backup of my website.

Now you could start a regular FTP client on your PC and have it run all night to do just that, or … you could use your QNAP for that – mine is running 24/7 anyway, so why not? The biggest issue is: where do you find a FTP client that can download or upload entire directory structures?

Download Station, and the likes, only take one URL at a time, or other apps do silly things like zipping all files before up- or download (who came up with THAT idea?).

After a long search I found something interesting; One of the best hidden features of File Station, the file manager in the web-interface of your QNAP, is the fact that it supports FTP … albeit poorly documented and hard to find … in this article: how do we do this with QTS 4 (tested with QTS 4.2.1). Note that this only supports regular FTP, so not SFTP!).

Remotely Wake up your Computers with Wake On Lan

Remotely Wake up your Computers with Wake On Lan
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Wake On Lan, the Ethernet standard for waking up (switching them ON) network enabled devices remotely, has (again) gained popularity, especially under NAS/Server users, who use their server or NAS only a few hours a day. Wether it’s to save on your Power bill, reduce your Carbon-Footprint, or to spare your equipment, Wake On Lan is here to stay …

Now come these question though,… how do I enable Wake On Lan on my network enabled device, and how do I send a “wake up” call to my device?

In this article, I’ll try to cover as much as I can – since it can be a pretty hairy process to setup Wake On Lan. It very strongly depends on the hardware and software capabilities of your device. Even though I cannot every device on the planet, I sure will try to help you get started with Wake On Lan.

miniWOL – Tiny Wake On LAN tool for Windows and MacOS X

miniWOL – Tiny Wake On LAN tool for Windows and MacOS X
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I had not used the good old Wake On LAN option in a while, until my brother-in-law (Jean-Pierre) was looking for something like that to wake up his NAS.

Most of the Wake On LAN applications I found for him were just too extensive, too complicated, or not free. I wanted just a simple menu in the System Tray (Windows: next to the clock, lower-left corner of your screen) or Menu-bar (MacOS X – top of your screen). Well, after quite a bit of searching I could not find anything suitable or to my liking and I decided to just write something myself.

Timing couldn’t be better, since I just wanted to implemented Wake On LAN in another application – ConnectMeNow (for MacOS X).
Reusing the code, making it suitable for Windows and MacOS X, and wrapping it in a small application was done relatively quickly.

This application has been tested under MacOS X 10.11 (El Capitan) and Windows 10 and it’s FREE.

QNAP – The better download manager Aria2 revised

QNAP – The better download manager Aria2 revised
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Some might have read my previous article on how to install Aria2 as your alternative download manager.

Now Aria2 has been great, but the QNAPWare version is rather old. “jokies” in the QNAP forum has created a QPKG file which handles it all, and … is up to date. (kudo’s to jokies!).

So in this article, the quicker and faster way to get the more recent Aria2 running on your QNAP.
I will describe how to remove the old Aria2 version. You can keep the Web Interface, it works with the new one out of the box, or you can try an alternative Web Interface (YAAW) which I will show you in this article as well.

If you’ve done everything right, the Chrome Addon Aria2-Integration will work right away as well.
Please note that this QPKG is Intel only!

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