Secure remote access setup for your desktop

If you're like me then you surely have more than 1 machine at home. I count 3 -- my sturdy old desktop, my netbook and my official laptop. I often feel the need to access my desktop from my other machines. It could be as simple as stopping some download on my desktop so that the internet works faster in my laptop or it could be to take a backup of the movie reviews that I write on my netbook. In either case, here is a simple guide to setting up remote and secure access to your desktop.

Things you'll need:

a) Teamviewer -- a freely downloadable software
b) Some time to configure the whole setup

Are you ready? Let's go....

Step1 -- Download and install team viewer

Easy enough. Go to www.teamviewer.com and download the latest version. I use version 5.0.8703, but ideally later versions should work fine. Install it on to your desktop. Once installed, run teamviewer and go to "Extras --> Options"

This leads you to the options screen where you need to setup a few different options.

Step 2 -- Setting up to accept incoming connections

i) General -- Start Teamviewer with Windows.

Enable this by clicking on the checkbox. This will ensure that every time your machine is on, teamviewer is automaticaly ready to accept incoming connections. See screenshot below with the relevant checkbox highlighted

ii) Turn on "Incoming Lan Connections" to "accept exclusively". This is a security feature to prevent your machine being from outside your network. In other words, it means that only people using your wireless connection can connect to this machine. I do hope your wireless is security enabled with a strong password. See below for the option you need to turn on:

iii) Next, let's add a password to this whole setup. After all how can anything be secure without a good password setup? Go to "Security" option on team viewer "Extras --> Options --> Security" and setup a password. Also, set "password strength" as "Disabled (no session password" as we're going to use our own defined password

iv) Almost done, but did I not promise you a really secure access? This step is optional, but adding it gives a extra layer of security to the whole setup. I like it and I recommend you do the same though you're good to go now

Install teamviewer on one of your clients (i.e. the laptop from which you want to access your desktop). Just install teamviewer. No need to change any options. After installing teamviewer, when you start it, you'll get an ID and password. This ID defines your laptop's unique ID. Note down this number. You'll need it in a second (Note that I've deliberately deleted password and part of ID from the screenshot for my safety :))

Use this id in the "whitelist" of your desktop. This will ensure only this particular ID can access your desktop remotely and that too whilst inside your LAN only! The option to configure this is under "Extras --> Options --> Security --> Configure"

Here, "whitelist" all your laptops/desktops through which you need to access your main desktop remotely. In other words, this means only these particular ids will be allowed through. Use the option "Deny access -- except for the following ids". Give the userid you noted down in the previous step. Follow the same for other laptops that you own as each one would be given a different ID by teamviewer. Note that in the screenshot below, I've deliberately removed a part of the userid

That's it, you should be good now to access this machine through wireless within your LAN

Step 3 -- accessing your machine

Fire up teamviewer in one of your laptops. Make sure your main desktop is on (off course!). Use the LAN id. In my case, it is 192.168.0.100 -- it could be different for yours. To check that, open your teamviewer in the desktop and look at the ID field. Use this ID and the password you specified and use it to access away your desktop to glory.

Let me know how it goes and if this tutorial needs any corrections!

Turntable.fm -- How it could change your online music experience (or not)

So when I heard about this new startup www.turntable.fm -- I was excited. The sites billed it as "Anti Pandora". For those of you who don't know, Pandora serves up music depending on your taste. Turntable takes it up a notch further by letting other people play music for you

The concept is very simple and I'm surprised that this has not been done before. A virtual DJ is just what the doctor ordered.

So, I was pleasantly surprised when I could try this out. But be warned, it's not yet open to public so don't fret if you don't have access to this site yet. Firstly to login you need to use your facebook account and one of your friends should be already on the site. In my case, somebody was on and I was through to the next level (Thank you whoever it was!)

Now, you're presented with a list of rooms and you can choose one to enter



The rooms are ordered in descending order by the number of people in the room. You can also search for a room. I searched for "Rock" and entered one of the rock rooms.



Here you see DJs playing and people listening. The avatars are silly, but passable since the site is still in beta. Here the real fun begins. If you like the song being played you can click on the "Awesome" button at the bottom or the "Lame" button if you don't like it. Enough lames will make the song skip. This is where Turntable cleverly adds a bit of social touch to it. The more people that like the song, the more the DJ's points go up. You can also become a fan so that you get notified if the DJ is playing anywhere

But what good is a DJing site if you cannot try it out yourselves? This is where the real fun and the problem lies in. Only the creator of the room can force DJs to leave. Otherwise you're stuck with the DJs. Yes you can "lame" their songs and make it skip, but then again the next DJ plays and so on in rotating order. So basically if there is a DJ in the Q who sucks he keeps getting another chance (which is good in a way). The only way you can DJ is if one of the DJs leave

So, I did a small time gig entering into one of the rooms which had only DJs (and maybe an audience or so) and this is where things got addictive. You keep adding songs onto your playlist and try to build a set based on what other DJs are playing. At this point though, bugs start to emerge. Some tracks don't have preview option so you don't know whether it really is the track you want or not, the search isn't very effective (though most of the tracks you search for are available) and at times the songs skip for no reason. The next screen shows me getting ready to play tracks and the # of points I've racked up



Boy, is the site addictive, Yes? I spent hours together doing this when I had other things on my plate (including watching Prison Break, Playing OpenTTD and taking care of my 1.5 month old baby!). Slowly and steadily I've built up 80 odd points and 3 followers. The inspiration for this article came last night.

I started in the evening in a room that had 5 DJs including me and 1 audience (Rock/Alt Rock was the theme of the room). After 3 grueling hours the room was starting to heat up with around 20 odd people in the room. By then I was tired and energy levels were dropping. And strangely, the room started emptying faster than cheese in a rat home.

Well, maybe the people had someplace real to go out and party rather than on the computer? This I feel may be the biggest downfall of this site. Folks who have things to do will probably be out partying hard rather than on this site


However all hope is not lost. The potential for this kind of site is tremendous. Imagine a virtual party with djs taking turn playing without a real turntable or stream djs from across locations partying virtually in different cities or countries. All in all turntable is here to stay

Update: I had stepped away from my machine and had a playlist on and was half expecting myself to be booted out of the room, but I was still around in the room when I came back. So if you have good tracks on your list, you probably don't need to be around too

Stalemating your opponent in time pressure (Chess)

The above game was something I played online a few weeks back. Nothing to be proud of but the theme is that I stalemated my opponent when I was in acute time trouble to escape a loss. Read on to see some commentary about the game

* I'm black and as early as move 8...c4 I made a mistake that lost me a pawn, but decided to complicate things as much as possible.

* My opponent should have continue 11.dxe6 instead of giving up his bishop for my kinght. The pawn on c4 is not going anywhere.
* 14. axb5 is an absolute blunder that led me right back into the game

* 19...Rxd5 was probably more accurate but I was scared about the advanced b-pawn. But plug this into a computer and the computer shows no fear of grabbing the d-pawn. Anyways, it's a moot point as I'm clearly winning here. But I think my idea too is clever forcing the exchange of a pair of rooks simplifying to a clearly won game

* 29...Nxa5 was more accurate and wins without any trouble. But the game continuation also is resignable for white. White at this time was still upset that he was losing a won position (as early as move 8) and understandably continued for some kind of blunder from me

* Fast forward to move 52 and you might be wondering what is white still playing on for? Well, time for one. I had about 3o0 seconds left on the clock (no increment)

* At Move 65, I had a mate in 3. 65...Qe7 66.Kg8 Qf8+ 67.Kh7 Ke7 68.Kg6 Qg8#/Qf7#. Try calculating this variation in your head and see how much time it takes. If you have 10 seconds on the clock, will you find this?

* Amazingly I was able to play 10 more moves in this time. By move 73, I had only 2 seconds on the clock. If my time runs out, I lose as white still has mating material on the board (pawns). A mate in 2 is still possible at this time (same pattern as the previous mate in 3), but off course If i could not see it with 10 seconds, how can I in 2?

* This was when I decided to stalemate my opponent and get 1/2 point instead of 0.

So, how many of you have stalemated your opponent to get away with a draw in time trouble when you were clearly winnin?

Aquaguard Infinity Filter Cleaning Process

Since I searched on the whole internet and the leaftlet that came with the Aquaguard Infinity cleaner and couldn't find a way to do this, I've decided to post my findings. I hope to achieve 2 things out of this:

a) Google will show this in searches of "Aquaguard Infinity Filter Cleaning" helping other people

b) I'll have a place where I can refer to when the next round of cleaning comes up

Here are the steps:

1) Make sure the machine is completely switched off

2) Switch on the main power switch (but make the sure the power button on the unit is off)

3) Press the "Custom Music" and "Free Flow" button together

4) After a few seconds, continue pressing the 2 buttons and press the power button on the unit once

5) Now, the power button should be in depressed mode (you should have just pressed it once) while the other 2 buttons should still be held depressed by you

6) After a few more seconds a couple of lights flash and water starts coming out. This means that the cleaning process has started

7) Wait for half a bucket to fill up before switching off the power button

8) Ideally this should be done once every 15 days. I recommend the mid of the month and start of the month for easy remembrance

Hope this helps.