WD HD TV Player first generation, latest  firmware 1.03. It plays most mkv videos perfectly but can’t play sound on some.

THE CAUSE

None of your fault. Most .mkv files either have audios in DTS or AC3 format. The media player can play AC3 but can’t downmix DTS to stereo and play via HTMI cable leaving you with no sound.

THE SOLUTION

(1) Hook up the media player with optical cable but you need to have surround sound systems that support DTS.

OR

(2) Convert the DTS soundtrack to AC3

This article will be on solution (2)

How to know which sound format your .mkv contains? Usually if you pirate movies, it should say in the description. Something like this

Pulp.Fiction.1994.720p.BluRay.DTS.x264-ESiR.mkv

Another way is to use MediaInfo. It’s free and open-source. After installation, just browse to the video and it will display all kind of cool info about the file.

Now let’s cut to the meat. There are several ways to convert DTS to AC3. Normally, you’d need couple programs to do this. One to extract the soundtrack off the video, one to convert the soundtrack, and another to remux the converted AC3 back to the original .mkv. Quiet some work there.

Luckily, PopCorn MKV AudioConverter will handle pretty much everything in one place.

Launch the program, and go to Options > Download external utilities 

Wait for it to download all the tool packages needed for the task.

For me though, it failed to get the AC3 Fix. Under Audio Tools 1, if you see a red bar next to AC3 Fix and AC3 Fix: File not Found message flashing then you know you need to get the AC3 Fix file manually. Just click on the blue button right in front of AC3 Fix and it should lead you HERE. Download, extract, then have PopCorn browse to ac3fix.exe

You’re almost done.

Under MKV Tool, browse to the mkv file with DTS soundtrack then choose the location for the converted file.

On the right, for the DTS setting, make sure it looks like this

I untick the Preserve DTS track because I don’t need it and plus it help cut down the file size.

Hit Run and you’re all set.

Merry Christmas. Enjoy the movies!

₪

WTF iTunes?

I roamed Google high and low searching for a solution but it was fruitless. I’ve tried repair, re-install iTunes/Quick Time. Nothing worked. I don’t have a straight fix for it but at least I found  2 work-around:

#1. Save the album image you want onto the computer, then right-click the song > Get Info > [under Artwork tab] Add > Browse to the location of the downloaded image.

Note: You can delete the download image after. iTunes retains its own copy of the album art.

#2. Just right-click the song and “Get Album Artwork”

Note: You must have an iTunes account. It’s free to sign-up but they need your credit card number (so that you can buy songs off their iTunes store conveniently later on). This method is faster given that you provide song info correctly especially the album name.

But 2 caveats though:

(a) iTunes can only get Album Artwork for you if that particular song is available on their store. So if you listen to a lot of underground music, independent, foreign artists then you’re out of luck

(b) You can’t choose a different version of that album art. Sometimes album arts have different versions of design for the same album but you’re stuck to what iTunes gives you.

I think it’s probably a bug or something. If they don’t fix this in the next version, i’mma ditch iTunes.

Update: Just updated to the latest iTunes 10.4.1. The problem’s fixed in this version.

₪

For the last couple days, I’ve been struggling trying to unlock my 4.1, 02.10.04 iPhone with GEVEY SIM pro but my phone just simply refused to acknowledge its presence. So basically I turned off the phone, inserted the turbo SIM along with my t-mobile SIM, turned it back on and waited but nothing ever happened. No welcome menu whatsoever. I’ve tried it on my dad’s phone and it worked just fine so the turbo SIM is in good order. Nothing’s wrong with the t-mobile SIM either as I could make call using another phone with it. I stumbled on the solution by chance while toying around with it.

So this is what you do, you insert the turbo SIM with your SIM card into the iPhone, turn it off, then turn it back on. Nothing peculiar here. OK, when the phone doesn’t show you the “welcome menu” what you want to do is turn on/off Airplane mode, wait for a while (be patient) and the welcome menu will show shortly after then just proceed to follow the instruction in the GEVEY’s user guide.

NOTE 1: Even if the “welcome menu” doesn’t show after you turn on/off Airplane mode, turn the phone off and back on now, the phone shall see the turbo SIM and the welcome menu will pop up.

NOTE 2: For some reason, after you did that your iPhone will start to recognize the turbo SIM automatically every time after like how it’s supposed to in the first place.

Here’re some tips I found that will ensure a quick and successful unlock

1. Slide the “slide to unlock” uh slide (a bit repetitive I know) quickly after you reboot the phone because if you don’t, the phone will go in standby mode. I found this prevent the phone from recognizing the turbo SIM. Even after you resume with the home button, no “welcome menu” will show.

2. For the “SIM Failure” notification, don’t tap on the “OK” button and close it. Just let it sit there until the “No SIM Card Installed” kicks in.

Cheers…

Remedy:

1. Download rKill, Malwarebytes’ Anti-Malware (MBAM), unhide.exe from a healthy computer. Put all of them onto a USB flash drive.
2. Boot into Safe Mode with Networking on the infected machine (connect directly with an ethernet cable). NOTE: if you can’t access the internet. It’s very possible that XPIS has set or change proxy setting. In that case, get this tiny batch file and run it.
3. Execute rKill.
4. Install and update MBAM immediately. Do a full scan of all the hard-drives.
5. Run unhide.exe to “unhide” all your stuff again.

Attention: This bastard operates under various names across XP, Vista, and 7. The solution is supposed to work on all variants.

Same shit.

Background

My uncle runs a clinic. Last week his office’s computer was down and he asked me for help. I came. I saw. I conquered. But it wasn’t easy and direct as other regular malware which usually involve 2 steps: scan and remove. It took some serious work reading forums from forums. The hard-drive literally turned into a virus vault. The amount of malwares found is just ridiculously abundant.  However, one stood out from the rest: XP Internet Security 2011. This fool refuses to go down even in Safe Mode. That’s just bullshit, man.

For those who don’t know, the most effective way to remove malwares is to remove them while they ARE NOT active. Safe Mode does just that. It’s a trouble-shooting mode in which it just loads Windows itself and only the absolute essential device drivers, running at the near minimum hence effectively disable the malwares from loading.

Characteristic

XP Internet Security 2011 is a Rouge Software. Now what does it mean? It means it’s a  program that disguise as a useful software (P2P, browser plugins, codec but as a security software most of the time). It is the malware itself. The way it works is, it installs on your computer, it then secretly creates a bunch of harmless registry entries. It then pretends to scan your computer and seek those very harmless registry entries it created earlier and notifies you that those are extremely dangerous infections. See how fucked up it is? It’d bug you day and night, it won’t go away and it wants you to pay so you can use it to remove the malwares. OK, you might get fed up and give in and pay. DO NOT! Otherwise you will be charged for a useless piece of shit and at the same time, your payment information goes directly to the global market of wholesale stolen numbers. Basically, you’re fucked.

Meet XPIS

It’s shown up as ebi.exe under Windows Task Manger’s Processes

You can terminate it. But it will restart itself after a while or when you attempt to install something (launch an .exe) or when you try to run an authentic anti-malware programs. It know that you finally aware of the situation and attempt to get rid of it.

Another douchey feature this crap pulls on you is, it could hide all your files and make it appears as if everything has been wiped out. Check the hard-drives, there’s nothing in there. The “All Programs” under Start menu would say (Empty). Fear not, it’s just bluffing. Everything is still there, you just can’t see it yet.

Approach

We need to access Safe Mode with Networking. Reboot the computer and when it starts to boot just keep pressing the F8 button on the keyboard until a list of options shows up. Use the Up/Down key to navigate to Safe Mode with Networking. Plug in the flash drive that is loaded with the list programs stated in the beginning of the post and start running rKill. It might fail a couple of times before it could overpower XIPS but don’t give up; keep clicking it. You’d know it’s successfully disable XIPS when you see a log file pops up like this

You should be able to install MBAM now. Update and do a full scan of the whole computer.

₪

An entire operating system runs directly from your USB thumb drive? COOL! The idea is obviously nothing new. Heck, even Chrome OS itself is quiet old (first announced in mid-2009). What makes this all different from the plethora USB boot-able, lightweight Linux distros out there beside being a mere new kid on the block is it’s completely web-based.  So dust off that forgotten USB drive in the corner of your room (at least 2GB or it won’t work) and get to work.

Although Google Chrome OS is not officially available yet, anyone with proper knowledge, time, will and a robust machine can freely build their own from source code. For the rest, we should thank Hexxeh for hacking together a nice built called Flow.

The following procedures are for Windows.  If you use Mac, look here. For Linux, there’s no way….Just kidding

Need?

an USB thumb drive (at least 2 GB)

Download Flow (327 MB)

Download Win32 Disk Imager

Download HP USB Format Tool (optional)

How?

1. Back up your stuff on the USB drive then format it fully. If Windows’s standard formatting tool renders it quirky, use the HP USB Format Tool
2. Extract ChromeOS-Flow.tar with 7zip or Winrar. You’ll get a disk image called ChromeOS-Flow.img
3. Extract Win32 Disk Imager. Hit the Blue folder icon then browse to the earlier extracted ChromeOS-Flow.img. Select your USB thumb drive letter under Device. Finally, click Write
4. Done. Hook the USB to your key-chain and there goes a portable OS.

To Use

Start your computer and have it boots from USB. Most computers within the 6-7 years should support this. Some automatically detects and prompts with the option during start up. Others might require pressing a specific key to bring up the boot menu (be attentive, it passes quickly). Worse? you might change boot order in BIOS settings – no biggie. Worst?the archaic rig doesn’t support USB booting. Use Plop Boot Manager

That is all. When you boot up, it’d ask for username and password. Username and password are both facepunch

Good Luck and Have Fun!