Uncategorized – Tyler Woods

Convert a local Windows account to an Active Directory domain account, preserving files and settings for domain use.

February 5, 2017 Tyler Woods

When you migrate a user from a workgroup/local environment to an Active Directory domain, the user experience is always an immediate shock. This is because the user will normally lose all their settings and files under the new account. Of course, fearless IT people will be able to get everything back the way it was. But this has proven to be a tedious task; copying files, program configs, browser data.. you can forget something. Have no fear, ForensiT User Profile Wizard is here! User Profile Wizard: To download this amazing…

Save time uploading to Amazon Cloud Drive by enabling concurrent uploads

January 12, 2017January 25, 2017 Tyler Woods

A lot of people have the Amazon Cloud Drive software running on a home computer. The upload speeds can be pretty mediocre, and by default you’re only uploading one file at a time. But what about servers with higher-throughput internet connections? I installed the software on a cloud server and wanted it to upload data faster… These uploads to Amazon Cloud Drive are generally slow from anywhere, but you can upload more than one file simultaneously to improve transfer time by an estimated 4x. Honestly I would recommend this so…

Secure your Dropbox – store files and data in an encrypted container [Windows + BitLocker]

January 4, 2017January 4, 2017 Tyler Woods

We let our Documents sync to the cloud, download themselves on all of our PCs, and trust that no single person besides ourselves can ever see those files, unless otherwise intended. This may be true that “only you” can see what’s in your Dropbox and other cloud storage, but in reality, your cloud storage has so many gateways that it’s easy to accidentally leave one open, such as a shared home computer. Not only that, but your cloud storage provider could see your files if they wanted to. But isn’t…

Synology DS416play has an (unused) eSATA port hiding inside!

January 4, 2017February 6, 2017 Tyler Woods

Not that I use eSATA for any of my peripherals, but I noticed that some Synology models have eSATA ports where other models don’t. Get this: During a tear down of my DS416play, I discovered there’s an eSATA port on the USB 3 module. I haven’t tested it and don’t have any expansion units to try this with. I would imagine the software has this port disabled, but maybe not. I wonder about using any expansion units with the DS416play now.

Synology DS416play upgrade RAM to 4GB

January 3, 2017May 3, 2017 Tyler Woods

When I bought my Synology DS416play, I was concerned about the included 1GB of RAM. I eventually decided that it probably didn’t matter that much how much RAM it had When I saw my RAM filling up for no reason, my concerns grew again. I decided I’d upgrade the RAM with some of the spare laptop memory I have laying around. Opening the case: DISCLAIMER: Anything you do inside your Synology NAS is your responsibility. Whether or not your warranty will become void is a risk you are agreeing to take…

Amazon Cloud Drive Sync clients for Windows and Mac now available for download

December 28, 2016 Tyler Woods

I don’t know about you, but my impression of Amazon Cloud Drive has always been somewhat negative due to the fact that you couldn’t sync the files with your PC after you uploaded them. I mean, this completely defeated the purpose of having that type of storage for a lot of people. Normal sync clients like Dropbox and even OwnCloud were proven better solutions than an account with Amazon Cloud Drive with Unlimited storage. Last time I checked, the Amazon-provided Cloud Drive client for Windows would only let you…

How to: Fix acd_cli ERROR: sqlite3.DatabaseError: database disk image is malformed

December 28, 2016 Tyler Woods

I was using acd_cli, mounted to my file system last night, and picked up today to finish up. I navigated to the directory I mount ACD in and listed the contents.

root@vultr:/var/cloud# ls -alF
ls: cannot open directory '.': Bad address

1 2	root@vultr:/var/cloud# ls -alF ls: cannot open directory '.': Bad address

Only to see an error that I haven’t seen yet (in my experience with ACD_CLI.) I thought maybe the mount went bad. It was throwing an error when I tried to mount the file system again:

16-12-28 18:01:26.195 [WARNING] [acdcli.cache.db] - Sqlite database integrity check failed. 
You may need to clear the cache if you encounter any errors.
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/usr/local/bin/acdcli", line 9, in <module>
load_entry_point('acdcli==0.3.2', 'console_scripts', 'acdcli')()
File "/usr/local/bin/acd_cli.py", line 1652, in main
cache = db.NodeCache(CACHE_PATH, SETTINGS_PATH, args.check)
File "/usr/local/lib/python3.5/dist-packages/acdcli/cache/db.py", line 65, in __init__
c.execute(_ROOT_ID_SQL)
sqlite3.DatabaseError: database disk image is malformed
root@vultr:~# sqlite3.DatabaseError: database disk image is malformed
sqlite3.DatabaseError:: command not found

16-12-28 18:01:26.195 [WARNING] [acdcli.cache.db] - Sqlite database integrity check failed.

You may need to clear the cache if you encounter any errors.

Traceback (most recent call last):

File "/usr/local/bin/acdcli", line 9, in <module>

load_entry_point('acdcli==0.3.2', 'console_scripts', 'acdcli')()

File "/usr/local/bin/acd_cli.py", line 1652, in main

cache = db.NodeCache(CACHE_PATH, SETTINGS_PATH, args.check)

File "/usr/local/lib/python3.5/dist-packages/acdcli/cache/db.py", line 65, in __init__

c.execute(_ROOT_ID_SQL)

sqlite3.DatabaseError: database disk image is malformed

root@vultr:~# sqlite3.DatabaseError: database disk image is malformed

sqlite3.DatabaseError:: command not found

Since the local cache could be corrupt, let’s go ahead and clear it: Your cache directory should be .cache in your…

Download all of your Android/iOS Google Photos to your PC

December 28, 2016December 28, 2016 Tyler Woods

I filled up my 15GB of space on Google Photos. I always thought the photos were kind of stuck in there. I knew I could download them, but I didn’t want to do it through their web interface. That would be very cumbersome as I have many photos. I discovered I could enable a folder within my Google Drive that contained all of my Google Photos. I could use this folder with my Google Drive desktop app and sync/download all the files in Google Photos. I like my photos being…

Check if your accounts have been compromised in an online data breach

December 20, 2016 Tyler Woods

With all of the recent data breaches, online security is (and has been) becoming a growing concern. If you aren’t aware, hundreds of major breaches have been publicized, and who knows how many smaller breaches are going unnoticed each day? With the “have I been pwned” website, you can both view a list of pwned websites (websites which have been breached and data compromised) and also check your e-mail addresses and online usernames to see if they were included in any of those breaches. What if I’ve been pwned?! How you use…

Terminology: Understanding MDFs and IDFs

December 12, 2016 Tyler Woods

Many times, early on in my tinkering or trying to learn about computer systems, I would wonder about certain terms or ideas that would come up on a “higher level”. The capabilities of my brain sometimes couldn’t wrap up the thoughts that make up an idea or a concept into a single term, and so I didn’t understand some of these things, like when I saw MDF or IDF for the first time. MDF is short for main distribution frame. This is the central point of a network, no matter the size.…