TITAM - Technical issues that affected me

Problem: Per title.  Affected was Kodi Leia, but can happen to any Kodi.  May also happen to other media players.   Explanation:  This is a manifestation of the ED ID issue (also known as the "quarter screen issue") where: •  Windows is losing the EDID for the display device (TV, projector) when the display is shut off or disconnected. •  Windows then resizes the screen resolution to the "default" display device, which forces Kodi to resize as well.  This usually makes the Kodi display lower resolution (i.e. smaller). •  When the display is turned back on / reconnected, Windows re-acquires the EDID and changes back to the original resolution.   Kodi does not handle this gracefully.   The result is that Kodi gets "stuck" in the lower resolution, which manifests itself as a smaller (i.e. lower-resolution) window at the top-left corner of the screen.   Some people find that although Kodi is resized, it is still responsi...

There are obviously LOTS of ways to do this in pfsense.  This is just the way that I found, which seems to work. This rule should prevent an individual machine from "talking" using the default non-VPN WAN connection.  This will prevent it from sending any traffic if the VPN goes down.  Go to Firewall/Rules/Floating Action: Block Quick: Checked Interface: WAN Direction: any Address family: IPv4 Protocol: Any Source: Single host or alias / [set local IP address of host here i.e. 192.168.1.100] Destination: any Description: enter any description here [i.e. "Block this IP from using non-VPN WAN"]  Click "Save" Obvious notes: -  This only really works if the machine in question uses a static IP address. -  You can define multiple rules for different devices. -  You can set the rule to block a range of IP addresses by using "Network" instead of "Single host". This approach does not use policy-based routing and does not decide which machines u...

This was a quick test only, using a popular torrent client.   The Netgear is a recent (faster) example running the latest DD-WRT.  The pfsense box is an eBay i7-7500U special with the latest pfsense. Speeds are peak speeds through Private Internet Acccess (PIA) using AES-256 / SHA256 on their "Next Gen" network.  There were no changes to the rest of the setup between the two trials. Results: Netgear: 4 MiB/s  i7-7500U: 38 MiB/s That's almost a 10x improvement. Note I couldn't get these speeds using all torrents, as some of the sources are limited.  However, I know that the Netgear can't exceed 5 MiB/s no matter what, while the i7 definitely can do 38 MiB/s.  It's possible the i7 might be able to go even faster. From this, it does appear obvious that the Netgear is quite limited with respect to VPN crypto.  Obviously the i7 is vast overkill.  I got it since the price difference between the i3 and i5 was nominal and I really only feel like doin...

First parcel, no issues.  Took a little while to get the incoming ticket, but didn't think anything of it - I figured the delivery had been slow, and I didn't care.  Picked it up at DYK without any issues. Second parcel was Amazon, so I had a delivery date.  It took Montana Mailbox 7 working days (12 calendar days) to issue the incoming ticket.  I wanted the parcel earlier, so I sent an email 4 working days after delivery, to see if Montana could expedite it.  I never got a reply.  I was hoping to get at least a "Sorry, we can't help with that", but nada. MM is undoubtedly big, but I can't see them having a 7-day incoming queue.  So they obviously prioritize commercial traffic over individual parcels, meaning one-off packages will take however long they take. It then took another 9 days for DYK to just pick it up, plus an additional 2 days to get it to the correct office.  So about 15 working days, or 23 days total, until it arrived. Again, DY...