Comcast Xfinity Internet and Arris TM722G Voice Modem DOCSIS 3.0 Self Install Unboxing

Below is my unboxing experience with the new Comcast Arris TM722G EMTA Internet Voice Modem. The Modem is DOCSIS 3.0 and supports Comcast's Triple Play service (TV, Internet and Voice). I'm not a big fan of paying a $7 per month rental fee in my area, so I purchased a modem from the Best Buy in Crystal Lake, Illinois for $149. I paid for the modem at Best Buy. It took the representative a couple minutes to set things up so I could check out at Best Buy.

You can get a list of all the locations at http://www.arrisi.com/consumer/_docs/ARRIS_Modems_Comcast_Xfinity_Best_Buy.pdf

Once at home the unboxing began.

Pretty box on the outside with all kinds of Comcast Xfinity branding.

List of the minimum requirements to install. You do need to have a working triple play service setup or an appointment to have the voice installed, if you don't already. It took the technician quite awhile to set up my voice lines (trips to the various phone and cable boxes) and verify it was working correctly.

Back of the Arris Touchstone TM722 Comcast modem box.

Open box with the modem underneath.

All the contents of the box, TM722G/CT DOCSIS 3.0 Internet and Voice Modem, Instruction packet (very thick), Li-Ion Battery, assorted cables, and power cord. Yeah -no extra power brick.

Modem itself was just packaged in an anti static back. It is surprisingly light without the battery. The unit has rubber feet so it can be set flat or vertical. The dimensions of the box are 2" by 9" by 7-1/2" deep (allow more depth for cables and power out the back).

Here's a view of the connections out the back of the Arris TM722G modem. Note there are connections for two analog phone lines, a reset button (there is a sticker over the phone lines and reset button), cable connection, power cord, and push button to get to the battery on the bottom of the eMTA DOCSIS 3.0 modem.

Backup battery in the package. This is the battery that keeps your phone up during a short power outage. Since it's Li-Ion I would expect it to have a good lifetime. The Comcast technician said he's not had to replace one yet.

The shape of the battery is a very proprietary design. It is made to just fit in the compartment of the Arris modem. It's approximately 1-1/2" wide by 3/4" thick, by 7" long. It also doesn't weigh a lot. Not compared to the lead acid batteries in my UPS's.

The battery model number is listed as BPB044S and Product ID 718005. 8.4 VDC with a life of 4400 mAh. Charging current is listed as 0.115 Amps. Seems like a pretty decent backup. The installer said the backup was in the neighborhood of 8 hours. My networking equipment is on battery backup anyway, so in combination I should get long life.

Here you can see the proprietary battery connectors.

Here you can see the loop of yellow tape that allows you pull out the battery if you needed to replace it.

Little warning message not to remove the battery. Use the reset button (located by the cables in the back) if you want to power cycle it.

Above are the coaxial cable bundles that are included wit the package. They were quite generous with the 20 foot cable. For my installation I didn't need any of this, since I was replacing an installed Comcast TM402P Arris DOCSIS 2.0 modem.

General wiring instruction for the Digital Voice modem.

Wall Mounting template instructions. The Arris Touchstone TM722 has slots to wall mount the modem. This sheet has a template to put in screws so you can wall mount it. The screws were not included.

The installation of the modem was pretty simple. I called the Comcast number for activation of the new modem.

1. I gave them the MAC address of this modem.
2. The had me switch the cable and power from the old TM402P leased modem to the new modem (AC cords are the same).
3. Then switch the coaxial cable. At that point the person on the phone could "see" my modem. He started pushing a configuration to it.
4. After that started I switched the ethernet and voice over to the new modem. I chose to unplug my network ad have one laptop on the ethernet line for simplicity.
5. He activated the internet portion and my laptop connected just fine.
6. Last step was to verify that I got dial tone on the phone. Then Comcast placed a call to my voice line. 

Pretty simple and painless. The total call took about 20 minutes to switch from the leased modem to my modem. Hope this gives you an idea what the Self install process for moving from a leased triple play modem to an owned one can be like. I'd expect this modem to last at least 6 years like my old Motorola SB5100. PS - you can buy it on eBay now if you like.

2007 Dodge Durango Fuel Spilling Problem Solved

It been almost 1 year since I first posted my You Tube video of my 2007 Durango spilling fuel all over the ground. Since then it and several forum posts have gotten a lot of attention from legal folks and the NTSB.

After years of filling issues with the NTSB and following threads on the problem, it seems that Dodge has finally decided there is an issue. Just today on one of the many forum threads Dodge noted there is a TSB on the subject covering many more vehicles than the original one that just covered the 2005 models.

I followed this forum post for a long time http://dodgeforum.com/forum/2nd-gen-durango/190747-gas-fill-overflow-on-my-06-durango.html.

We'll be at the Dodge dealer on Monday seeing if we can get it in to be fixed at no charge to us. It will be nice to not have to fill the tank slowly or short filling it by 2-3 gallons. It also seems like a simpler fix than replacing the entire fuel tank on the Durango which was almost >$1,000.

Here are the details on the TSB that were posted on numerous forum post on the subject:

Posted by: DodgeCares
On: 01-20-2012 08:16 AM
All,
There is a new TSB on this issue which involves an unlimited time and mileage warranty extension on the fuel filler tube due to a bad check valve. I am posting the TSB now. Anyone who owns one of the affected vehicles and is on file with Chrysler as the current owner will be getting something in the mail indicating the extended warranty on this part. It will also have instructions on where to send for reimbursement if you have already paid to have this part fixed. If there are any questions regarding this issue I would recommend a call to the Chrysler Assistance Center at the numbers listed below.
800-992-1997 U.S.
800-465-2001 Canada

*NUMBER: 14-001-12
GROUP: Fuel System
DATE: January 20, 2012*
SUBJECT:
Fuel Spit Back During Refueling Due To Faulty Inlet Check Valve X39 (Unlimited Time And
Mileage Warranty Extension)

OVERVIEW:
This bulletin involves replacing the fuel filler tube if the condition occurs.
MODELS:
2006 - 2008 (HB) Durango
2007 - 2008 (HG) Aspen
NOTE: This Extended Warranty Bulletin applies to vehicles equipped with a naturally
aspirated gasoline engines.
SYMPTOM/CONDITION:
Some customers may experience a fuel spit back condition during a refueling event.
DIAGNOSIS:
If the customer experiences the symptom/condition, proceed to the repair procedure.
PARTS REQUIRED:
Qty. Part No. Description
AR (1) CNNZX390AA Tube, Fuel Filler
(4) 6500911 Rivet, Splash Shield Attaching
NUMBER: 14-001-12
GROUP: Fuel System
DATE: January 20, 2012
POLICY:
Reimbursable within the provisions of the warranty.
NOTE: Vehicles included in this Service Bulletin have a lifetime coverage - Unlimited
Time and Mileage warranty for this repair. See Warranty Bulletins; U.S.
D-12-07, Canada SAB 2012-03, International ID-12-02 or Mexico BG-01-12 for
details associated with the extended warranty.
************

Installing Pan 0.135 Newsreader in on Kubuntu 11.10

I really enjoy using a simple Newsreader on my KDE version of Ubuntu. It's a simple newsreader that feels a lot like Forte's Agent newsreader on windows.

After a recent upgrade to 11.10, I started getting double images of inline images. This is the opposite of a problem before where mulipart images wouldn't appear at all. The version of PAN in Ubuntu repositories is quite old, so I needed to install it myself. I adapted the post by Scot Kuma http://www.scottkuma.net/pans-at-it-again-updating-pan-newsreader-on-ubuntu-11-10 for my needs. I got an error about missing hotkeys.h when I tried to compile it using his instructions verbatim. As suggested in this pan mailing list post for KDE I could just install the program from their source. Hopefully this will help you get your version of pan updated.

I f you don't have pan installed. Install it. This will created all the icons in the appropriate menus in kubuntu.

sudo apt-get install pan

Download the source tarball from the pan website. I just used my browser and saved it to my Documents directory.
(http://pan.rebelbase.com/download/releases/0.135/source/)
Move the file to where you want to decompress and compile it. This location was suggested in an Ubuntu article about installing your own software.

sudo mv ~/Documents/pan-0.135.tar.gz /usr/local/src/

Change to the directory where you want to decompress it your download:

cd /usr/local/src/

Decompress it:

sudo tar -xzvf /usr/local/src/pan-0.135.tar.gz

Move to the new directory created:

cd /usr/local/src/pan-0.135/

Run the configure script:

sudo ./configure

Compile the application (pan in this case):

sudo make

Find where your current version of pan is located:

which pan

Mine was located in /usr/bin/pan

Move you old version to a new name just in case you mess something up and want to revert back to the installed version (now called pan_OLD).

sudo mv /usr/bin/pan /usr/bin/pan_OLD

Copy the newly compiled binary to your /usr/bin directory:

sudo cp /usr/local/src/pan-0.135/pan/gui/pan /usr/bin/pan

Now fire pan up and happy newsgroup reading with the current version with no duplicate images.

Tracing Arpwatch "sent bad addr len" MAC address on My Local Network

For a few months I arpwatch has been reporting that "some device" on my home network is sending out packets that aren't properly formed. Unfortunately, the email that I get sent (via logcheck) only sends me the mac address that's sending the bad packets. I did some checking around the internet and wasn't sure what I should do with that information - do I have a NIC going bad, bad cable, etc? My network is becoming a complicated systems of >40 devices running a variety of operating systems.

I like using the linux utility arpwatch on my network, since combined with linux logcheck, it let's me know via email when any new DHCP device is added to my network. Seems like a great way to monitor if that crazy neighbor is snooping around at my wireless network. Even though they are pretty protected -separate network segment (courtesy of Smoothwall).

Anyway the email that I was getting two or three times a day looked like this:

This email is sent by logcheck. If you no longer wish to receive
such mails, you can either deinstall the logcheck package or modify
its configuration file (/etc/logcheck/logcheck.conf).

System Events
=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Jan  9 19:18:42 AMD-ubuntu arpwatch: 00:10:0d:17:80:z9 sent bad addr len (hard 0, prot 4)

Armed with only the MAC address of the offending device how do I identify the device name?
Here's are 2 quick steps to help you figure out where (or what) device on your network is causing issues:

1) First I looked at the device that hands out DHCP addresses on my network.
I use Smoothwall 3.0 as my firewall. It also hands out DHCP addresses on my network (your network is likely different). On smoothwall and many other linux DHCP servers the DHCP lease information is stored in a dhcpd.leases file. Although there are a few homebrew mods for smoothwall that show the DHCP lease table contents in the Smoothwall GUI. I have not needed or installed one and there were several to choose from. Seemed like too much trouble for just for this issue. I SSH'd into my smoothwall firewall and read the contents of the DHCPD leases file.

cat /usr/etc/dhcpd.leases

This file contained the MAC address and IP addresses of all the DHCP devices on my network (34 of them -wow). I found the offending MAC address in the list:


lease 192.168.60.561 {
  starts 6 2012/01/14 14:26:23;
  ends 6 2012/01/28 14:26:23;
  binding state active;
  next binding state free;
  hardware ethernet 00:10:0d:17:80:z9;
  uid "\001\000\031\235\027\220\311";
}

Unfortunately, the device with the MAC address above didn't have a hostname in that file (some devices did) and I didn't recognize anything about the IP address. So what is it?

2) Next linux utility I used was nmap.
Nmap is another great Linux utility to report all kinds of wonderful things about an IP address. Note if you don't execute nmap as root you don't get the same information returned. In my case it was missing the most important piece of information - device name.

sudo nmap 192.168.60.561

Starting Nmap 5.21 ( http://nmap.org ) at 2012-01-14 09:30 CST
Nmap scan report for 192.168.60.561
Host is up (0.013s latency).
Not shown: 999 closed ports
PORT    STATE SERVICE
111/tcp open  rpcbind
MAC Address: 00:10:0d:17:80:z9 (Vizio)

The key to my puzzle was the last bit of information after the MAC address- Vizio.

Turns out the device on my network the the "bad addr len" issue is a Vizio TV set. We have a Vizio TV (Vizio model M221NV Part 10212090022) with internet capabilities that obviously has some issues -or the wireless router it's connecting to has some issues. Now I'll just need to figure out if it's something I want to fix or ignore. At least I know it's not something critical on my home network.

The great news is that open source once again gives me the small tools to troubleshoot what's going on on my home network.

Picasa upgrade from 3.8 to 3.9 thumbnails disappeared for all +30K photos - grey dots now

My upgrade on one of my machines for Picasa did not go well. As you can see below Picasa seems to have dropped all of the thumbnails on the upgrade. I posted to the Picasa help area - Upgrade from 3.8 to 3.9 thumbnails disappeared for all +30K photos (of course you can't upload a picture to Picasa help area), so I figured I blog about the issue and included some screenshots. You can see (Image 1) the grey dots that represent where the images should be in Picasa.

Image 1 - Picasa lost ll thumbnail preview on images after upgrade -all you can see id icons

Randomly the images are being rebuilt (Image 2), but for the number of images and faces I have in Picasa it will take several days to rebuild them all.

Image 2 - Randomly the image thumbnails are being rebuilt

I really like using Picasa as an image management tool. It really does seem like the best photo management tool out there. I have over the years compared it with other pay, free, and open source solutions. None of the others had Picasa's simplicity and sophistication. I love the fact that it never touches my original images, except to store tagging and geolocation data on the pictures. Just wish it was a little more stable at times like this...

Install Squid Proxy on Ubuntu Server Ubuntu 10.04.3 LTS

I decided that I need the ability to host a proxy server on my own network to see what the internet looked like from my house when I was at work.

I tired to setup an Apache forward proxy using mod_proxy, but had issues with SSL requests not working correctly. I have used a squid proxy on my home network for local caching via my firewall machine for years. Squid has always been reliable.

The process to install squid is quite simple in Ubuntu lucid:

1. Open a terminal or SSH into your lucid Ubuntu Server.
2. Install squid proxy using apt-get at the command line.
sudo apt-get install squid
3. Edit the configuration file. The configuration file for squid is huge. It's a very configurable proxy. I decided to make a backup, just in case I messed something up in the configuration.
sudo cp /etc/squid/squid.conf etc/squid/squid.conf.original
4. Use nano (my favorite command line editor) to edit the configuration file.  Understanding what I needed for a simple http proxy, I needed to make only make one edit and two additions to the default configuration file that Ubuntu provided.
sudo nano /etc/squid/squid.conf
5. Edited the default port from 3128 to 8001 (my preference).
http_port 8001
6. Added two lines to configure the ACL rules to allow connections from two specific networks.
acl localnet src 192.168.0.0/16 # RFC1918 possible internal network acl outside src 22.33.189.0/16       # RFC1918 outside network

7. Added two lines to allow http access by those two networks.
http_access allow localnet
http_access allow outside
8. Start up squid service.
sudo service squid start

The trickiest part is defining the allowed networks in one line and then configuring squid to allow http access to those networks.

Went and changed one of my browsers to use the proxy on port 8001 and everything worked great. SSL worked perfectly transparent as I expected. Not sure why Apache didn't work, but I like the separation of the two applications.

Squid seems infinitely configurable and very full featured. Perhaps when I get more time I'll play with it more. The log files are stored in /var/log/squid/.

Adding a Windows 7 Home Premium PC to BackupPC using SMB

I wanted to backup a couple new Windows 7 Home Premium PC's on my local home network using my current installation of BackupPC on Ubuntu. I have a mix of linux and Windows PC's on my network. I have enjoyed using BackupPC as my central backup system for all of our PC's (8 at last count) in our house. I have used RSYNCD, but find the configuration of SMB, just a lot easier. For my home network, I'm not really concerned about SSH secure communication on my firewalled home network for my backups.

In order to set it up I needed to create a users account on the machine. I have used a special backuppc user on each machine that is backed up.

I set up each backuppc user as an administrator. In the past I set the accounts up without user logins and only backup administrator rights. It would appear that Microsoft has crippled the ability to manage user accounts and groups in Windows 7 Home Premium edition.

I was able to get my BackupPC to be able to access the administrator share on Windows 7 Home Premium version. No restart was required after the registry change. By following the instructions here:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/947232

Essentially:

1. Click Start
   
   , type regedit in the Start Search box, and then press ENTER.
   
   Note If you are prompted for an administrator password or for confirmation, type the password or provide confirmation.
2. Locate and then click the following registry subkey:
   HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System
3. On the Edit menu, point to New, and then click DWORD (32-bit) Value.
4. Type LocalAccountTokenFilterPolicy to name the new entry, and then press ENTER.
5. Right-click LocalAccountTokenFilterPolicy, and then click Modify.
6. In the Value data box, type 1, and then click OK.
7. Exit Registry Editor.

The LocalAccountTokenFilterPolicy entry in the registry can have a value of 0 or 1. These values set the behavior of the entry as follows:

• 0 = build a filtered token
  This is the default value. The administrator credentials are removed. These credentials are required for remote administration of the print drivers.
• 1 = build an elevated token
  This value enables the remote administration of the print drivers on a server within a workgroup.

I needed wanted to hide the user account on windows welcome screen. I did that by following the post from here:
http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/ar/w7itproui/thread/16378967-8a39-4aef-85e4-d859a71648d3

Essentially:

• at Run type regedit
• Once in regedit go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\WindowsNT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon
• In the left panel, right click on Winlogon and click New and click Key.
• Type SpecialAccounts and press Enter
• In the left panel, right click on SpecialAccounts and click New and click Key.
• Type UserList and press Enter.
• In right panel of UserList, right click on a empty area and click New then click DWORD (32bit) Value.
• Type in the name of the user account that you want to hide and press Enter.eg: backuppc.
• In the right panel, right click on the user account name and click Modify.
• To hide the user account – Type 0 (number zero not the letter) and click OK.
• Whenever you want to use the account just unhide the it by typing 1 instead of zero.

Hope this helps you setup Windows 7 Home Premium and BackupPC to work over SMB. Not real happy with the tweaks Microsoft made to Home Premium. Probably another reason alternative operating systems will be more and more popular in my house as time goes on.