TechniX

There are times when you want to connect to the Internet through unknown and/or insecure networks such as the local Panera or other WiFi hotspot. If you aren’t careful, you might make it all too easy for someone to sniff your connection using Ettercap.

One of the best ways to secure your connection is to use a VPN, but that isn’t always practical. So here’s a way to securely connect to the net using only an SSH client and a remote box that you control/trust.

Requirements:

1. PuTTY* loaded on your local machine
2. Remote host running OpenSSH (e.g. Linux box at home)
3. Firefox (obviously)
4. Gaim for all your IM needs

Just follow these steps…

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Sony Vaio SZ-74B is aimed for Japan market, it means you may buy SZ-74B in Japan only. It also means that you can get support only from Sony Vaio Japan. The laptop has japanese keyboard, Windows Vista OS Home Premium edition in japanese, FeliCa port (developed by Sony and integrated into Vaio laptops) … and almost everything in japanese.

Lots of people bought SZ-74B in Japan and tried to reinstall Vista in English version. You might strictly follow the driver installation process which is strongly recommended by Sony, however, some troubles would probably happen. The most annoying one is with the motion eye webcam. Following the troubleshooting wizard in Vista, you may see Microsoft say that it is the FeliCa port which causes the conflict and all you have to do is to install the driver for FeliCa properly.

First of all, here’s a must-have drivers and utilities for your SZ74B.

You should have a look at this blog entry, and this driver is perhaps what you’re looking for. Following the instruction in the blog entry to install drivers for FeliCa properly, then go to Device Manager and you can see FeliCa port in the list. Final step is a bit tricky to install the right driver for the motion eye webcam: please use the webcam driver for SZ 6 series instead of using the one for SZ 4 series (bear in mind that SZ74B is SZ-4 series!). In Device manager - Sony Vaio VGN Visual Communication Camera - Update driver - Picking from list… - browse to SZ 6 series webcam driver (very important!!!). Make sure that in Device manager - Imaging device… there’s no icon with exclamation mark. If there is, uninstall it. If there’s “USB Webcam” then update driver and point to SZ 6 series driver.

The tricky way above is not highly recommended, but as long as you could not find any patches or updates from Sony Vaio official support website, you can follow the above suggestion as one of some solutions to make your webcam work.

PaSoRi (modal RC-S320/S and RC-S310) is an external USB FeliCa smartcard reader and writer. FeliCa (Felicity Card) contactless RFID IC chip smart card system by Sony which used primarily as electronic money cards. Example of FeliCa card usage includes transit tickets such as Octopus Card in Hong Kong, ez-link Card in Singapore, TRAVEL Card in India, Shenzhen Tong TransCard in China, Metro Card in Thailand and all major transportation networks in Japan such as Suica, PASMO, NicoPa, TOICA, Kitaca, ICOCA and PiTaPa.

Lately the FeliCa IC has also been embedded and integrated with mobile phone to become wallet phones, such as “Osaifu-Keitai” and marketed by NTT DoCoMo, KDDI and Softbank Mobile in Japan and NFC (Near Field Communication) phone trial currently running in Singapore by StarHub and ez-link Online. FeliCa is also been used as ID card, membership card, e-ticket for season ticketing, boarding pass for ANA Airlines’ SKiP Service and JAL’s IC Check-in Service, multi functions card which combines ATM, credit and debit facilities such as Japan Post Bank Yucho IC Cash Card and Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ Super IC Card, e-Money or electronic pulse to pay for purchases online or offline, and security access control.

To use FeliCa-based card to do transaction such as shopping and downloading pay-to-view games and other contents using “Edy” service in Sony PlayStation 3 (PS3), and make payment online, a PaSoRi reader/writer plugged into USB port of computer, or a PC and laptop/notebook with embedded FeliCa port is required. With PaSoRi users able to access on services such as checking card money value, obtaining transactions history statements, or conduct top-ups online via Internet, or simply read the card data offline in supported viewer.

However, the driver for PaSoRi only supports Windows 98, 98 Second Edition (SE), Millennium Edition (ME), 2000, XP Home and XP Professional. PaSoRi driver that comes with CD or downloads from Sony does not support Windows Vista. If you attempt to run the setup installer to install the driver for the card reader, the following critical error message will appear.

Here’s an easy workaround to install the USB driver for PaSori in Windows Vista.