Last Friday, we had our Globe Broadband connected at the apartment. Globe Telecom deployed a PROLiNK Hurricane 5200 as our ADSL modem. Since we wanted to share the Internet connection throughout the room, we bought a Linksys WRT54G2 wireless router.

Configuring the PROLiNK Hurricane 5200 to work with Linksys WRT54G2 wasn’t that easy. Here’s a rough guide on how to do it. This guide must work with other models (such as Hurricane 9200) and other brands, but the steps will differ.

1. Place the modem to bridge mode.
   • Connect your modem to the computer thru the Ethernet (CAT5) cable.
   • Fire up your browser and go to http://192.168.1.1/globe
   • Go to WAN Configuration under Internet Interface.
     • You will be asked for a username and password. Use this:
       Username: Admin
       Password: 3UJUh2VemEfUtesEchEC2d2e
   • At the bottom of the page is the list of existing configurations. Delete them all by clicking the trash configuration icon.
   • On the same page, create a configuration. Fill in the VPI, VCI  and Channel Mode settings with the following:
     
   • Disable DHCP Server. Under LAN Interface, go to DHCP Settings. Choose None and click Apply Changes. unnecessary according to motion55 of PinoyDSL
   • Disable routing. Go to Routing under Advance. Choose None in Default Gateway and click Apply Changes. unnecessary according to motion55 of PinoyDSL
   • Restart your MODEM. Under Admin, go to Save and Reboot. Click Commit and Reboot.
2. Disconnect the modem to your PC. Connect your PC thru Ethernet (CAT5) cable to your wireless router. Use any port in the wireless router EXCEPT the Internet port.
3. Configure your router.
   • Fire up your browser and go to http://192.168.1.1/. The username is blank and the password could be one of the following: admin, password, pass.
   • The default page is the basic setup page.
   • Find the local IP address field. Change it to 192.168.1.2 to avoid conflict with your modem’s I.P. address.
   • After the changes are committed, you need to go to 192.168.1.2 and login again.
   • Still under basic setup, change Automatic Configuration DHCP to PPPoE.
     
   • Enter your Globe Broadband username and password.
4. Connect, connect and connect. Connect the Ethernet cable from the modem to the wireless router’s INTERNET port.
5. Do a hard reset of  your modem and wireless router by depriving them power (unplugging) for at least 10 seconds. Power them up and enjoy!

If you run into any problems, just comment and I’ll try to answer them if I can.

URL of image when not cached.

I’ve noticed though that they replace the URL of images inside <img> tags with another URL on their server for caching. This, in turn, causes some problems with web applications that requires authentication and generates images on the fly such as StatCounter. This replacement/caching process is only done when Globe Telecom detects that you are using a web browser on a computer or on a mobile phone (I curl-ed this website and the output did not have any URL replacements).

URL after caching. Notice, the cached and compressed image is in Globe or a third-party partner’s server.

As a workaround, you can spoof your User-Agent by modifying the headers of your requests. You may do this in Firefox by:

1. Going to about:config. A warning will have to scare you but just continue.
2. Then, find the general.useragent.extra.firefox setting. Using the filter above may help you find it.
3. Once you find it, double click the entry and change it to whatever you want. For it to work, it should not contain words like Mozilla, Firefox, Safari or other web browsers. I’ve changed mine to MikkoFox.

Have fun browsing without cached images.

But the release had a very noticeable annoyance, the Update Manager pops up a couple of times if you don’t have an updated system. It was unlike before when Update Manager only issues a notification on the notification area.

Fortunately, there’s a quick fix for that. Just go to your terminal (Applications -> Accessories -> Terminal) or press Alt-F2 and paste this:

That quick fix just fixes the annoyance, no side-effects or whatsoever!

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It’s the time of the year when people enroll themselves on schools. For new registrants in a school, a birth certificate is usually required. For sure the queues at NSO (National Statistics Office) stations are getting longer and longer as the school year starts.

Good thing NSO birth certificates can now be requested thru phone. Birth certificates ordered thru phone will be delivered anywhere nationwide within 3 to 4 days. Just dial the number (02) 737-1111.

Icon from Citizen Services