TP-Link Media Converter Confusion

For future reference a TP-LINK MC220L has multiple versions. v4 supports fallback to 10/100mb ethernet, whereas v3 ONLY SUPPORTS GIGABIT ETHERNET!!! When connecting to a 10/100 device occasionally I had a brief TP Link light but it would not stay illuminated. But testing against multiple 1000 vs 10/100 devices proves the v3 is only 1000mb.

Samba, CentOS and credentials file

Make sure you install the cifs-utils package (for mount.cifs). Otherwise you will waste many hours wondering why mount isn't reading your credentials file.

Observium

All you ever need to know about how to expect to be treated by Observium:

http://www.foobar.org/~nick/OBSERVIUM-11.html

Roku Remote Compatibility

According to some documentation I found on the roku 3 remote is supposed to work with a roku streaming stick. According to Roku support (and my own experimentation), the Roku 2XS remote (motion sensitive) will not however :(

Polycom Soundstation IP 6000 Password reset

Plugin the phone, wait until it says 'x' seconds until boot. Hold the 8,6, and * keys down until a password prompt appears (This is not the same as the 'setup' option at boot). Then enter the mac address of the phone (if you need the address, boot the phone normally and pick 1, 2, 2) in all lowercase with no ':'s.

This should reset the password to 456 and you can reconfigure, It should still have all the other configuration intact.

Apple ID without a Credit Card

Log out of iTunes, pick 'redeem' on the right side menu. Go through the motions, 'none' will be available on the billing screen. I haven't found any other path that allows this if you haven't already bought something on the account.

Rackspace Backup stuck in Queueing state

If your backup is stuck in a queueing state and being skipped the next day because of an already running instance, the problem may be due to a crash or unexpected reboot.

Make sure you do not have a state lockfile located at:

/var/cache/driveclient/backup-running.lock

after shutting down the daemon, this shouldn't exist.

Thanks to Evan B @ Rackspace for the quick pointer!