• how do you teach a child two languages (hoping the child won’t mix them up)
• do you have to declare/pay taxes in your country of origin ?
• which address do you give your bank counselor when opening your account ?
• how do you transfer money from your bank in country A to your bank in country B ?

Anyway, one of the problems expats might have is accessing websites who have an IP-based location check (ie bank account management site, checkout, etc).

Eventually, if the problem is recurrent, you can solve it permanently using a router and a VPN which will give you an IP based in the country of your choice. I tested this setup myself and hre’s what I learnt.

What you will need

1. Get an account with a VPN provider such as strongVPN. I tested the Lite Open package (monthly fee).
   If you only have one computer, the strongVPN account is all you need. Download the software they provide and you can have a foreign IP at will. If you have more than one machine or various devices you want to use with a foreign IP, read on…
2. Buy a DD-WRT compatible router. Since strongVPN offers detailed tutorials for the Linksys ones, I tested one of them, the E3000.
3. Download the quick config from your strongVPN customer area (it is a zip file)

Setup your network

If you already have a router (you probably do as most Internet boxes do create one for you), you will now have two. Basically, you will have two subnets. Depending on which network you use, you will or not have a foreign IP.

Here’s how it looks :

To achieve this, plug a network cable between your new router and your computer. Access your router configuration page, usually at http://192.168.1.1. Login using admin as a login and admin as a password. In the main section, change your router IP to something like 192.168.2.1 / 255.255.255.0 and enter 192.168.1.254 (or whatever your other router IP is) as the gateway. Setup the DHCP to assign addresses like 192.168.2.2 to 192.168.2.50 for example.

If you so desire, enable the wifi of your new router.

Restart your new router. Connect your old router to the new one using a LAN port (not the WAN port) on both ends. Now, if you connect your computer to the old router, your IP will be like 192.168.1.X and you must be able to access the Internet. If you connect your computer to the new router, your IP will be like 192.168.2.X and you should still be able to access the Internet.

If you got this step right, you can go ahead and flash your router firmware.

Configure your router to use the VPN

First, we must modify the router’s firmware to run DD-WRT. This is an open source firmware that aims to make router administration easy (and consistent) while enabling as many features as possible for each device.

If you did get a router listed for easy setup on strong VPN website, I advise you to download your firmware file from there.

If your device is not listed there, get your firmware file from DD-WRT database.

If you did get the Linksys E3000, here are the two files you will need :

1. dd-wrt.v24-16785_NEWD-2_K2.6_std_usb_nas-e3000.bin
2. dd-wrt.v24-17201_NEWD-2_K2.6_big-nv60k.bin

Now, it’s time to flash the firmware. Login to your router administration page. Go to administration > upgrade firmware. Select the first file (the upgrade file) and click on start upgrade. Your router will reboot. Return to the same page, select the second file and click on start upgrade again. This time, after reboot, your administration page will look different as you are now running DD-WRT.

Login to your router administration using root as login and admin as password. In the Setup > Basic Setup section, enter the following for DNS servers :

1. 216.131.95.20
2. 216.131.94.5

Reboot your router and make sure that you can still connect to the Internet using this new router.

Now, it’s time to setup the router to use the VPN access. Go to Commands and enter the content of the quick config file (downloaded earlier) in the textarea. Click on Save Custom Script. The page reloads, type sh /tmp/custom.sh in the textarea and click on run commands. The page reloads again. Clear the textarea and click on Save Custom Script again. Reboot the router. Now, your router should use the VPN access. If you are using this router, whatsmyip.org should tell you that your IP appears to be in the country you selected when opening your VPN account. Instructions with screenshots can be found on strongVPN website.

Note: If your IP is still the same (your usual IP), you need to contact strongVPN support and ask them to make sure your VPN account is able to work with this setup. If it isn’t, they will adjust it in a matter of seconds.

Test

Connect, either using a network cable or Wifi, your computer to the new router. Go to a website to get to know your IP such as whatsmyip.org and you should now see that your external IP is the one of your VPN provider (in the country of your choice). Hopefully, now, you can use your online banking site or whatever other site which was blocking you for being abroad.

Support

 If you’re having a problem, you could leave a comment on this blog but actually, your best bet is to check the DD-WRT forums. If you did go with strongVPN, you’re in luck, their support is awesome. They have what they call “Live Help” which means some of their support staff can anser you via online chat or even using Skype. Simply head over the Live Help page and find a DD-WRT guru. You will be given his Skype name and be told when he comes on duty. They are super nice and extremely helpful. You can also visit their forums hoping that someone runs the same hardware you bought.

It works, now what ?

 Okay, so, besides using your connection to access your country of origin banking website and such, this is also a workaround to use country based restricted websites or applications such as Netflix, Hulu or Pandora. I have actually had the opportunity to test this setup and Netflix so, if that’s what you’re doing…

Netflix : two extra tips

1. If it stops working on an AppleTV 2, hard reboot (unplug / replug from power source) the device
2. If it doesn’t work on iPad, edit your network settings and use Google DNS servers (IP 8.8.8.8)

Some of the movies I wanted to have on the iPad came from DVD (no Blu-Ray player for me at this point) and one video was a mkv file. So the first step was to import these files in a format that would suit iTunes.

For the DVDs, I used Handbrake.

Here is the procedure :

• Download and install Handbrake.
• Launch Handbrake
• Insert your DVD
• Click on Source (top left button) and select your DVD > VIDEO_TS folder.

  

• Handbrake will read the DVD and determine the chapters to rip in order to import only the movie (no special feeatures, no menus, etc)
• If you don’t see the presets drawer on the right, click on “Toggle presets” in order to see them
• I selected and used the Apple TV2 preset myself for my rips though I read the iPhone 4 preset would have worked, too
• I then adjusted these settings somewhat following the recommendations at the end of this forum post
  - In the main window, adjust the framerate (FPS) to 25 (if your DVD is PAL/region2)
  - click on Picture Settings (top toolbar) and change the anamorphic to strict 

  
  - click on Filters (the tab at the top) and adjust
  - detelecine to default
  - decomb to deinterlace (push the cursor to the right)
  - deinterlace to slow
  - denoise to medium

  

• You can then click on Preview to see what your movie will look like
• Finally, in the main window, you can modify the destination file path
• When everything is set, click on Start

The encoding process takes about 1.5 times the movie length for me here…

Of course, if you know better presets for Handbrake to work specifically for a given device (especially the iPad2) feel free to share them in the comments. Your help is welcome.

For the MKV file conversion to MP4 I used the trial version of Video Converter for Mac

• Download and install the product
• Drag and drop the video(s) you need to convert
• Once again, select the preset that suits you best (it can be iPad or Apple TV)
• Adjust the framesize (if your source is HD and you have an iPad2, you might want to increase the output framesize)
• Click on Convert

You can find more information on how to use Video Converter in the editor’s website documentation.

That process was very time consuming on my computer… much more than the rips from my original DVD though I must add that the resulting video, on the iPad2, is wonderful. The HD source made all the difference in the world compared to the DVD sourced material. NO, I WILL NOT BUY ALL MY DVDs AGAIN AS BLU-RAY DISCS but I’m sure some of them would benefit from the upgrade…

MP4 to iTunes to iPad

Both Handrake and Video Converter for Mac created for us some mp4 files. These files must be added to the iTunes Library.

I also feel the need to tag them. I need the director name, the release date and the cover – at least… I found the artwork in very high res at getvideoartwork. As for the tagging, a very detailed article at iLounge.com covers the subject of video management within iTunes.

Once your movies are ready, simply sync all your movies (or a selection on them) with your device (which could be an iPad or iPhone)

That’s it, book a long flight for your next holidays and enjoy your movies

Since I got the iMac for Christmas, I only use my 3 year old MacBook when traveling. My Music and Movies collections are on the iMac and so are my apps. The problem is, when I’m traveling, I can’t sue the MacBook to synchronize my media or I loose all the existing content on my iPhone. So, this week end, I set out to find a way to do just that and I came up with the following:

#1 I can not sync all of my music to my iPhone or I can just forget about using it to record in HD, the hard drive would constantly be full. So I created a playlist for the music I wanted to send to the iPhone later.

#2 I need to keep both computer libraries in sync so that, whether I sync from the iMac or from the MacBook, I have the same content to pick from. I can add a track to the iPhone playlist and remove another and the rest will remain untouched.
The same applies to the apps, movies or books.

#3 I need to make the phone act as if iMac and MacBook were the same media libraries so that, syncing to one, wil not erased the content transferred by the other.

Here is how I proceeded to accomplish each of these steps:

#1 is straightforward enough. If you use iTunes and your iPhone at all, you know how to create a playlist and to sync it with your device. You also need to plug your iPhone, select it on the left barre in iTunes and go to the Summary tab and check (toward the bottom) “manually manage music and video”. This is an important step…

#2 is done using Home Sharing which Apple rolled out with iTunes 9. It’s very easy to use (drag & drop) and sets up in instants. Once you have Home Sharing running, simply copy over your music library so that you have the same tracks on both machines. The only trick is to transfer your iPhone playlist in order to sync it from both computers. On the first computer, click on the playlist on the left and right click in order to get the context menu. Click on export and select the xml format. Transfer the file you just saved on the second computer. On the second computer, open iTunes and import the playlist. Now, using Home Share, I simply need to remember to sync my library from iMac to MacBook before traveling and from MacBook to iMac on return. Hopefully, soon, a better solution will come along to automate that part…

#3 is the trickiest part. In order for the iPhone to sync from either computer without erasing the content that was previously transferred by the other, the device must act as if both libraries (on each computer) were the same. This is done by hacking the iTunes Music Library.xml file and the iTunes Music file. All the instruction can be found on Shiny Things. You’ll need a Hex Editor to complete the operation, I downloaded and used Hex Friend (free).

It took some figuring and a lot of attempts but it finally works!

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