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Access Pandora from UK for Sonos
Last Updated on Saturday, 25 April 2009 12:31 Written by Dan Mansfield Wednesday, 08 April 2009 11:51
If you own a Sonos system outside the US and access Pandora then you'll have been disappointed last year when Pandora restricted non-US ip addresses from accessing the service.
A US customer of ours who visits the UK regularly approached us to see if we could provide access whilst abroad.
The solution that we came up with is remarkably simple.
It comprises of a Draytek 2820 dsl router/firewall and a PPTP VPN account with one of various providers. In this case we used Witopia who offer a PPTP VPN service which terminates in the US.
An overview of how this works is as follows:
The Draytek 2820 is the default gateway for the internal network and provides regular internet access. The Sonos zoneplayers are on the internal network along with the other computers.
The draytek is configured with lan to lan pptp vpn to Witopia and has the ip ranges of Pandora configure. Any network traffic from the internal network requesting services from Pandora will get routed across the VPN and appear as though it is coming from the US. All other internet traffic is routed normally through the ISP.
2. You'll need to setup the PPTP VPN account from Witopia. This will provide you with a username and password. pptp.witopia.net is the hostname we will need as well.
3. Set up the Lan to Lan VPN
Ignore all the Dial-in stuff.
Make sure the ‘For NAT operation, treat remote sub-net as’ is set to Public IP.
Under the More button:
These work fine as of 20th April 2009 after the latest Sonos update.
Check under VPN connection management that the vpn is connected otherwise dial it manually (might takes 10 secs to connect).
SMS Sender
Last Updated on Monday, 15 September 2008 07:58 Written by Dan Mansfield Tuesday, 09 September 2008 13:08
One of our clients approached us after installing a GSM SIP gateway for their trixbox installation regarding whether they could send out bulk text messages through it rather than paying a marketing company a lot of money to do so.
We had installed a Portech MV-372 Dual Port gateway, this takes two SIM cards and allows mobile calls to be routed through it from Trixbox. It also has a simple web page to allow single sms messages to be sent. The client was on a callplan that included unlimited texts.
The web page had a standard form POSTing to a cgi script for the processing.
Our solution consists of an html page and php script to collect the information into an array before looping through it and sending the data to the cgi script.
Support and Documentation
Last Updated on Friday, 20 July 2007 10:05 Written by Administrator Monday, 09 October 2006 10:33
Dear John,Not sure if you can help me, but thought you could possibly point me in the right direction.
(By starting off from a position of humility rather than with the typical assumptive introduction, and by asking for help, this e-mail gives the reader a chance to either tell the sender that he has reached the right person or to refer him on to someone else. )
Would you happen to know who in your organization would be responsible for diagnosing and solving productivity issues related to your technology infrastructure -- specifically, underperforming servers, outdated software upgrades, or out-of-date computer hardware? (Rather than offering solutions, the writer is addressing very some real problems and issues that may exist in the reader's company. In other words, the e-mail is about the receiver, not the sender. Also, the writer doesn't mention any demonstration because problems must always come first, and the solutions later. )
I'm with XYZ company, and we specifically help companies solve these types of issues.
(This reinforces that the writer's company solves problems.)
Any help you could provide would be very graciously appreciated. ( This statement expresses the warmth of the writer's gratitude in advance.)
Warmest regards, (The warmth of this closing humanises the whole communication. )
Michael Johnson
Productivity Consultant
XYZ Software
