How To Program Your Direct TV Remote

Contemporary remote controls have become quite complex. In the old days, it used to be that a remote control was a simple electronic device- one power button, a volume up and down button, channel selections and perhaps a mute control. Remote controls today have become more universal, programming the user’s television, satellite receiver, VCR, DVD player, stereo and any other part of the user's home entertainment system.

The problem arises when the viewer is not able to understand the options on the remote control and it becomes useless. DirecTv's remote control can be simply understood if these directions are followed. DirecTV incorporates specific features and special options. A four-position slide switch for easy component selection , code library for popular video and stereo components, code search to help program control of older or discontinued components and memory protection to ensure that the user will not have to reprogram the remote when the batteries are replaced.1. The user chooses the Device

The first thing the user is required to do is choose which device is desired for programming. Most remotes have separate buttons that correspond to the various devices:

SAT - controls the satellite receiver

TV - controls the television set

VCR - controls the VCR

AUX - controls one of several additional units, such as a home stereo

The user presses the button of the device to program until the corresponding light on the remote control begins to flash.

2. The user finds the Code

Once the device desired for programming is chosen, the appropriate code for the particular unit is needed.

Codes for most manufacturers and brands can be found in the back of the remote control user manual. Satellite subscribers can also typically go online

to their provider's website and if all else fails, contact the manufacturer of your remote to get the necessary codes.

3. Program the Device

Using the keypad on the remote control, enter the number that's listed first for the device. When this is finished, enter the appropriate key to indicate completion of input. For some remotes, this might be the asterisk (*) while other remotes might use the pound key (#). The mode light on the remote control will flash again and, if the code was correct, the device can now be controlled with the remote control. The user should test the results by turning the power on and off. Does it work? If so, the device is now programmed.

There is no cause for alarm if the code doesn’t work the first time.

Remotes come with several codes for the various device brands. If the first code doesn't work, start over using the next code and the next and the next until the right one is discovered and the device is programmed.

What if the device isn't listed at all? Look through the list for "general" codes. If those codes are not found, then try scanning for the device. The user manual should have specific advice for devices without a listed code.

Fortinet Utilization

For those of you who don’t know I work for a school district in Columbia, SC. The Children’s Internet Protection Act (http://www.fcc.gov/cgb/consumerfacts/cipa.html) requires us to filter our internet connection. When I started about 8 months ago we decided to switch from Smart Filter monitoring to Fortinet. As a Security Admin of course this was my task. The Smart Filter, known to most of us as Bess, was not functioning properly and quite frankly a piece of junk. Smart Filter is run from a server, in our case it was a Windows Server 2003 machine. The device logs were inaccessible when I came in and it was even difficult just to log into the machine. We did away with the device and sprung for the Fortinet equipment two Fortiguard boxes and a nice new Fortianalyzer box. These are dedicated physical devices that do not have a Windows based operating system. The two Fortiguard devices operate in a failover mode so we have one as back-up if the other box has a problem.


I was a bit skeptical that a physical device could handle the traffic that we see daily. This device is a Firewall, Internet Filter, IPS/IDS, VPN router, proxy, packet shaper and an endpoint solution manager. It seemed a lot to have this one device handle all of these, I was of course proved wrong. Immediately during installation we were able to stop use of our Packeteer saving us the task of troubleshooting it. Installation was easy having our vendor come in and help us. Our connection was down for about 10 minutes total.

We started off slowly letting the Fortiguard handle the packet shaping and filtering. We had to enter about 30 custom entries. In the next months we turned on the proxy server which yielded a constant 20% traffic reduction on out WAN line. We are in the process of changing from Cisco ASA firewalls to the Fortiguard system. I am currently testing the Forticlient endpoint antivirus which seems to be pretty powerful.

Fortinet customer support is amazing they offer web-chat and toll free phone support. We have had minimal problems with this device(ill go over those and how to troubleshoot in a separate post). This is a great device I recommend it to anyone who is in the security field and is looking to save money and have a reliable piece of equipment. Currently we are utilizing only 40% of the CPU and 29% of the memory, that’s pretty good for 13000 computers and about 500 servers.