Cannot get BITCOIND RPC connection working on Ubuntu 12.04 or Windows 7 OK, I recently posted trying to get help connecting to BITCOIND using Ubuntu or Windows 7.

In Ubuntu (Virtual Machine under Win7 64bit) 12.04 Desktop LTS I have the following written in my BITCOIN.CONF file located in $HOME/.bitcoin :

server=1
rpcuser=hello1
rpcpassword=12345
rpcallowip=*


I run BITCOIND with following command:

./bitcoind --server --rpcuser=hello1 --rpcpassword=12345


But when I try and connect with the Ruby script (see https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=85495.msg3773215#msg3773215 ) it gives an error saying it can't connect.

Likewise, under Windows 7 I attempt the same procedure and using NIRSOFT cports app I see Bitcoin daemon is only opened under port 8333, not 833*2* as one would expect if RPC connection was active.

I've opened TCP/UDP port 8332-8333 in port forwarding of router.

What on Earth am I doing wrong here? 
Why can't I connect to Bitcoin daemon via RPC? 

==> BONUS QUESTION: I'm quite new to Ubuntu; how do you check open TCP ports at terminal in Ubuntu? (equivalent of netstat in windows)
Netstat(1) will give you open ports (in this case listening TCP ports): netstat -lnt.

To make sure you know which port your bitcoind daemon is using, start it with paramter -rpcport. In your example, use exactly -rpcport=8332, then use the same port when connecting to it.