The first thing that you will have to make a decision on while planning out your home network is will your network will be wired or wireless. The notion in each case will stay put the same where in all your computers will join up to a central router, which will talk the connections to your ISP from side to side a cable or a DSL modem.
It is a frequent fact the wireless home network provides much more expediency than wired networks. They do not necessitate cabling and permit users to move from one room to another with freedom. But wired networks are more secure and dependable and if you can use again the existing phone lines or the electrical wiring, then the cost of installing new cables are reduced radically.
Wired Home Network
In the case of wired networks, the entire set up is known as Local Areas Network (LAN) wherein small bundles of cables are used which is available in every room of your house. These cables can be used for a phone line or a computer connection. More often than not, a minimum of one Ethernet cable is required in a room. A standard pack of wire contains four cables:
1. A coaxial cable for a television
2. A coaxial cable which will provide input from a DVD player
3. Cat5e Ethernet cable for a computer
4. Cat5e Ethernet cable for a phone
The cables lead to a common area where the phone lines can be split and the computer ports can be patched to a panel with jacks. Now, each computer is patched with a short Ethernet cable into the network router to gain access to the Internet.
Wireless Home Network
In the case of wireless networks, the entire system is known as Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) or Wireless Fidelity (WiFi). This type of network has gained such immense popularity over the last five years, that now a wireless node at a coffee place is a common thing. The most common factor that affects the range of your wireless network at home is the wireless access point placed inside the house, the materials used in the construction of the house and any other physical obstructions between your devices the node.
Home Computer Networking Tips
You have to decide on the kind of network that you want for your house depending on the various pros and cons with each type. Below is some home computer networking tips that will help you make the system more robust and secure:
1. Assign static IP addresses to each of the computer. Ensure that you set up a private IP address range to prevent your computers to be directly accessible from the Internet.
2. Set the ‘Auto Connect to wi-fi’ option off. You computer may accidentally connect to a neighboring network, which can pose severe security threats.
3. Ensure that you have changed the default username and passwords for the administrator accounts, especially if you are using a Wi-Fi system. The hackers can easily access your network from outside the building and can hack into your system as all routers come with standard passwords.
4. Ensure that the firewall on all the computers and routers is turned on. Revoke rights that can allow the users to set the firewall off. Installing additional personal software on each computer will help you make your system more secure.
5. Enable MAC address filter on your network. You will also have to provide MAC address to all your computers to turn the filtering on. A MAC address is very difficult to fake and increases the security of a network tremendously.
6. Use a non-standard channel for your wireless network which will make it difficult for your hackers to access your network.
7. In case you have a wireless network setup, then change the default SSID immediately. Also, ensure that you have disabled the SSID broadcast feature on your network router.
8. Network should be turned off when not in use. Turning it on and off frequently is not a feasible solution, however when the network will not be required for an extended period of time, it can be turned off.
9. Enable and use Wired Equivalency Frequency (WEP) which will help encrypt all the data exchanged over your router.
You will require networking your home computers for a home-based business or simply for the convenience of connecting all you home PC and laptops in your house together. You can choose a wired or a wireless network weighing all the pros and cons. But ensure that you stay your network secure from malicious users and viruses.
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Written by Jason on May 4th, 2008 with no comments.
Read more articles on 1340 and 1354 and 1426 and 1429 and 1673 and 169 and 2065 and 2157 and 401 and 544 and Contributors and Firewall and Internet and Laptop and Network and PC and Password and Security and Tips and Wi-Fi and computer and connection and ip address and lan and system and wireless and wireless networks.
There is a new tweaking Powertoy for Windows Vista users. Its called TweakVI. Best of all the basic version of this utility is completely free!
It seems once again a 3rd party has beat Microsoft to the punch by creating a PowerToy utility for Windows Vista only. Works on all Vista versions and on both 32bit and 64bit flavours.
The feature list of options and plug-ins to tweak is impressive such as IE and Firefox Tweaks, hacking the Start menu, putting an image on Internet Explorer's toolbar, changing how windows animate and optimizing your CPU's cache.
- Activate hundreds of hidden Windows Vista settings
- clean your registry
- activate system and software restrictions
- display detailed system information
- create a 256 MB RAM drive
- protect your privacy
- clean your hard drive
- manage TrueType fonts
- improve your internet connection
- optimize your CPU
- optimize your RAM
The tweaking utility allows you fine tune and optimize features to increase the speed of your Windows Vista system without going through a manual process like modifying the registry.
Here are some example screen shoots of options.
Free Download from the makers (TotalIdea.com).Other Tips Users have watched
Written by PCWizKid on April 4th, 2008 with no comments.
Read more articles on Contributors and Tips and hacks and pcwizkid and tweak and tweakui.
Thinking about installing a new operating system? Something different, stable and reliable? Maybe the Linux OS Ubuntu 7.10 or OSX
Leopard
10.5 ?
I have both OS X 10.x and Ubuntu 7.x running on separate laptops, and have used them for over 2 years now. The similarities are outstanding in more than a few ways. Below is PART 2 of my reviews and summary of main features of the latest Ubuntu 7.10 (codename Gutsy Gibbon) which have made it so appealing over Apple's OS X.
First and foremost, lets not forget that you get what you pay for, and since
Ubuntu is free compared to the OS X
Leopard, there are going to be some obvious added applications and tools in OS X which Ubuntu does not have (similar applications can be added in Ubuntu in most cases, again at no cost since there are no license fees and its open source).
My intent here is to educate the average user on their options. For the average user, installing a new operating system may seem challenging, not to mention learning its new interface and features. This is the main reason why Apple's OS X is so popular, its simplicity and features are key strengths. A PC running Ubuntu can be as easy as a Mac to use , the key is configuring it properly, there is no need to be intimidated with Ubuntu. Let me show you.
The Installation
Getting Ubuntu is easy, installing it was also a breeze ever since version 7.04. As outlined in my
PART 1 review of the
process briefly
here in my video tutorial. I recommend you download the CD Installer and create a bootable installation CD. The minimum memory requirement for Ubuntu 7.10 is 384MB of memory and 4Gigs of space (for OS X
Leopard its 512MB of memory and 9 gigs of space). What I was initially surprised of is the built in support for dual boot (OS X
Leopard has
Boot Camp) I had Windows XP already installed and Ubuntu allowed me during installation to setup partions and allocate space for the new OS to be installed keeping my Windows (XP or Vista) installation intact, and at the same time created the boot manager (aka Grub Boot Manager) which allows you to select the operating system on bootup.
One thing to note here is that you should have a network connection for Ubuntu auto update to later get
updates online. Detection of hardware was smooth on my
Lenovo T60 laptop (Dual Core PC), I did not have to get any additional drivers for my
ATI X1400 to get anything to work. The fact that Ubuntu can run on different processor platforms (x86 architecture, Pentium
TM, Celeron
TM, Athlon
TM, Sempron
TM and 64bit AMD and Intel chips) and is not setup to be proprietary to specific hardware making Ubuntu attractive to anyone with a basic Pentium chip to the most high end Quad Core PC.
The Desktop
Once you finish installation you would have also created the primary account ID and password during the setup wizard. this user ID has the permissions of a super user (Administrator access) for further configuring Ubuntu later.
The default desktop is not blue and does not look like OS X
Leopard. However it is clean, intuitive and easy to navigate. The screen shot I have here is after I configured the appearance and added a Dock to mimic
Leopard [
Click to enlarge] which shows you how flexible this operating system can be.
Details on installing the AWN Manager and
the Dock will be described in detail in
PART 3 of my review summary.
Your first instinct may be to check out the menus and
programs that come by default.
I found that there was a generous amount of standard applications and accessories. The main applications menu has the necessities such as the Open Office Suite (similar to Microsoft Office) , Evolution Mail (very similar to OS X Mail app) and Firefox (under the Internet menu option) and a generous set of multimedia utilities to play video, audio and manage your photos.
The menus are well organized and as you would expect shortcuts to be bundled under specific groups. Intuitive and straight to the point. These menus can be further configured to display more or less items as desired under the system preferences option for the main menu. Details of configuring appearance are in my
Part 3 review and desktop effects is in
PART 4 of my review.
The "Places" menu option allows you to browse your PC and / or network drives , just as the "
Finder" option in OS X does. In my case I have this PC Dual Boot with a NTFS file system for Windows and have mounted my windows drives (using the NTFS Configuration Tool) so I can access them normally (I will post a how to video on this later).
The System Preferences gives you all the access you need to tweak and configure your computer, set your preferences for not just appearance but also screen resolution, power management , get hardware information and much more. [
Click to watch the video]
Watch my video walkthrough of the workspace areaThis is where most customization can be done regarding the theme and desktop effects.
The most popular Desktop effect for Ubuntu is the 3D Cube, Expo and Desktop Plane, which allows you to have virtual desktops (Workspaces) . In OS X
Leopard this 3D Cube view does not exist, however there is the what Apple calls "
Spaces" which performs similar functions. However I did find that Ubuntu 7.10 had
many more desktop effects and eyecandy effects than Leopard
did after I enabled the Compiz "
Advanced Desktop Effects"
Ubuntu can be more than just eyecandy, use it as a secure method to connect online, worry less about viruses that plague the Windows OS, it has support for wireless and bluetooth connectivity and is not a resource hog. I find Ubuntu smooth with all the
Desktop Effects I have enabled.
Read my
PART 3 review summary of Ubuntu 7.10 vs
Leopard I will show how to configure various areas of the Ubuntu OS and where to get additional addons to spice up your experience similar to
Leopard. If your interested in learning about a few pros and cons on Ubuntu 7.10
read my previous article.
Written by PCWizKid on February 17th, 2008 with no comments.
Read more articles on 7.10 and Contributors and Linux and Mac and OSX and Tips and Windows Vista and Xp and boot camp and dual boot and fiesty fawn and leopard and open source and part2 and pcwizkid and tweaks and ubuntu gutsy gibbon.
