But first! Let’s look at who did NOT invent the Internet.

Al Gore

Al Gore did not invent the Internet. Sorry Al. So how did this rumour get started? Did Al have any significant role to play in the development of the Internet?

In an interview Al Gore said that he, “took the initiative in creating the Internet.” That’s not the same as saying he invented it, but of course political pundits jumped all over this, trying to make Al Gore look foolish. What Gore did do was to be instrumental in a number of bills and public policies that helped further the strength and pervasiveness of the Internet in the United States of America.

Some of those bills include the National High Performance Computer Act of 1988 and the Information and Infrastructure and Technology Act of 1992.  Good steps towards making the Internet stronger.

Marc Andreessen

Marc Andreesen was the team leader for the group at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) that developed the Mosaic web browser. Again, this was not the invention of the Internet, but it certainly popularized the use of the World Wide Web.

Remember, the Web is only information that is accessible via the Internet. Marc and some friends did go on to found Netscape.

Sir Tim Berners-Lee

Did not invent the Internet. What good Sir Tim did do was to come up with the concept of using hypertext to link documents on various computers or servers, in such a way that they could be browsed from one location. Thus the World Wide Web was born.

Well, it took a few years to develop into that, but what he did was the underlying principle of the Web. Wickedly cool, yes. But the World Wide Web is NOT the Internet.

Think of the Web as being a bunch of  libraries and the Internet is the roads connecting them.

Vinton Cerf

Perhaps of any individual credited with creating the Internet, Vinton Cerf arguably comes closest. Vint, as he seems to prefer to be called, came up with the idea of the Transfer Control Protocol and the Internet Protocol. Together, they form the so-called Internet Suite most know as TCP/IP.

By doing this, and implementing it in practice, Vint and his colleagues made the Internet work for the average person. No longer did people have to be hardcore computer geeks to get computers to talk to each other remotely. You could just be an average engineer or smart person.

Don’t let the picture fool you. Vinton Cerf is one cool guy with an eye on the future and the means to create it.

The U.S. Military

Sure there were such things as the Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (ARPANet) and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). Both of which Vint Cerf served heavily on. You could argue that because the ARPANet was the world’s first packet-switching network, that this was the birth of the Internet. In many ways, you’d be right.

However, the method of working the network only changed from being based on circuit switching. That’s what drove the telephone network. So you could really go back as far as Alexander Graham Bell as he invented the telephone and the concept of the network which is used to this day to carry data communications. Without that, would we have the Internet as we know it? Maybe not.

So Who Did Invent It Then?

So who created the internet? Well, we’ve certainly looked at some very important key players. There are hundreds of other great minds that contributed to its development as well. Some probably deserve to be mentioned here, some may be forgotten to footnotes or engineering documents. However if I were to give you a one word answer on who invented the Internet, I would say it was you.

You have the innate desire for information and you drove the Internet by putting your personal interest and money toward it. You funded government and academic organizations that did the foot work. You signed up on a bulletin board system or joined AOL when it first started. You put your money where your mind is and that, my friend, resulted in the creation of the Internet we know and love today.

Don’t you agree?

What I’d like to do for you now is to break down the letter and address important things about it.

Then I’d like to explain what precautions you can take so that you never get a copyright infringement notice from your ISP.

We are writing to inform you that we have received a complaint that alleges that your Internet Service account has been involved in copyright infringement. This complaint was traced back to your account based on the IP address used at the time of this activity.

Yes, this can really be done in cases of copyright infringement. Your ISP should be automatically making logs to track who they’ve assigned IP addresses to, as well as when. There really isn’t any thing that you can do about this. If you want, you could reboot your modem to see if you get a new IP address assigned to you. All that will do is make it harder for a copyright holder to establish a pattern of downloading. But they still can!

Please note that we have not provided any of your personal account information to the complainant. It is our policy to disclose such information to a complainant only if ordered to do so by a court of law, which has not happened to date.

That’s pretty decent of them to have that as a corporate policy. However, check the policy for YOUR ISP on this sort of thing. They may want nothing to do with dealing with copyright holders, and will hand over your information upon request if copyright infringement is claimed. If that is the case, you may consider changing ISPs.

There’s more in the letter, but it pretty much echoes what you see above. So, here’s where we get into making sure it doesn’t happen again.

1. Stop downloading copyrighted materials. If you’re not sure if it is something that carries a copyright, you’re probably best off to not download it.
2. If it wasn’t you doing the downloading, talk nicely to everyone you know who has access to your account. Hopefully, they will be honest with you. In this case, the friend’s teenager was downloading TV shows because they canceled the cable TV service. Fortunately the kid was honest, so they looked at legal alternatives for watching TV online.
3. If no one who has access confesses to the deed, refer back to the letter. The one I read listed the date and time that the copyrighted material was accessed, as well as name and type of file. So if you see it’s the new Eminem album, chances are it wasn’t Great Aunt Ethel who did the downloading. That information will help you to identify who did the downloading. Talk to them about the perils of copyright infringement when you download copyrighted materials.
4. If no one that you know was responsible for the download, then you need to start looking at your wireless router to see if someone outside of the house is accessing your network. Most wireless routers will show you who is connected, and some will keep logs of connections.If more people are connected than you have wireless devices in your home, something is wrong.

   

   That’s all there is in our house, although I don’t know what the unknown is. Possibly our DivX Connected device. The System Log will look something like this.

   

   Try to match up that information with the information in the copyright infringement letter. If it is someone outside of your house, you need to look at strengthening the security on your wireless router. If it seems to be just one person, your router will likely have a way for you to block them specifically. You can get the MAC address from the system log or connected devices summary. This is also a great way to ground kids from the Internet.

   

5. Let’s say that you have copyrighted content that you legally purchased on your computer, but it’s in the same folder as the files for your P2P application. Make sure you move those files out of there, as you may be accidentally sharing them with others. That’s a copyright violation as well.
6. Last but not least, do a very thorough virus scan of your computer. It is possible that you may have a trojan that is opening up your hard drive to the Internet. That may result in unauthorized sharing of files also.

   Something else you may want to consider is a program called PeerBlock. Karl just wrote an article about it. It’s important to note that with PeerBlock, you can create block AND allow lists. So that’s a blacklist/whitelist scenario. You could just create a whitelist of people that you legitimately share files with, so those are the only people that can access you via P2P. That would help eliminate any unauthorized snooping around in your files as well.

Has this article helped you to understand why you got the infringement letter? Has it helped you to understand what you can do to prevent this situation from happening again? I sure hope so. Nobody needs to pay tens of thousands in fines for things they could have bought for a few dollars.

Conceal is meant for use on Windows XP, Vista and Windows 7. What sets it apart from other encryption software is just how easy it is to use and how easy it is to choose the type of encryption that you want to use. Let’s take a look at the software, shall we?

There it is. That’s about as simple and intuitive an interface as one can have for an encrypting/decrypting program. If you have it open and just want to drag files over the lock to encrypt the files, you can do that! The same goes for dragging encrypted files to the key to decrypt them.

If it appears that there is text in the picture above, that shouldn’t be there – you are correct. The application interface is slightly transparent so you can see what is underneath it. I guess that’s an attempt to look cool like a Vista program. Anyway, that’s a minor drawback. For some, I suppose it might be considered a good feature.

Once you drag a file to the lock to be encrypted, this is what you will see:

Just choose a destination for the encrypted file, and provide your password for that file. For added security, you can delete the original file by checking the Delete Original File box. No sense having an encrypted and an unsecured version of the file on the same computer. That kind of defeats the point.

Clicking on the Options button shows you this:

This is where you can determine what kind of encryption you want to use. The author has done a good job by briefly stating the strengths and weaknesses of each method.  If you don’t specify the method you want to use, the program defaults to TripleDES. Again, good thinking by the author. Given choices, the one that should be default should be the most secure choice.

You are then prompted to save your password. Go ahead and click Yes.

Now,  you’ll be asked where you want to save the outcome. Choose wherever works best for you, and click OK.

Once you get to this window, just click OK. The encryption will begin. On the fast encryption. the progress happens so quick that you won’t see it happen.

As all good programs should do, Conceal notifies you when the encryption is done. Just click the OK button to confirm. File secured!

The process is almost identical for unencrypting a file. Just find the file that was encrypted. It should have a file extension of .xcon. Seems ironic to me that something secured should have a file extension that reads aloud as ex-con.

Drag the file to the key side of the Conceal program. A small window will open asking you for your password.

Go ahead and enter the password that you used to encrypt the file. Then click on the link that reads Save and Close. You can also choose an alternate destination to save the decrypted file. However, that’s not necessary for this article.

The decryption happens pretty quick as well. Once that’s done, Conceal presents you with confirmation that it happened. Once again, click the OK button to clear the notification.

It’s that easy! The program works very well, has the basic options that most people would ever need, and, as all of my favourite software is, it’s free!

To be picky, I would like to see some slight changes to the interface, like the placement of the Save and Close. If that were a button placed near the bottom of the window, the flow would be more logical. But, as I said, that’s being picky!

Overall a good piece of freeware that I would recommend.

Conceal

Why am I telling you this? To let you know where I got this topic from. There have to be a few dozen old wives’ tales about how to get rid of hiccups. Cream soda, sipping water from the other side of the glass, a good scare, holding your breath for 13 seconds, 60 seconds or, my favourite, a year. That one works, however the outcome isn’t desirable.

So what other lists of Old Wives’ Tales are there out there? Fret not, I’ve done the research for you!

Old Wives’ Tales at Birthmarks

These tales are as interesting as the birthmarks they supposedly caused. Personally, I find birthmarks fascinating, but some people that have them are distressed by them. I think once you add the tales they’ve been told, you’ll understand the stress. Check a few of these out:

In Croatia, when a child has a birthmark, it is his/her mother’s fault: during pregnancy she wished something red to eat or drink (usually strawberries or wine) and she foolishly touched or scratched a part of her face or body damaging in that way her baby. The baby will have a mark (which is called “a wish”) on the exactly same place where his/her mother touched herself.

When a pregnant woman watches something burn (i.e. house, car, building, etc) the baby will be born with a birthmark.

And the dumbest, most ignorant one yet…

Your mom must have had sex with two men in the same day that she got pregnant.

There are quite a few more at the site. Some are quite sentimental and sweet, some are very personal, and a few are just downright foolish. Either way, they’re all interesting. They have some superstitions on birthmarks as well.

Corsinet

Here’s a small trove of more general Old Wives’ Tales. I think sometimes these tales have a root in truth, or at least in coincidence. Some just make me think that old wives had access to some great herbal remedies. Corsinet breaks them down into 2 separate pages – A to L and M to Z. Maybe you’ve heard a few of these:

A cricket in the house brings good luck.

Really? For who – the cricket? He’ll be lucky if I don’t crush him with the heel of my shoe, when I can’t sleep at 2 a.m.

Pictures of an elephant bring luck, but only if they face a door.

I need some clarity on this. Does the elephant have to face the door, or just the picture?

It’s bad luck to let milk boil over.

That’s one that makes perfect sense, especially if you’re the one that has to clean the stove.

By the time you get through this sites Old Wives’ Tales, you’ll probably be thinking those old wives had a lot of time on their hands and that must be all there is. Nay nay, my friend, nay nay.

The Longest List of Old Wives’ Tales

Really, just typing the name of the site would have been an article in itself. Although, you won’t doubt that they have the most Old Wives’ Tales when you get to this site. They don’t even have a list – they have an index.  Cats sneezing, stepping on a nail, ringing in your ears, knuckles cracking – the old wives have something to say about all of those. Most of it isn’t terribly good either and often involves rain. You’d think they’d notice the rain clouds before they notice a cat sneezing.

Here’s a one to try out:

Mirrors have always been fascinating to many people and that brings many superstitious tales and old wives tales into being. However, did you know that you could see the man you are to marry by looking at your own reflection in a mirror?

You will need a mirror that you can sit in front of and be comfortable such as a vanity, an apple and your hairbrush.

Sit down in front of the mirror; watch your reflection while eating the apple. Once you have finished the apple, keep watching your reflection while brushing your hair. The image of the man you are to marry will appear over your shoulder.

You may have to stare at your reflection until you have completely brushed your hair through or longer. The old wives tales does not say how long it will take so be prepared for sitting a very long time.

Pretty sure that doesn’t work for men looking for a wife. But Russian dating sites do!

I hope you got some good entertainment out of these tales and superstitions. Some are kind of fun to keep going, even though we know they aren’t true. If you’ve got a good family superstition or Old Wives’ Tale, let us know in the comments. We’re all ears!

Image credit: Steve Weaver

There are some amazing deals to be had through this site. For me, the problem is that I often forget to check the site everyday. It only takes a second and you never know when that must-have item is going to come up and you’ll finally be able to afford it! In trying to find some way to track W00t better, like a Google widget or desktop app, I stumbled across Wootalyzer. But beware, it is free, it is incredibly easy to use AND it tracks far more than W00t’s one day sales. There are other sites that do the same sort of thing – every day!

Let’s get started with Wootalyzer before I get into these other sites. Here’s how it’s done. Go on over and download the Wootalyzer installer. Install is a snap with an ordinary one-click type install. Here’s how it gets weird. It’s even easier to use than it is to install.

Once it’s installed you are presented with all the documentation that you will need to use this application effectively. I’m serious – take a look!

That’s all there is to it! Really, how else could I say that?

Next, you are given the option to choose basic user mode or a power-mode that people who have shopped the one-day-sale sites would find more useful perhaps. I wouldn’t know, since I don’t use them that often. That’s the point of getting the program.

I do know what a woot-off is, however I don’t know what a BOC is and I can only guess that they use the word monkey to mean something other than a real monkey. So I went with the regular mode.

Okay, so that’s a pretty sweet deal at W00t!. I don’t really need a recording studio (or do I?) so I’ll pass on that one. However, this shows you how the thing works. Clicking on the View Item button takes you to the page that has all the details about the equipment. The field that reads In Stock tells you whether they have more of the item or not. As you can see there are still some of these in stock. Clicking on the Buy Item button takes you directly to that item’s checkout page so you can seal the deal. The clock looking area is just that – a countdown clock to let you know how long the deal is valid for.

What I think is amazing is the button that reads Woot! When I clicked on it, my shopping universe expanded!

Did you see that? Under the General/Tech category there are all these other sites with timed deals as well! You should recognize at least 3 or 4 of them, such as eBay, Amazon, Buy.com, and Newegg. I went through and each one has a pretty decent deal on it. Maybe not something I need right now, but I’ll keep checking!

Under Other there are two categories that could really get me into trouble. One is DiamondShark and the other is ChronoShark. As you might guess, the former is for jewelry and the latter is for watches. I like to buy my wife jewelry and I have an unhealthy obsession with watches. Check this out:

See that? A Lucien Picard watch that retails elsewhere for around $900. Is it a knock off? I don’t know. But it would be worth checking out.

With Wootalyzer, you can set alarms with sound for different items, so you know when a new item is on, or when it’s about to run out. This is just a shopaholic’s dream.

At first I thought Wootalyzer would help me to save money, but if I keep spending on all these other great sites as well, it’s a less-than-zero sum game. I’m sure I would overspend. That doesn’t mean you will. You probably have a stronger will than I do. Or will you succumb to the world of low-priced products as well?

Wootalyzer

When people feel this way, one of the opportunities that will evenutally knock on their doors is Multi Level Marketing (MLM). There are other names for it – network marketing, social marketing, direct distributing. Legally speaking, most of the legitimate companies that use this form of marketing are not pyramid schemes. At least not legally. However, they do strongly resemble pyramids in their structure.

Some people do make money with these opportunities. A few make really good money! However, often what you are told or shown isn’t the whole picture. The vast majority of people lose money in these businesses. If you’re meeting with someone about an opportunity like this, be forewarned with the information from these sites.

Pyramid Scheme Alert

PSA purports itself to be a non-profit, donation driven organization dedicated to revealing the truth about multi-level marketing and pyramid schemes. Founder Robert FitzPatrick has written a book on the topic and has been consulted as a professional by different media outlets in the U.S. and Canada.

Here you can find information on legal proceedings against MLM companies, news about them, and alerts as well. PSA does have an e-mail list that you can sign up for, to get regular information.

I find the site fairly well organized and easy to use. It appears to have the most in-depth information of the sites listed here.

MLM Survivor

This is a bit of a different site, in that it is a site within a site. What the heck does that mean? Well, MLMSurvivor has had a site since 1999 that featured information about Quixtar/Amway, Equinox/Trek Alliance and other MLM’s.You can get to it by clicking on the Original MLMSurvivor Site link.

The original site has hundreds of pages of personal stories, research, and an MLMSurvivorsClub with over 8,000 members on Yahoo! Groups.That site is somewhat wrapped inside a new blog that functions a bit more like a news site.

It appears to have been only recently resurrected, with just a few posts starting late last October. Looks like Amway is in the courts again.

The Pink Lighthouse

Just in case it seems like all these sites are about Amway, well, they aren’t. The Pink Lighthouse is a blog put together by a former Mary Kay Consultant. It sure seems that the pink isn’t all that you might think!

There are dozens of personal stories to be found here. Perhaps the most common thread between them all is that the products are great! However, the personalities that they had to work with (more like work for) was the biggest problem. Lots of inventory purchasing that seldom gets sold and tons of pressure to keep buying inventory just so the upline can make their monthly goals. Apparently Mary Kay isn’t an MLM, but rather a Dual Marketing system. I’m not sure what that means, but I do know you can put lipstick on a pig and it’s still a pig.

After you’ve read through these sites, I can see how you wouldn’t touch an MLM pyramid scheme with someone else’s ten foot pole. Yet still, the fact remains that there are people that make money with some of these business and there are even a few that have made millions. The question then remains, are you willing to do what it takes? Statistics only would say the odds are against you.

Have you had an MLM pyramid scheme experience, good or bad? Do you know of any other resources you’d recommend to people checking out MLM’s? You’d be doing us all a favour by sharing them in the comments.

So now, I have to earn 1.65 cents for every penny spent just to break even. Whew! That’s a lot of work. Before you check my math and compare it to tax laws in your jurisdiction, just take it as a fact that a penny saved is MORE than a penny earned. Math comments will be ignored – just ask my grade 12 math teacher.

It seems that convenience has become a way of life for many. What frugality we do practice usually amounts to the odd coupon here and there, maybe recycling one or two things, if it’s fashionable, or buying a few more cans of spaghetti sauce if it happens to be on sale. There is oh-so-much more we can do! I think after you’ve spent a few hours or days on these sites, you might catch the frugal bug and enjoy a much lower cost of living by watching your savings grow while your lifestyle remains relatively unchanged.

Creative Frugality

You won’t find any fancy web design or whizbang gizmos here. What you will find are time-tested ways of living a frugal lifestyle that is still fun and exciting. Nancy Twigg started this site quite some time ago. I recall visiting it around 2001 or so. The ideas and tips are timeless, easy to put in to use, and guarantee that you will save money! Creative Frugality also has a sister site called Counting the Cost. Here, you’ll find a newsletter that you can sign up for to receive regular frugal tips and inspiration.

Nancy Twigg and her husband are inspired by their Christian faith. It may not be the same faith that you share, however it has resulted in this treasure trove that anyone can benefit from. Really, you should go.

Festival of Frugality

Honestly, lowering your cost of living is FAR more colourful than these last two logos would suggest. Would it hurt to add a little pizazz? WordPress templates are usually free, folks!

Design issues aside, the Festival of Frugality is another great resources for money-saving tips. What they do here is act somewhat as an aggregator of articles from other sites as well as adding their own content. I particularly liked the article, If You Must, Do It Smart. Simple, you and your sweetie order a value meal at your local burger in a bag joint. Just buy an extra burger and share the fries and cola! You’re still eating out, but spending less money and consuming less empty calories. It’s a win-win folks!

The publisher of this site also hosts a few other sites along the same lines, such as Carnival of Personal Finance, Carnival of Debt Reduction, Carnival of Money Hacks, and my personal favourite for use of a big word, Carnival of Pecuniary Delights.

Wise Bread

Alright! Finally some colour other than shades of grey!

Even more excellent is that this site was founded by three high-school students in 2006. What did you do in high-school? I can’t remember and I won’t incriminate myself.

The site is part-blog, part-community, part-economic movement, all fun business. The tips here aren’t all one-size-fits all. They talk about more than just saving on groceries and back-to-school supplies. You’ll find people sharing tips on less expensive ways to get designer clothes, inexpensive passport photo’s, and contrarian tips like buying your halloween costume now for next year.

This site is fast becoming a favourite of mine, because of its extensive frugality tips, and because it has other large sections on Career and Income, Personal Finance, Life Hacks and Deals and Coupons.

There they are, three of the top sites that can help you lower your cost of living. It isn’t too late to do so and it will help you weather out this economic storm. If you have some favourite money saving tips or websites, please share them in the comments. It helps us all!

Photo Credits: HouseOfSims, ozmafan

The first thing you need to know is basic troubleshooting. Start with the most obvious and work your way backwards. Read and understand the error messages on your screen. They are in plain language – don’t get intimidated. If it says No Video Source Present, check the cord between your computer and monitor. If the power light isn’t on, check the power cable. Many of your problems are likely of this nature. If you have already done all of the troubleshooting steps and are sure what hardware component is causing problems, then we can talk about that now.

Replacing or Re-seating RAM

There was a time when this was a major operation, requiring a soldering iron and steady hands. Now, RAM comes in easy to install and remove sticks and is a very simple DIY computer repair. Keep in mind for this, that static electricity is your enemy and grounding out is your friend. You can get a grounding wrist strap, or you can touch the metal chassis of your computer frequently. I’d recommend the wrist-strap just to be safe.

Open up the case of your computer. Many cases today don’t even require removing screws so that’s easy. Look inside for a few seconds at your computer. Seems really confusing and high-tech, doesn’t it? Don’t be intimidated. Look for rows of long computer chips that stick out of the board, perpendicular. They’re about an inch high.

If you suspect that they just need to be reseated, gently push on the center-edge of the RAM, then the top and bottom. If there was any movement, then that was probably the problem. Once you are sure all of the RAM is seated, you can try to restart your computer.

If the RAM is still causing a problem, you can remove it very easily. At either end of the RAM, there are little levers – or retaining tabs. Gently push these levers down, both at the same time. The levers should pop back and the RAM will be raised up. Using only the edges of the RAM, take it out and put it on a non-static surface. If you’re lucky you’ll have an anti-static bag around. They’re usually pink, silver or clear with thick black lines on them. You can usually get these from a computer repair place, just by asking for them. Tell them you want to bring in your bad RAM for a replacement. Hey, it’s an easy sell for them.

Take the RAM to your local computer store and they’ll help you select the appropriate RAM for your computer.  Make sure you know what model of motherboard you have, since this is an ideal time to upgrade your RAM for a faster computer.

Replacing the Power Supply

If you’re certain the issue is your power supply, that’s easy to remove and install too! WARNING: Unplug your computer completely. Let it sit for a few minutes. This ensures that there is no power to the computer so you don’t get shocked. Letting it sit for a few minutes allows any capacitors to discharge so they don’t shock you either.

Once you feel safe to proceed with this DIY computer repair, take some masking tape and a pen and mark all the connections that your power supply makes to your components. Do that on the component side of the connection. This helps you to know what cables need to plug back in when you get the new power supply. Sometimes a ribbon cable can have a few connectors on it that aren’t used. No sense connecting to those. Disconnect the power supply cables from the components.

Now, on the back of your computer you will see a number of screws around the power supply. Unscrew those and save the screws. Hey, little screws can come in handy someday. The power supply should now slide right out of the back of the computer or inwards into the computer. Don’t force it. If anything is blocking it, carefully remove those things.

Voila! The power supply is in your hands. Take it, and your motherboard information, to your computer store. Now you can get an appropriately sized power supply. They may recommend a more powerful supply and if your motherboard is meant for it, it can be worth a few extra bucks to upsize. This can help the components run closer to their maximum capacity, meaning a faster computer for you. To install the power supply, read the manual that came with it and make all the connections accordingly. Often, these connections are now unique to each component, making it harder to mess up.

Replacing or Reseating a Video/Sound/Network Interface Card

If you are certain that the video or sound or NIC card is causing your problems, those are probably the easiest things to replace. When you open your computer, you’ll see a column of cards inserted horizontally. These are the cards we’re talking about. If you think they might just need to be reseated, do the same technique you used for the RAM. Gently push on the center edge of the card, then the left and right. Again, if there is any movement, this may likely be the problem.

If you are certain the card needs to be replaced, it is usually a matter of removing one screw from the mounting flange of the card and gently pulling the card out by its edges. Pop it into a static-free bag and take it into the computer shop. Once again, this may be the time to upgrade as well. Usually by the time you’ve had a computer long enough for a component to fail, a better component comes along and costs about the same as the original one. Sometimes it costs even less.

Take the card and gently insert it into the proper slot. Put the retaining screw in and proceed with the User Manual for the card to make sure it has the right drivers installed and the right configuration.

Yes, these instructions sound too easy to be true, and you’re right! These are the basics that apply to almost any make and model of the components we’ve talked about. There will be specific little variations for each new part, however those should all be covered in the user manual that comes with them. Keep all of your original packaging for the new parts as well, just in case they too are faulty. Then you can return them easier.

I hope this article has helped you to overcome any fear of the computer that you might have. Or at least saved you a few bucks in labour costs for repair. All this information comes with no warranty. If you try to repair your own computer and it doesn’t work, or gets worse, I can not accept any responsibility for that.  Always research until your are completely comfortable with the work you will do.

If you’re familiar with any other tip that can be added to above list of DIY computer repairs, please share them in comments below.

The problem is that our wireless connection would keep dropping for no apparent reason. I would reset the router, reset the wireless adapter on the laptop and reset the DivX device. That would work for awhile and then it would happen again. So I fired up the Xirrus Wireless Wi-Fi Inspector that I wrote about awhile back, and went through troubleshooting my weak wireless connection through that. Turns out I forgot that a lot of my neighbours have the same crappy modem/router combination my ISP assigned me and they all like to talk on the same channel at the same time. Now, I would change the channel on my router manually to one that wasn’t being used.

But the weak wireless connection problem still continues. Sometime I forget that I am a college-trained computer technician. Once I recalled that little tidbit, I started digging into how I could manipulate my wireless adapter to work better, hopefully.

Keep in mind that my wireless adapter is a an Intel device. Yours may differ, however the principles should be the same.

I opened up my Intel wireless adapter by clicking on the Start button, then the Connect To link and then the Wireless Network Connection link. Up pops the Wireless Connection Status window.

Then I clicked on the Properties button. Voila! Here’s the Wireless Network Connections Properties window. Now we’re getting to the meat and potatoes, or tofurkey and potatoes for our vegetarian friends.

Clicking on the Configure button took me to the Intel Pro Wireless 2915ABG Network Connection Properties window. Try to say that 3 times fast!

Notice that I highlighted the Intel Throughput Enhancement option in the Property select box. The default value of this is Disabled. When it’s disabled, the adapter uses a packet burst mode known as Wi-Fi Multimedia mode (WMM). This mode is ideal when you use your computer in a wireless network with other computers doing ordinary uploading or downloading of music, video, text and any other type of file. Hence the name – multimedia.

When the Intel Throughput Enhancement is enabled, this packet burst method is meant more for streaming video and audio. Hmmm, I’m trying to stream audio and video to my DivX Connected device! So, I enabled it. Now, if you enable it, and there are other computers using the same router as yours, you will be hogging the bandwidth! Make sure that’s okay with your other users. If you’re the Dad, like me, you just go ahead and do it. After you get Mom’s permission, of course.

Then I checked on the Power Management mode. Mine was defaulted to the Lowest end of the slider. Well, that’s great if I were using my laptop without it always being plugged in. However, I always have it plugged in, so power management is not an issue. By setting it to maximum, I’ll get higher performance! This should assist in noisy environments as well. I don’t mean kids and dogs, I mean lots of other Wi-Fi signals, like the ones from my neighbours. Darned noisy neighbours!

I scrolled down a bit further and found the property Roaming Aggressiveness. Mine was set to be as aggressive as possible. What that means is that if my router has a weaker wireless connection than another signal in the area, the adapter will try to jump to that. For me, that means it tries to connect to a neighbour with a stronger signal. Well, I don’t want that so I dialed it down to lowest.

The last thing I did was to check the Wireless Mode property. Originally, it was set to 802.11B and 802.11G mode. I don’t think changing this will make that significant a difference, but since my router, adapter and DivX device are all capable of 802.11G mode, I saw no sense in leaving it mixed. So I changed it to that exclusively.

Did it work? So far, so good! Unless the microwave is on, the connection hasn’t been dropped between my laptop and the router. Sometimes it gets dropped between the router and the DivX Connected device… but that’s another article!

How do you usually troubleshoot dropped wireless connections? Do you have a solution of your own? Share them with us in the comments!