General Networking With D-Link Wireless Routers

After connecting your D-Link wireless router and opening the start page in your browser, you’ll see a login screen. All of these routers come with a default password or no password at all. The first thing you’ll want to do is set one in order to guard against local and possible neighborhood intrusion. While this measure seems a given, many may be tempted to skip this step for convenience. The administrator password is your first line of defense.

Next you’ll configure your network settings according to your connection, hardware, and purpose of the router.  In addition, the option to configure remote management is offered so you can access your router from outside your local network. It is not advised to allow this unless necessary as individual internet addresses can be spoofed and leaves your network another opening for intrusion. In the advanced settings of the network there’s a tickbox for enabling WAN (from the internet) pings. Leave this unchecked so that your router will not answer pings confirming its existence.

Wireless Settings

The most important part is under the Wireless Settings. Here you will secure your router connections. The first thing one might want to do is change the default name because most routers ship with their brand name as the default SSID, or broadcast name. While this doesn’t help a whole lot if it’s broadcast across the neighborhood, at least it will hide your brand making it a bit harder to crack.

Next is the Enable Extended Range Mode. Do not enable this unless your equipment is indeed in a large building. There’s no sense in creating a larger circle of coverage to encompass even more neighborhood hackers than is necessary. Most average sized homes and small business settings will not require this option to be turned on. Along these same lines, it’s not recommended that one exchange the factory antenna for a high-range aftermarket replacement for the same reason. If your wireless network card in your computer supports 802.11g, then perhaps you might want to tick the 802.11g checkbox, perhaps excluding some who may not have the latest equipment.

Hiding your SSID aids in security by not announcing its existence. This way only those who know your SSID will be able to use it. While some experienced hackers may own tools to detect your router regardless, it will guard against some. In and of itself hiding the SSID isn’t a strong security measure, but coupled with others decreases your chances of falling victim.

The most important part of securing your router is the Security Mode. Here you will enable encryption and require a password to connect.  With most modern routers you have several choices ranging from the least secure to more so. Leaving this disabled allows your information to soar across the air unencrypted inviting others to capture and read it, including credit card numbers, passwords, and private conversations as well as allowing connections from outsiders at will.

WEP, or Wired Equivalent Privacy, provides a modicum of protection better than nothing, but its algorithms were cracked many years ago and anyone with the tools to pull in your transmissions will certainly have these basic conversion tools as well. WPA (version 1), or Wi-Fi Protected Access, was created in answer to the WEP failings, however, it too was cracked several years ago. Again, it’s better than nothing and will keep regular freeloading neighbors from using your connection, but WPA2 is even better. Most modern computer networking cards support this newer encryption standard, but some slightly older equipment may not. If your computer supports WPA2, then that’s your choice.

After choosing WPA or WPA2, you also have the choice of TKIP (Temporal Key Integrity Protocol) or AES (Advanced Encryption Standard) based algorithms. Again, TKIP is the older less secure method and most computers and software support AES, so choose that. Then you have the further choice of PSK (pre-shared key) or EAP (Extensible Authentication Protocol). PSK is the type in which you have to set up your password on each device before encryption begins, so there is a chance someone could have gleaned that information during that process. EAP is more secure but encompasses many different methods and can require specialized software matching the methods of your particular router model. Many businesses use the latter for its increased security, but most home users choose the prior.  Be sure to pick a strong password with upper and lower case letters as well as numbers and even special characters.

One last element is the toggle to enable or disable accessing the configuration over wireless. If your D-Link model has this option it is recommended to use it. This way one would need physical access with a RJ-45 cable to try and guess or crack your password to change settings or invade your local network.

While nothing in the computer world is completely safe, things can be made reasonably so. By implementing these simple measures your local and wireless network is much more secure. Along with continued diligence in monitoring activity, your door is safely locked against many would-be intruders.

There were a couple of other related posts on MakeUseOf before:

- How To Set Up Your Own Secured Wi-Fi Hotspot
- How To Secure Your Wireless Network Connection

Please share your comments below. If you have other suggestions on how to secure a D-link router we would like to hear them as well.

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on Twitter ? Now you can follow MakeUseOf on Twitter too.

• Technology Explained: Open Router Ports & Their Security Implications (8)
• How To Troubleshoot Weak Wireless Connections (15)
• How To Share The Internet Connection Between Mac and PC (16)
• How To Set Up Your Own Secured Wi-Fi Hotspot (16)
• How To Get A Layer Of Downloading Protection with PeerBlock (10)

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!

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on Twitter ? Now you can follow MakeUseOf on Twitter too.

• How To Secure Your D-Link Wireless Router (13)
• How To Turn An Old Router Into A Wireless Bridge (41)
• How To Share The Internet Connection Between Mac and PC (16)
• How To Set Up Your Own Secured Wi-Fi Hotspot (16)
• 8 Tips To Effectively Boost Your Wireless Router Signal (70)

This has been a dream of mine for years, but I’ve always avoided the project because of the costs I assumed were involved. However, writing for MakeUseOf often forces me to think a bit outside the box. How would I accomplish a home security system inexpensively or free?

As an automation engineer, I often have to work with machinery or equipment where a central processor needs to read data from a number of distributed sensors. So, for starters I would distribute “sensors” – both wired and wireless web cams – in and around my property. The question still remains, what central processing software could handle all of those webcams and accomplish the “alert” scenario I want? After doing a lot of digging, I finally found a very cool software application called Active Webcam that lets you do just that.

How to Build a WiFi Home Security System

In this article, I’m going to describe how you can set up a system of security webcams that will alert you to even the slightest intrusion into the space the camera is monitoring. Before we get going, I do need to make it clear that the download link above for Active Webcam is to a free trial version of the software. However, the trial version offers all of the features of the full version, except there’s a small “nag window” in the upper left part of each webcam. If you can tolerate the window (I know I can), then the software is the top free choice for what we need to accomplish.

Recently, MakeUseOf covered similar applications for your webcam, such as Mark’s article on two cool motion sensor applications, and a while back I also outlined how you could use webcams from all around the world to go ghost hunting with your browser. However, what I’m going to describe today is a combination of all of those things. We’re going to create a remote surveillance system that could monitor your home, your camp, your apartment – or all of the above, all at the same time. In essence you can create a giant personal surveillance network without limitations. Sound cool? Let’s roll.

When you first install Active Webcam you’re offered an easy wizard that steps you through setting up your first device.

As you can see even from this first screen – the software has a lot of capabilities. Not only can you capture input from cameras connected directly to your computer, on your home network, or over the Internet – but you can even generate a web page that you could access from anywhere to watch all of your configured cameras.

The next screen of the startup wizard helps you select which type of camera you want to connect to. Keep in mind that if you’ve set up a remote Wi-Fi webcam that has its own IP on your network, you can connect to it directly by selecting “Network IP Camera.”

The next screen in the wizard lets you choose from the three standard methods of broadcasting your captured video. You can stream it all to an external web server, you can turn your PC itself into a web server, or you can upload via FTP. In my case, I’m hoping to receive an email with a nice snapshot of the intruders that I can take over to the police station, so on this step I’ll select “None.” Once you’re past the startup wizard and you’ve set up your first device, go to settings and select “Motion Detection.”

This is the place where we can accomplish the magic. A few things to keep in mind here. First, set the sensitivity to what you want to accomplish. For example, in my case my cameras are sitting in an empty house where nothing should be moving. Setting it to 95% will fire off an email at the slightest movement. However, if you have a small cat or dog in the house, you may want to set it for 75% to 80% so that it ignores smaller movements. The last thing you want is a flurry of hundreds of emails because your cat decided to start playing with the webcam!

You’ll also notice that there’s an impressive array of actions you can take when the camera senses motion. Playing a sound or FTP’ing captured images are standard with most of these motion detection applications – but the one feature that is very cool here is that if you want, the application will not only send you an email, but it can also send an SMS message to your cellphone. Now that’s slick. Of course, in my case I want an email with snapshots of the intruder, so I select “Send Email” and then go into the email settings.

The email settings are very easy. Just configure your SMTP settings and remember to add which email address to send the alert to. You can add multiple ones by using a comma between them. The interval setting will wait before firing off another email when there’s more motion, and you can choose how many snapshots you want the camera to take. During a test run with my single laptop webcam watching for motion, I received the following email.

Okay, so it works – but what about really putting it to good use?

Build a WiFi Internet Surveillance Network

My first thought is a distributed surveillance system where you wire up a webcam at every remote location you want to monitor. This could be your elderly mother’s house, your camp way up north or maybe even your office because you suspect someone’s stealing your favorite multi-colored sticky notes. Whatever the reason, all you need to do is install your webcams with either their own Internet IP, or plugged into an Internet-connected PC running Active Webcam. For my global distributed network test, I visited Opentopia and selected three random webcams from several Universities around the United States.

Now, two of these cameras were obviously monitoring very quiet locations. However, the third webcam on the lower left was a college workshop where students kept walking in and out of the room. So I quickly configured the motion settings as described above, and then waited for one of the three cameras to trigger my alert. Sure enough, within about five minutes, I received my email alert.

I captured three snapshots of this student who had just walked into the room and stood at the table. Just imagine if this was your home or business security system. No need to rewind and review security tape – your wifi surveillance system will automatically capture and store the mugshots, and you’ll know about it instantly over email or your phone!

Can you think of other creative ways to use Active Webcam? Do you know of any other applications that would accomplish the same thing? Share your insight in the comments section below.

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on Twitter ? Now you can follow MakeUseOf on Twitter too.

• How To Secure Your D-Link Wireless Router (13)
• 2 Cool Motion Sensor Webcam Tools to Snap Those Intruders (9)
• Your Computer, Your World – How to Keep Out the Mindless (51)
• VZOChat – How To Videoconference with Your Cameraphone Webcam (12)
• Three Firefox Security & Privacy Add-ons that can Co-exist (23)

Now, here’s the tricky part. In my home network, we have 2 Macs and one PC running on Windows XP. The UMTS device connects via USB. How do we decide who gets to use it? We put our thinking caps on and finally decided that it would be easier to share the internet connection using one of the Macs. I rolled up my sleeves and got to work.

Internet sharing between Macs is basically very easy but if you add a Windows PC into the mix, things get a little problematic. Sharing the internet connection between Mac and PC turned out to be harder than I thought. I’ll explain why in a minute. But first, let’s just assume that we only needed to share the connection between 2 (or more) Macs via AirPort (WiFi). It’s very simple.

Open System Preferences and click on Sharing.

Before Internet Sharing can be enabled, you first have to configure the proper settings.

In the ‘Share your connection from’ dropdown list, select the port that has internet connectivity. In the screenshot above, I have “Ethernet” selected when it actually should be USB — ignore that. Then select how you would like to share the connectivity. I chose AirPort so that I can share the connection with several other computers. Checking the box next to ‘AirPort’ unbricks the ‘Airport options’ button.

Click on that button and configure your network name and security options.

Alright, here’s where the whole Windows and Mac concoction starts to rear its ugly head. Due to the different methods that the two operating systems deals with Hex encryption, the password you enter here will not be easily accepted by Windows. A Windows PC will be able to detect the wireless network but it will not be able to join.

Here’s the workaround. Select the 128-bit WEP encryption option and enter a 13-character password. Then, rename the network to something really short without spaces. When you’re done, hit OK.

Now you can check the box next to ‘Internet Sharing’. You may get a prompt to start AirPort, click Start. Right, the connection is shared. Macs detect the network automatically (and so will iPhones and iPod touches) and will connect to it as though it’s a regular router.

On the Windows PC, a little bit of manipulation is required. Turn on the wireless adapter and right-click on its taskbar icon to select “View available wireless networks”. In the subsequent window, click on “Change advanced settings”.

Click on the Wireless Networks tab and then click the ‘Add’ button to add our shared network.

Print the network name accurately, then set the network authentication to ‘Shared’, data encryption to ‘WEP’, uncheck the box next to “This key is provided for me automatically” and enter the 13-character password.

Click on the Authentication tab and disable IEEE 802.1x authentication. Next, click on the Connection tab and make sure that it will connect when in range. Click OK and apply the settings.

It should now try to connect to the shared AirPort connection. Cross your fingers. This sort of busts the myth that Macs and Windows won’t work well together, doesn’t it?

I noted a few oddities during the whole procedure: 40-bit WEP encryption didn’t work when trying to share the internet connection between Macs and PC. The password was always incorrect. Then I changed it to 128-bit and everything was well. Also, the network name must not contain any spaces. The Windows PC wouldn’t connect to “Jackson Chung’s MacBook” but it connected with “jxn”.

How would you go about this procedure from a Window’s point of view? I would love to hear it. Tell me how — in the comments!

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on Twitter ? Now you can follow MakeUseOf on Twitter too.

• How To Secure Your D-Link Wireless Router (13)
• WiFi for Dummies: 9 Common Mistakes Setting up a Wireless Network (22)
• How To Troubleshoot Weak Wireless Connections (15)
• How To Set Up Your Own Secured Wi-Fi Hotspot (16)
• 8 Tips To Effectively Boost Your Wireless Router Signal (70)

Every PSP is built by Sony with the capability to be connected to the internet. There is an inbuilt wireless receiver that picks up WiFi signals to transmit data, thus allowing you to browse. WiFi is extremely popular at present and chances are that where you’re sitting, you can pick up a WiFi signal – most likely the one coming from your home’s wireless router. For more information on setting up your home’s wireless network, read Tim’s article on the subject here.

The first step to learning how to connect PSP to the Internet is to know your wireless router’s details. You will need the router’s name (this is chosen when setting up your home wireless network) and the password to access the signal. If your router is not protected by a password then you can ignore this step. Once you have found all the details, turn to your PSP.

On top of the PSP, there is a switch which is marked ‘WLAN’. Move this switch to the right to turn on the wireless receiver.

When you’re on the main menu, use the directional pad to move the options to the left. This will bring you to ‘Settings’. Scroll down through the setting to the bottom of the list and select ‘Network Settings’. Then select ‘Infrastructure Mode’ – this is for connecting to the internet. The other option ‘Ad Hoc Mode’ is for connecting two PSPs together.

When you have selected ‘Infrastructure Mode’, click ‘New Connection’. This will bring you to a screen with three options; ‘Scan’, ‘Enter Manually’ and ‘Automatic’. Select ‘Scan’.

When the device has finished scanning, there will be a list of all the wireless signals picked up by the PSP. Beside each signal, there will also be a signal strength measured in percentages. Hopefully, your signal being the closest, it will be at 100% or near enough to it. Press ‘X’ to select your signal.

Scroll right through all the different setting for this connection leaving them all just as they are until you reach ‘WPA key’. Select this option and enter in the password for your wireless signal. This is case sensitive and must be exactly as you entered it when setting up the wireless router.

Continue to scroll to the right, leaving all the other setting as their default. The second last screen as you scroll to the right will give you all your new connection’s information such as Name and IP address and security level. Scroll one more screen to the right and select ‘Test Connection’. Allow it to test the connection for a minute or so. If you have set up the connection correctly then the test results such as signal strength and the IP address will be displayed. If you have made an error while setting up the connection then the test will ‘time out’ and you’ll have to go back by pressing ‘O’ to make sure you have all the settings correct.

When you have set up your connection, you can scroll to the right of the main menu to begin using the HTML browser. You can also play selected games online using the multiplayer mode.

A piece of advice: When you’re just playing a game on ‘Single Player’ mode or doing anything else on your PSP, I suggest you turn the wireless receiver off at the WLAN switch as it can eat up a lot of juice unnecessarily.

Do you use your PSP to go online often? Was this instructional easy to follow? Let us know in the comments.

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on Twitter ? Now you can follow MakeUseOf on Twitter too.

• Top 5 Sites for PSP Game Demo Downloads (12)
• How to Set Up Laptop Wireless Internet Access Through Your Cellphone [Windows] (36)
• Top 3 Sites For Nintendo Wii Game Walkthroughs (8)
• Top 10 Websites For PlayStation 2 Free Game Cheats (14)
• Things To Know When Using a WiFi Hotspot Or a Public PC (14)

Luckily, if you have a Windows Mobile device and you’ve signed up for an unlimited data plan through your cellular provider, then you’ve got an excellent option to set up your laptop wireless Internet access through your cellphone from anywhere you have a cellular connection.

James recently reviewed a cool app called JoikuSpot Light, which transforms your mobile phone into an Wi-Fi hot-spot. Without a doubt, JoikuSpot is probably the best solution. However, if you aren’t able to get JoikuSpot working on your device and there are no other similar options available, you may find yourself pulling out your USB cable and trying to remember how you configured your Cellphone to serve as an Internet modem for your laptop. In this article, I’m going to offer Windows Mobile users an easy step by step guide that you can refer to any time you need to configure laptop wireless Internet access through your cellphone.

The following procedure is grouped into three steps. First, setting up the laptop and the cellphone for Internet sharing, rather than connecting via an application like ActiveSync. Second, configuring both the laptop and the cellphone for the Internet connection, and finally, initializing the connection. Once you’ve completed steps 1 and 2, you’ll never have to do them again. The next time you want to access the Internet with your cellphone you simply “redial,” and you’re online. This particular setup is based on the HTC manufactured series of windows mobile devices. In my case I still use the now-ancient HTC Cingular 8125, however these steps work for the later models (and most Windows Mobile devices will also be similar).

Step 1: Getting Things Ready

The first thing that you need to do before you can establish a laptop/modem connection is to kill the current application that’s handling communications between your laptop and cellphone. In my case, I’m running ActiveSync, so I kill that process using the Task Manager.

For ActiveSync, you just find wcescomm.exe and kill the process. If you’re particular Windows Mobile device uses another application, you’ll need to find the process name and make sure that you kill it. Secondly, you’ll need to also shut down the communications software on your phone. In the case of ActiveSync, in Windows Mobile you go to Start -> Settings -> System -> Memory -> Running Programs, and then if ActiveSync is listed you’ll need to stop the process.

Once you’ve stopped the communications software on both the laptop and Windows Mobile phone, you’re ready to establish the connection between the laptop and phone as an Internet modem.

Step 2: Connecting The Cellphone As a Modem

The only real configuration required in Windows Mobile in order to set up your device as an Internet modem is to enable the “Modem Link.” The Modem Link configuration can be found by going to Start -> Programs.

Once you’re inside the Modem Link configuration, just change the Connection setting to USB. It’s likely that your other settings are already configured, however if they are not just make sure that the Access point name has the name of the connection you configured on your mobile device for Internet access. When everything looks good, click “Activate” at the bottom, and the “Status” at the top should change to “Active.”

If your device is already connected to your laptop, you’ll get the “Found New Hardware” wizard pop-up immediately. If you’re not yet plugged in, then now’s the time to do it.

Just make sure that you select to install from a specific location so that you’ll have the option to manually select your driver file. Click next.

On the next screen, you’ll click the browse button and go to the folder where the driver file is located. In my particular case with the Cingular 8125, and for most HTC mobile devices, you’ll need the USBMDM.INF driver file as well as the HTC USB Modem Dialer application. Both are offered as a free download from xda-developers.com. Download the zip file and put them wherever you’ll remember. Then in the Windows Wizard screen above, browse to the directory where you extracted the INF file. If your Windows Mobile device is non-HTC, check with the manufacturer for a USB modem driver for your device.

The Wizard will recognize the device. Depending on your particular device and the version of the driver, you may see the error message above. Just click “Continue Anyway.”

Finally, the driver’s installed and you’re ready to start using your new Mobile USB Modem anytime you want to, and anywhere you have a cellular signal!

Step 3: Initializing the Internet Connection

To establish your new mobile Internet connection using your laptop, run the executable that you downloaded from the link above. Regardless of your device or your cellular carrier, you’ll typically always need to enter a User Name and Password. You can access that information (if you don’t already know it from setting up Internet use on your mobile device) by contacting your cellular provider and asking for the User Name and Password to use with your Internet data plan.

Enter those details into the USB modem dialer, and after a few moments it’ll inform you that you’re now connected. Yes, that means that at this moment, even while you’re sitting in the middle of the lake with a fishing pole in one hand, your laptop is now connected to the Internet via your cellphone signal. It may not be lightning fast – but when you’re desperate to submit your latest article (or check on your team’s latest game results), sometimes such a connection is all you need.

Have you ever configured your laptop with an Internet connection through your cellphone? What configuration or software tools did you use to accomplish the task? Share your insight in the comments section below.

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on Twitter ? Now you can follow MakeUseOf on Twitter too.

• How To Use Your GPRS Cell Phone As A Modem (14)
• Using Yahoo Go to Stay Connected On Your Mobile (8)
• How To Connect Your PSP To The Internet (10)
• Easy Mobile Internet Plan Comparison for United States (14)
• 6 Cool Downloads for Your College Kid’s Windows Mobile Phone (1)

Real wireless Internet access is most accurately described as the kind that is based on radio frequencies. You might see homes with the little white rectangular box mounted near their eaves trough. Those are folks with Wireless Internet Access.

Let’s work this from the Wireless Internet Service Provider (WISP) to your computer.

From your ISP there will either be cabling or a radio transmitter that will relay signals to a tower. It may go through several towers before it gets to your home, or you might be close enough that you catch it off the first one.

See, the challenge with wireless Internet service is that it should be line-of-sight. That means that if you were to put your head in the middle of the receiver and look straight ahead, you have to be able to see the tower. (I do NOT recommend doing this since those signals could be less-than-healthy for you.)

Once the signal makes it to your nearest tower, it then travels directly to your receiver.  From your receiver, it will go over ordinary networking cable (RJ-45) to your modulator/demodulator (you know it as a modem). When it is modulating, it is turning your outgoing information into something that the wireless network understands. When it is demodulating, it is turning the signal into something your computer will understand. Clear as mud? I thought so. Here’s a picture.

As I said before, this is all done with radio frequencies. Do you have a cordless telephone? It will probably have numbers on it that read something like 900 MHz, 2.4 GHz, 5.2 GHz or 5.7 GHz.? These are the radio frequencies in which your cordless phone operates. Well, so does wireless Internet!

The WISP’s use these frequencies because they don’t require a license to do so. Licenses cost money and come with severe restrictions, so why wouldn’t you use public frequencies? Ah hah! I heard someone say ’security’! You are correct. Yet communications over these frequencies are acceptably secure. That’s because encryption is added to the signal. They take something that someone might possible be able to unravel, put it through encryption and, voila, secure Internet signal. Well, as secure as it can be anyway. DES encryption is commonly used.

Now, I hear someone asking why there are different frequencies. Think of them like highways – too many cars on it and everything comes to a standstill. So we use more than one highway.

Something else to consider with wireless Internet is that the frequencies also offer different attributes. Have you noticed that you can’t take your new 5.2 GHz cordless phone three doors down and still be able to talk on it? Yet when you are in your house the clarity of voices on it beat your old 900Mhz phone easily.

It’s similar with wireless Internet. Looking at Motorola’s Canopy receivers, you’ll notice that the 900 Mhz receiver has an effective range of up to 40 miles! Then the 2.4GHz receiver is limited to about 5 miles. That’s a huge difference! Go all the way up to the 5.7 Ghz receiver and we’re down to a measly 2 miles. However, the 900 Mhz receiver is more likely to have its signal interfered with by other signals out there. So, your choice, range or quality of signal? Choose wisely.

Are you currently using stationary wireless a.k.a broadband wireless? Like it? Hate it? Does this article help you to understand better what is going on with it? Let us know, down below!

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on Twitter ? Now you can follow MakeUseOf on Twitter too.

• Technology Explained: Understanding The Internet Speed (29)
• Technology Explained: How Does a Router Work? (33)
• Find Totally Free Unlimited Internet Access Almost Anywhere (14)
• Technology Explained: Open Router Ports & Their Security Implications (8)
• Technology Explained: How The Internet Works (32)

These routers have the power to transmit intangible signals; these signals, powerful as they may be, are prone to constant interference whether it be by physical objects, other signals floating around in the air, or even because you didn’t plug the wire in all the way.

Regardless of what the issue, there are some proven ways to try to remedy the situation of a weak Wifi signal. Some may simply be a little bit of common sense, other methods require purchasing additional parts.

Here are 8 tips on how to boost your wireless router signal.

Position it better

Unless you are living in a cave and you somehow miraculously have internet connectivity at the same time, you probably figured out that if your wireless router was in the corner of your kitchen under a pile of old newspapers and your computer was located on the second floor on the opposite side of the house — it is a great idea to place your router in an open position (preferably in the center of your house) where it isn’t obstructed by dense or metallic objects such as file cabinets or brick walls.

Other items that may interfere with your signal include (but are not limited to) microwave ovens, cordless phones, garage door openers, and even baby monitors. The bottom line is that the less objects in the signal’s way, the easier it is for it to relay information to your computer.

Change the WiFi Channel

Generally, Wifi routers transmit their signals on a radio frequency of 2.4 GHz. Many other household objects may operate on or around the same frequency, like cordless phones, for example. So, the channel becomes bogged down over time with lots of excess traffic that slows down your wireless connection. In the U.S.,  routers have a predefined set of 11 channels, and the default on a lot of them is channel 6. Changing the channel would reduce some interference. So how do you change the channel?

A great utility many people use is called NetStumbler, a wireless networking tool that just so happens to offer the option for you to change your wifi channel. Once opened, the program gives the choice of fooling around with all of your wireless utilities. Here is where you change your channel:

Which leads to:

Since the default for most people (at least in the United States) is 6, you may want to change your channel to something like say, channel 11. Take note that the changing of your wireless channel will NOT in any way increase your speed or bandwith. It will simply remedy your network connection if it keeps breaking off or getting lost.

Update firmware or drivers

Updates, whether related to the router firmware or your computer’s network adapter are done to fix bugs, smoothen out performance and reliability, and maybe even add new features. It is always a good idea to stay up to date with the latest releases by either of these parties.

Tim suggested using RadarSync to easily automatically update your computer’s drivers at once.

Buy your equipment from the same company

Compatibility can be a big problem, especially for two way transmissions. It may help to purchase your adapter and your router – everything, from the same company. Aside from that, some companies have embedded enhancements that improve speed or signal strength when everything is under the same brand.

Replace your antenna

Most routers come equipped with something called an omnidirectional antenna. This means that the antenna attached to the router broadcasts the signal equally within a certain circular radius. This is great if the router is positioned in the center of a hub where it needs to be able to reach ever corner of a room, but it can prove to be extremely wasteful if your router is in the corner (then again, why would it be there in the first place?). Since the signal is transmitted in a radius, if you place it in a corner, a lot of the transmitted signal is sent into the wall or outside into the open.

That is why you can manually detach your antenna and replace it with a high gain antenna. This focuses its energy to direct the signal in one general direction. Simple enough? You may have to check and see if your router has an external antenna jack/removable antenna.

Replace your wireless adapter

Since this is a two-way transmission, it may not have occured to you that it may not be the router that is the problem, but actually the wireless adapter attached to your computer. If your computer cannot send signals back to the router, the same problem ensues.

What is an adapter?  It used to be the card that you inserted into your computer or laptop. These days, most of the adapters are in the form of USB devices. Consider switching to a USB adapter that houses an external antenna, like this one depicted below.

This is usually only applicable to desktop computers. If you purchased a laptop that has a built-in adapter, it probably isn’t your adapter because they are usually very high quality installations.

Add an additional Wireless Access Point (WAP) or Repeater

If all else fails, you may need to purchase a repeater or a secondary Wireless Access Point. The consensus among these two options is rather mixed. Constructing a secondary WAP requires the ability to feed an ethernet cable from your primary router to the new access point. There are also cost considerations to be aware of, as WAPs cost more than regular wireless routers. Even so, WAPs have certain flexibilities that normal routers do not have. They can be configured as gateways, bridges, clients or repeaters. But that’s another story. The bottom line is that the WAP is an extension of the original hub in order to extend the distance of the signal. The repeater works the same way.

Here is a tutorial on how to set up the WAP courtesy of Techskillsvideos:

Try weird things

Apparently aluminum foil amplifies reception and transmission. It may or may not work, YMMV.

A little bit of background: You may have seen 802.11b or 802.11g written somewhere on your router – these are merely wireless LAN standards that the particular router adheres to. The main difference between these is that 802.11b has a maximum data transfer rate of 11 Mbps, whereas 802.11g has a much higher 54 Mbps rate.

With that being said, there is no way to improve data transmission or bandwith outside of hardware applications and upgrades. The tips mentioned above are meant to help you solve the problem of an interfered or weak signal. These may or may not work for you, but there is a strong correlation between troubleshooting and success rate.

Have you any other tips to help strengthen a weak signal? Has changing channels made a big difference for you? Tried attaching aluminum foil to your router’s antenna? How did that turn out for you? Share your experiences in the comments!

Latest Article “10 More Cool Things You Can Do With YouTube Videos”

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on Twitter ? Now you can follow MakeUseOf on Twitter too.

• How To Set Up Your Own Secured Wi-Fi Hotspot (16)
• How To Secure Your D-Link Wireless Router (13)
• How To Turn An Old Router Into A Wireless Bridge (41)
• How To Troubleshoot Weak Wireless Connections (15)
• How To Share The Internet Connection Between Mac and PC (16)

If someone has already asked you this question before, you probably would have drawn a map by hand and just marked the access points, but it is much easier and more accurate to do it with professional software such as Ekahau HeatMapper.

Just download, install, run and you’ll be up and running in no time ready to map the wifi signal of your area. Even if people don’t ask you this question but you have a laptop and move around the workplace a lot, it is always useful to know where you can receive the best wifi coverage, and where you can’t. Heatmapper also gives you real-time information about access points. So if you’re a network manager, this will help you troubleshoot access points with a wi-fi signal strength problem and show where improvements can be done for better coverage.

If you have Windows XP or 32-bit Windows Vista, just download and install the 52MB executable file on a wifi-compatible laptop and install.

Every time you run HeatMapper, you will be asked whether you want to use a map of the location that you are about to survey or a plain grid. It is recommended that you have a floor plan to get best results. If you are using a grid, make sure that you keep your measuring accurate on the grid to what you actually walk to get best results.

If you don’t have a map or floor plan of what you are surveying and you want one, there are numerous sites that you can quickly draw one up. I made a basic floor design of my house using FloorPlanner. It is quite simple to use, but I won’t go in to details about how to draw your floor plan. If you want to save your floor plan or edit it later, you can create an account, or just take a screen shot of your floor plan. If you don’t know how to take a screen shot, you can read this tutorial then take a look at some screenshot tools that MakeUseOf has written about before.

Now, that you’re set up to map your wifi signal strength, walk around your house and every time you want to take a survey of the signal strength, left-click on the interface. To get best results, make sure that you walk behind walls and in all corners of the room and click often. Once you are done taking signal samples from around your house, right-click and a map will appear to show you where the best wifi signal is as well as where you may have a wi-fi signal strength problem.

Once you right-click, you will see the wireless coverage, and if you move your cursor over an access point, you will be presented with detailed information such as the signal strength, channel and MAC address.

Below is the screenshot of the wifi signal in my home. (This is only a basic drawing of my house). As you can see, those green lines represent my path.

Once you are done, you can click the ‘Take screenshot’ button on HeatMapper to save your map.

The only downside to HeatMapper is that you cannot zoom on your map and save your mapping progress. So once you close HeatMapper, you lose your information, so make sure you have enough time to survey the whole area.

Visit Ekahau homepage or the HeatMapper page to download.

So what do you think? What that a useful app to help you visualize your home’s wifi signal strength? Now do you know why your connection keeps dropping when you’re hiding out in your study? Let us your experiences, in the comments!

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on Twitter ? Now you can follow MakeUseOf on Twitter too.

• Technology Explained: How Does Wireless Internet Work? (31)
• One Network Admin’s Tool to Rule Them All (13)
• Monitor Log Files In Real Time With BareTail (Windows Only) (6)
• How To Turn An Old Router Into A Wireless Bridge (41)
• How To Troubleshoot Weak Wireless Connections (15)

There are two routes to go here. You can go the WiFi route, which is far more popular and usually in the broadband range for speed. Or, you can go the dial-up route which is slower, however you can access it from the convenience of your own home or maybe from a hotel without WiFi service.

It may be slower than molasses going uphill in winter, but beggars can’t be choosers.

All Free ISP

All Free ISP has a simple way to access their database and find a service provider near you. A major benefit is that their database covers the United States of America as well as Canada. You are more likely to find free service in the U.S.A. than in Canada, so I was pleasantly surprised to find several providers in my home province of Alberta.

Just go to All Free ISP and select your State or Province. You can also search by ZIP or Postal Code. Then click on our friend, the Go button. I’m also partial to his cousins the Enter and Next button – really handy fellows, the whole bunch.

The website then shows you a page of free and cheap ISPs you can access from your area. Here’s what showed up for me.

See how it breaks the list down into cities? That’s a nice touch. How about the rating system and letting you know what platforms are supported? Pretty nifty. From here, you can click on the name of an ISP and find out more about them. Let’s do that, shall we?

This just shows you a basic overview of the ISP. Really, do I need to explain this? No, exactly! That’s why I like this site. If you go to All Free ISP and follow through to this point, you’ll see that there is way more information than I’m showing here. Based on what they present, you can make an educated guess about whether you want to use this ISP or not.

At this point also, you realize that nothing is really free. If you choose Juno, you’ll be subjected to large banner ads for the privilege of using their service. No different than watching TV really.

Freedom List

You might be living or travelling outside of the northern two-thirds of North America and be in need of dial-up service. Yes, believe it or not, there is more to the world than North America. I know, shocker isn’t it?! Freedom List offers a, well, list of free ISPs broken down by country. Just take a look! Pretty impressive, huh?

So, if your WiFi card is broken, or you just can’t sit at the cafe any longer, check Freedom List out.

Your ISP

Another place to check for free dial-up Internet access is your current ISP. Many of them offer you a certain amount of hours of dial-up access for free, if you have a paid broadband account. Some of them even have directories of dial-up numbers that you can use across the country or even internationally. If they have a dial-up number near to where you are staying, chances are you won’t even have to pay long distance fees.

The best way to find out if your ISP has free dial-up is to check out their website, or call their customer service number. Usually, they’re more than glad to help you. The hardest part will be trying to remember how to make a connection using a dial-up modem again. What was once second nature is now a chore.

Your Town or County

Municipal Internet Access or Municipal WiFi seems to be an on-again off-again project for most communities. While driving across the countryside of Alberta for my job, I’ve noticed my WiFi card picking up access points that are provided by the county. If I were a resident of that county, I could get an account and access the Internet for little to no cost. It’s provided for with my taxes.

Municipalities also often provide totally free, unlimited Internet access at locations such as the municipal offices, libraries and some schools. To find out more about what your community offers, contact your local government offices.

Editor’s note: Remember, there are always security issues when using a public internet connection. Karl teaches you how to protect your personal information while enjoying free wifi connectivity.

Know of any other interesting ways to get legal free Internet access? Share it in the comments. We all like a freebie now and again. Got a tip on access being provided by your government? Let everyone know – it’s good to use the services you already pay for.

Image credit: andrewgrill

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on Twitter ? Now you can follow MakeUseOf on Twitter too.

• Things To Know When Using a WiFi Hotspot Or a Public PC (14)
• Technology Explained: How Does Wireless Internet Work? (31)
• How To Use Xirrus To Figure Out WiFi Network Problems (8)
• How To Turn An Old Router Into A Wireless Bridge (41)
• How To Share The Internet Connection Between Mac and PC (16)

The basics of this process are pretty much the same for any router. Only the specifics will differ, so I can’t say this enough: Read your documentation, for your router, your broadband modem, and any other equipment you’ll be using.

Purchasing Your Router

For maximum compatibility, you’re going to want a router that supports the three top wireless-networking standards: 802.11a, 802.11b, and 802.11g. You’ll notice in the store, some routers which are 802.11n, but that standard has yet to be fully adopted. That doesn’t mean that you can’t skip straight up to 802.11n, but please make sure that the device in question is also compatible with the other three wireless standards. It will save you a lot of headaches later.

Next, we are actually going to explain how to setup a wifi hotspot.

Physical Setup

Connecting your router to your existing home network should be a simple process. If you think of the path between your PC and the Internet, you will be inserting the router into this chain.

“Internet -> Broadband Modem -> PC”

becomes

“Internet -> Broadband Modem –> Router –> PC.”

Basically, your first steps will be to unplug your PC’s networking cable from your broadband modem, then plug each of them into your router. Please note, that there should be a port marked specifically for the broadband modem. This may be marked “Internet” or “Broadband” or something similar. Once everything’s plugged-in and powered-up, you may have some software to run which sets the router up. In my experience, running the software isn’t necessary, but may make initial setup easier. Please check your documentation, and don’t skip any steps.

Digital Setup & Security

Once everything is hooked together, please test your Internet connection by opening a Web browser and going to any site. I usually try Google, MakeUseOf, or my microblog (cheap plug), but what you use is up to you. After confirming that everything’s running smoothly, it’s time to secure the router from outside intruders.

To access your router’s on-board software, you must connect to its internal Web server. The address to use, which is always network-internal, varies; In my example, it’s http://192.168.2.1. Here’s how to find yours on Windows XP: From your Start Menu, click the Run command, and then enter “cmd” to launch a command line. Next, type “ipconfig /all” and hit Enter to show details of your network connection. Your “default gateway” is your router’s address. Open a Web browser and go to that address to access your router’s settings. You’ll be required to enter a Username and Password but that’s all in your router’s documentation. If not then you can lookup the default passwords and username for your router on sites like CIRT and Router Passwords.

While you’re still in the command line, please write down your “physical address,” also known as the MAC address, as shown below. You’ll need this later.

Time to configure your wireless settings. First, you’re going to want to change the name of your wireless network, or the SSID, into something unique. For compatibility, it’s best to go with automatic channel selection as well as a mixed wireless mode which supports multiple standards.

Your screen won’t look exactly the same as here, and some of the terminology used may be different, but that’s what the documentation and help files are for.

Now, to the security settings. You’re going to want the WPA2 encryption, as WEP is easily cracked. As for the encryption key, you can either generate one from a typed phrase, or if you’re really dedicated, specify 64 digits of hexadecimal code. Either way, I suggest visiting GRC’s secure and random password generator to get a good code.

Something I can’t stress enough is that no encryption or security method is fool-proof. Just like anyone with a lock pick and enough time can get into your house, A cracker with enough time on their hands can still break into your network, if they want to really bad. What I’m advising you of here is how to keep most of the freeloaders and snoops off your network, and to encrypt your information from end-to-end.

One more collection of settings to tinker with, the MAC address filtering. This is often the most tedious part, especially if you have multiple devices. This is also optional, but recommended, as a “fence” around your network. Each network device, whether a NIC card or a Nintendo Wii, has a MAC (Media Access Control) address (Consult your device’s documentation for instructions on how to find it), and under this setting, you can restrict access to your network such that only certain MACs can have permission.

Again, this isn’t fool-proof. MAC addresses can be plucked out of the wireless signal and then spoofed, but this will help to keep most of the creeps off your network.

Other MakeUseOf posts that show how to setup and secure wireless network:

• How To Secure Your Wireless Network Connection
• The Easy Guide To Computer Networks [PDF]

We’d love to have any additional insight you may have on setting wi-fi hotspot and keeping your wireless networks secure. Please leave comments with your favorite tips and tricks!

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on Twitter ? Now you can follow MakeUseOf on Twitter too.

• How To Secure Your D-Link Wireless Router (13)
• 8 Tips To Effectively Boost Your Wireless Router Signal (70)
• How To Turn An Old Router Into A Wireless Bridge (41)
• How To Troubleshoot Weak Wireless Connections (15)
• How To Share The Internet Connection Between Mac and PC (16)

Public computers and Wi-Fi hot spots can be set up to log everything you do through a rouge connection.

So to keep you safe in the land of public computers and free Wi-Fi I have compiled some tips for you. Read through them and if you have something to add please feel free to do so in the comments.

When using a public computer:

• Whatever you do absolutely NEVER EVER save your log-on information. That means avoid clicking the box that says Save My Password or Remember Me. This will allow the next user of this machine to possibly log on to this web site as you. And we do not want that! Find and click the “log out” button the website before you leave.



• Don’t type personal information on the computer. Avoid credit card account numbers, banking passwords and things that can be used to give you a bad case of identity theft. Save these transactions for your home or from your handheld on a respectable carriers network. Even encryption won’t help if the machine has a keylogger on it.
• Erase your web browsing history and restart the computer (if you can’t log-off).



• Watch out for people staring at you or spying on you. This may be common sense but it should definitely be on the list.

Some other tips were also mentioned in our earlier post covering safety on public computers.

When using a public Wi-Fi hotspot:

You might already know how to secure your wireless connection but what about public Wi-Fi hostpots.

• Use a firewall – There are tons of free firewalls out there like Zone Alarm. But, your Windows XP Post SP2, Vista or Windows 7 machine has one built in. Turn it on! I like configuring ZoneAlarm to let me know what is going on and trying to access my machine and or files.



• Turn off your Wi-Fi when you’re not using it. Do not log into a network you do not know and just leave your machine on. If you are not using it turn it off. This is like locking up your machine when you walk away from it. Don’t make yourself a target. Most newer machines have a switch on them like the one depicted below or you can right click on the Wi-Fi icon on your task bar and choose disable.



• Encrypt sensitive files prior sending them over. We have covered several free file encryptions tools.
• Just like we said before don’t type in information you don’t want other people to see. If you keep the data in your head – then no one can get to it short of physically harming you!
• If you HAVE TO use a credit card or enter passwords on a public Wi-Fi connection – make sure the web site is using SSL. It will have a padlock icon on your browsers right hand corner as well as a HTTPS:// in the address.
• Disable Wi-Fi Ad-hoc Mode – Disabling this in your Wi-Fi settings will prevent your machine from connecting to someone’s computer that you don’t know. Most normal Wi-Fi connections use Infrastructure mode. Where as Ad-hoc meshes a group of Wi-Fi users into a pseudo network.

MakeUseOf on Twitter too.

Related posts

• How To Secure Your D-Link Wireless Router (13)
• Find Totally Free Unlimited Internet Access Almost Anywhere (14)
• Technology Explained: Open Router Ports & Their Security Implications (8)
• Public Computers Made Safe – Security Tools and Tips (24)
• Keep Your Passwords Secret On A Public Computer With KYPS (13)
]]> http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/things-to-know-when-using-a-wifi-hotspot-or-a-public-pc/feed/ 4 http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/how-to-use-xirrus-wifi-network-inspector-to-figure-out-problems/ http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/how-to-use-xirrus-wifi-network-inspector-to-figure-out-problems/#comments Fri, 01 May 2009 23:14:05 +0000 Guy McDowell http://www.makeuseof.com/?p=16572 For some unknown reason, my WiFi connection at home drops out. Sure, it drops when the microwave is turned on high, but I understand that. It’s the plate in my head. I pee my pants and forget who I am for about a half-hour or so……Yet, there are other times when nothing seems to change but the connection cuts out.

I’ve been looking for something that would help me monitor my WiFi network and show a bit more about what is happening. That’s when I came across Xirrus, and I’m pretty happy with it. Once I installed it, I was pretty much able to figure out what the problem is. Let me show you how I figured that out.

Initially I looked at the information about my WiFi network to make sure everything was okay.



Everything seems to be good there. Just so you know, for signal strength, the lower the number the better. However you can get too strong of a signal as well. Typically once you get up around that -80 or higher dBm signal strength, it’s not really usable.

Then I looked at what is happening in my neighbourhood, since I know a lot of folks have WiFi here.



So Coffee Pot is my network. And I think I know who has Gigaset2F3. Look there – Gigaset2F3 has a slightly stronger signal strength than Coffee Pot. That could contribute to the problem, but only really if both WiFi routers are using the same channel. Well look there! We’re both on channel 11 as well as the Hallands.

Do you remember when cordless phones had three channels to use? Occasionally you would pick up your neighbour’s conversation if you were on the same channel. Now cordless phones have many channels to use and changes up automatically. That’s pretty much what is going on here. Only I can’t see their data – it’s relatively secure, but it sure could mess up my connection.

Now check this out.



Aha! Gigaset2F3 has the same wireless router as I do. I can’t confirm that would contribute to the problem, but it wouldn’t surprise me if it did.

Another interesting feature that Xirrus has is the ability to chart signal strength for one or more WiFi networks. I charted the signal strength for my network, Gigaset2F3 and michelle, just to see what kind of changes were going on.



It’s interesting to note that Coffee Pot’s signal is all over the place, whereas Gigaset2F3 and michelle do have signal strength variances, but they stay relatively constant. I have no idea why that is, but it gives me something else to investigate. Should I loose my signal and I have Xirrus running, I’ll be able to see if there is an event with my neighbours that corresponds with that time. That would prove my theory that my signal is getting beat out.

You could also use XIrrus to see if any changes that you make to your WiFi router actually make a difference. Maybe you’ve added a directional antenna or changed the location of the router. Then you check with Xirrus and sure enough the signal improved 12 points. Then when your wife says your Internet sucks, you can say to her it doesn’t, and that it’s her and you can prove it. Then you can put ice on that eye. I’m not speaking from experience here. Really.

Xirrus Widget

If all this is a bit more than you really want or need, there is a widget version of Xirrus. You can use it with Yahoo! Widgets for Windows and Mac, Windows Vista and Linux gDesklets.

In one compact widget on your desktop, you get much of the same information that you get from the desktop version of Xirrus.

Have you had problems with your WiFi network? What have you done to help figure it? I’m curious if anyone has built a cantenna and how that worked. Let me know in the comments.

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on Twitter ? Now you can follow MakeUseOf on Twitter too.

Related posts

• Things To Know When Using a WiFi Hotspot Or a Public PC (14)
• How To Share The Internet Connection Between Mac and PC (16)
• How To Set Up Your Own Secured Wi-Fi Hotspot (16)
• How to Set Up Laptop Wireless Internet Access Through Your Cellphone [Windows] (36)
• How To Secure Your D-Link Wireless Router (13)
]]> http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/how-to-use-xirrus-wifi-network-inspector-to-figure-out-problems/feed/ 6 http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/set-up-remote-computer-access-with-your-mobile-phone/ http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/set-up-remote-computer-access-with-your-mobile-phone/#comments Thu, 02 Apr 2009 18:01:55 +0000 Ryan Dube http://www.makeuseof.com/?p=15017 Throughout my college years, there were often times when I wished I could set up remote computer access to the PC in my dorm room to email a particular homework file to my professor.  Instead, I had to hike the treacherous 1.5 miles, through frigid snowdrifts and throngs of shivering college students, just to reprint and retrieve the homework I’d forgotten to bring with me that morning.

Of course, back then there were no such things as Internet-enabled Windows Mobile devices. In fact, at the time the Internet itself was only in its infancy. Today, there’s not only the Internet, but also these nifty little web-enabled mobile devices that let you do some pretty magical things over the Internet. Not the least of which is connecting and controlling your computer from anywhere in the world.

How to Set Up Remote Computer Access With Your Mobile Phone

Not long ago, the ability to whip out your trusty PocketPC and set up remote computer access to your desktop PC would all have sounded like science fiction. Today, it’s not only a reality, but it’s completely free.

Dave previously wrote about how to remotely control your mobile device with your desktop. There are a lot of reasons why that would be useful. However, the reverse is just as useful.  Having the ability to set up remote computer access to your home PC from anywhere in the world has unlimited possibilities. But how exactly does it work?

First, it makes use of free VNC technology, mentioned previously in How to Spy On Your Spouse With Your Computer.  You set up the VNC server on your home PC exactly as outlined in that article, but in order to connect to that VNC server, you need a VNC client that works on your Windows Mobile device. The best available client that I’ve found is the open source Windows Mobile .NET VNC Viewer created by Rocky Lo.

How To Set Up And Configure The .NET VNC Mobile Viewer

Rocky Lo wrote his mobile VNC client because there weren’t any other clients available that offered much in terms of functionality.  This viewer is an impressive mobile version of the desktop version of the Real VNC client.  Upon installing the software, you’ll find that it’s extremely easy to immediately establish a connection to the VNC service running on your Home PC.



Lo’s mobile version offers client-side scaling, full screen mode, and is highly configurable to update as often or as little as you would like. Lo fully tested his latest version on an HP 4150 with Windows Mobile 2003. For this article, I’ve tested it on a HTC/Cingular 8125 Smartphone running Windows Mobile 5.0.



You can even set up your mobile device to simply listen on a particular port for available VNC servers. But in my opinion, the most useful settings in this app are the display options.



You can enable full screen mode, set the orientation for portrait, upside down, or even rotate the computer screen clockwise or counter clockwise so that it shows up on your portable PocketPC screen in the wide format.

You can also change the pixel size from 8-bit to 16-bit, or you can allow the server to define your resolution. These are settings you can tweak if you find that the display updates slowly.



Of course, scaling is a cool method you can use to try to get as much of the computer screen to fit inside your little mobile screen. You can define the width and height, or just scale down the server-side size by as much as a fifth.



Finally, you can configure your mobile VNC client to either update the screen as fast as possible, or disable that feature and update manually. You can also configure it to view the PC screen only, but not manulate it (turning your mobile phone into another cool spy device).



Here, you can see what it looks like when I connect my 8125 SmartPhone to the VNC server running on my family desktop PC. I ran the client software while my phone was connected directly to my home Wi-Fi network.  Sending commands to the PC acted instantaneously on the PC itself, but the screen refresh rate on the mobile end took at least 10 to 20 seconds. My settings could use a bit of tweaking.



Using the menu items at the bottom of your mobile screen, you can manually force a screen refresh – a helpful feature when you’re on a slow connection. Other options include sending special keys like control-alt-delete and other tasks typical of a normal VNC viewer.

How to Connect to Your PC While Not at Home

Now, while connecting to your PC remotely is cool when you’re sitting in a different room of your home – it’s astronomically more cool when you’re sitting on a train headed to work and you just remembered you forgot a file on your hard drive at home. How can you configure things so that you can connect your mobile phone through your router? It’s extremely simple.



First, get into your router settings and modify port forwarding. Within Linksys, this is typically under applications & gaming. For VNC, you want to define all requests for port 5900 (for example) to forward to the IP address for the PC that you’ve got running the VNC service in your house.



Then, using your connection with your mobile phone, you will connect to your router’s actual Internet IP address and specify the same port that you’ve just defined forwarding for.



In this screenshot, I’ve logged in from a local Wi-Fi hot spot about 20 miles from my house, and I’ve opened up Thunderbird on my home PC.

Final Words

The most important thing to consider when setting up your mobile phone client is that data transfer speeds have a tremendous impact on performance. I’d never consider trying to connect to my home VNC servers over the cellphone network. While it would work, it would take ages to connect and update.

Instead, try to find local Wi-Fi hot spots to park yourself, have a cup of coffee, and remotely log into your home PC to download emails or initiate a few more Torrent downloads.

Either way, using this mobile software is yet another way you can stay fully connected even when you’re miles away from your home computer.

If you have any opinions, comments, problems setting this up, let us know in the comments.

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on Twitter ? Now you can follow MakeUseOf on Twitter too.

Related posts

• Want WebEx-like Control Over A Remote Computer For Free? (21)
• How to Set Up Laptop Wireless Internet Access Through Your Cellphone [Windows] (36)
• How To Control Your PC from Windows Mobile Cell Phone (10)
• How To Connect Your PSP To The Internet (10)
• 3 Easy Ways To Restart Your Computer Over The Internet (30)
]]> http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/set-up-remote-computer-access-with-your-mobile-phone/feed/ 1 http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/cool-downloads-for-your-college-kids-cellphone/ http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/cool-downloads-for-your-college-kids-cellphone/#comments Sun, 08 Mar 2009 19:01:15 +0000 Ryan Dube http://www.makeuseof.com/?p=13613 You’ve raised them since they were toddlers; you helped them take their first steps; you changed countless diapers. Now your little baby is going off to college. One of the best ways to give your kid an advantage in school is by offering them a competitive edge through technology.

The first step is buying them a Windows Mobile cellphone. The next is loading it with the coolest downloads that any college kid would love.

1. Give Them Instant Access to Blogs With HubDog

In today’s academic world, students are gathering just as much information for research and homework help from blogs as they do from other “official” informational sites.  Blogs often provide valuable links and resources, but with added commentary that helps students understand concepts.  Bloggers are almost free tutors for college students, and blogs have become an invaluable resource.

One of the best mobile apps to stay connected with your favorite blogs is HubDog, which provides access to blogs and news, as well as an integrated music and video podcast player.



I mostly use Hubdog to stay on top of the latest gadgets and technology news, but if you click on “Discover,” there are countless topics you can choose from. As you can see on the right, the blog and news updates are displayed in an easy to read format on your mobile screen, with nice clear pictures and easy touch screen or keypad navigation.

2. Use vTap To Watch Videos Or Research On Wikipedia

Every time I find myself trapped in an airport terminal, or waiting in a doctor’s office, I find myself firing up vTap to pass the time.  Travis previously reviewed vTap here. Whether it’s passing an hour between classes or looking for the latest news, vTap offers students access to thousands of streaming video clips.

The video content students can access through vTap include categories such as news, sports, movies, music and more. Trust me, it’s impossible to get bored with this app on your mobile phone, and the feeds are constantly updated with new content all the time.



I’ve attempted to use mobile video streaming sites before, and I’ve always been disappointed by quality. To test vTap’s video streaming capabilities, I downloaded a clip of the trailer for the movie Twilight.  To my surprise, using a standard AT&T cellphone data network, the file downloaded in under two minutes and the video quality was surprisingly good.



The screenshot above doesn’t do it much justice, but considering the screen size and the fact that the video was streamed over a cellphone network, the quality was better than any I’d seen before. Although keep in mind that vTap serves an international audience, so read the titles carefully so that you know what language the videos are in before you download it.

And should students have the need to conduct instant research on Wikipedia in class?  vTap now offers instant, searchable access to all Wikipedia content. This fact alone makes vTap an extremely valuable mobile research tool.

3. Access to Instant 24 Hour Streaming Radio With Mundu Radio

At the very center of almost every student’s life is music. College students listen to music while walking to class in the morning, while waiting between classes, or while working out at the gym. One of the greatest benefits to having a Windows Mobile device is access to the Internet, where there are countless sources of streaming radio stations broadcasting 24 hours a day.

Mundu Radio gives students the ability to plug headphones into their mobile device and transform it into a music machine, no matter where they are. The application provides a long list of music genres to choose from, and a nice clean player interface with simple controls to play and stop the music or adjust the volume.



Let’s face it, most students don’t have the cash to keep buying MP3’s to download. And the last thing you want is your kid dumping their scholarship money (or your savings account money) into music downloads. Mundu radio lets a poor (or frugal) college student listen to great music 24 hours a day without spending a dime.

4. Find Wi-Fi Hotspots Anywhere With WeFi

Now here’s a secret for parents considering purchasing a Windows Mobile device for their kid, but unsure about the expensive monthly data charge. Another alternative is to do what many mobile laptop users do – go hunting for Wi-Fi hot spots.

WeFi lets you search for an active network within range, where you can run unlimited data transfers at no cost.  David mentioned WeFi in our article about WiFi hotspot finders, and Tehseen reviewed it as well. These days, there are free Wi-Fi networks everywhere, and most universities have Wi-Fi across an entire campus.

WeFi offers a useful Wi-Fi map tool on their website displaying free Wi-Fi networks near you.  Just have a look at the Boston area for example – no problem finding free Internet access there!



The application, installed on the mobile device, has a nice, simple interface and is easy to use. After installation, it includes a status display on the “desktop” that shows the current wi-fi network that’s connected as well as the connection status.



Launching the application (as shown on the right), displays all of the available hotspots in your area, and lets you choose which network to connect to, as well as entering any login details if required (like on a university network.)  With this app, a student can quickly connect to any free hotspot with just a few clicks.

5. A MiTo Doodle Pad for Those Boring Classes

Every student ends up taking one of those classes – the boring lecture or the terribly dull class where there’s any place else that you’d rather be. The solution for that boredom is the addictive MiTo Team Paint app. Pull out your mobile phone and launch this paint application, and get to work doodling your work of art.



The application lets you pick whether you’ll draw with a pen or a sprayer, and you choose from 7 basic colors, or use the RGB selector for more color options.



As you can see, some of us are a bit more gifted in the “art” department than others…

6. Always Stay Connected When You’re Mobile With Fring

As usual, I’ve saved the best for last. There are few mobile apps out there that have the functionality and capacity to keep you connected with all of your social networks in one easy to use application. Fring pulls it off in style. Aibek listed it as one of 20 apps that should be on your mobile and David listed it on his 5 cool mobile apps list.

This particular mobile app gets high reviews for good reason. These days, students have accounts on many social networks like Facebook, Skype and MSN. Having an application that gathers all of those contacts in one place where you can chat when you’re mobile is a very useful tool.



Adding your networks is as simple as clicking on the icon and entering your logon credentials. Even the Facebook display shows your current status, friends, and all of the details listed under your account.  The tabs on the bottom let you flip between chat sessions with your friends. This particular mobile app is a student’s dream come true. They’ll never need to spend another moment offline again.

Are you a college student with a Windows Mobile phone? What are your favorite mobile apps? Share your opinions in the comments section below.

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on Twitter ? Now you can follow MakeUseOf on Twitter too.

Related posts

• How to Set Up Laptop Wireless Internet Access Through Your Cellphone [Windows] (36)
• Using Yahoo Go to Stay Connected On Your Mobile (8)
• Total Media Domination – Your TV, Video and Audio on any Device (12)
• The Ultimate Guide To Your Windows Mobile Phone [PDF] (12)
• Newsgator – The Most Complete RSS Solution (11)
]]> http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/cool-downloads-for-your-college-kids-cellphone/feed/ 0 http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/always-stay-connected-with-these-wi-fi-hotspot-finders/ http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/always-stay-connected-with-these-wi-fi-hotspot-finders/#comments Tue, 03 Feb 2009 19:01:46 +0000 David Pierce http://www.makeuseof.com/?p=11728 There are an increasing number of places around the world where you can find free Wi-Fi to let you log on to the Internet. Thanks to this, I get to watch people wandering the streets, laptops open, looking for a blip of a signal to let them online. I’ve seen people standing on the corner to keep the signal alive, sitting on the street, and all manner of other crazy places – all trying to hold that Wi-Fi signal.

To make your life a little easier, and to avoid you being that guy, here are five wifi hotspot finder sites to help you find free Wi-Fi spots near you. Whether they’re restaurants, airports, Apple stores (always a good bet), or friendly store owners, there’s sure to be free Wi-Fi near you.

Wi-Fi-Friendly Chains



There’s an increasing number of stores and restaurants that offer free Wi-Fi at most or all of their locations – these are great places to start in your search for free Wi-Fi.

Major restaurants include Panera, CiCi’s, Cosi, IHOP, and Whole Foods Markets; stores like Staples, Apple, and Office Depot are known for offering free Wi-Fi.

For more stores and restaurants, try this list and this one.

WeFi



WeFi is one of the most feature-rich of the Wi-Fi hotspot locators. WeFi will find new connections, and automatically connect to the best one for your needs.

There’s a desktop version that will automatically add new spots your computer finds into the WeFi database. It’s also got social aspects, letting you see other WeFi users nearby where you are at the moment.

At its basest, though, it’s still a great way to find local Wi-Fi spots near you, and is definitely the best-looking app of the bunch.

For more, take a look at WeFi’s directory listing.

WiFi Everywhere



WiFi Everywhere, a Google Maps mashup with FON is a great way to find the closest Wi-Fi hotspots to you. You start with a map of the United States, and then can zoom in or enter an address to find the nearby hotspots.

They often come from places you wouldn’t expect, so make sure to do the search. There’s not necessarily a promise of free Wi-Fi, but by hiding FON Wi-Fi locations, as well as FON Partner Wi-Fi locations, you can weed out a lot of the paid options.

Every listing tells you what kind of establishment it is (restaurant, waiting room, etc.) as well as whether or not the hotspot has been recently active. You can also send a map to a friend – great for arranging meet-ups to not talk to each other.

OpenWifiSpots



OpenWiFiSpots has a ton of useful Wi-Fi finding features. There’s a Google Maps mashup that lets you search for Wi-Fi near you, and a listing of services that will offer you cheap Wi-Fi.

My favorite feature, though, is the “Fast Food Restaurants with Free Wifi” list. There’s a list of national chains – Burger King, Denny’s, IHOP and others – that offer free Wi-Fi, as well as localized listings – for instance, two Wendy’s in Anchorage, AK, offer free Wi-Fi.

The list is huge, with many different options for finding free Wi-Fi.

Free Wifi Airports



Just about every airport now offers Wi-Fi of some sort. Most of them love to charge you about $850 for nine minutes of Wi-Fi access- at least, it feels like that much. To help you avoid the exorbitant fees, SmallBusiness created a list of “Free Wifi Airports,” a list of all the airports and terminals where you can log on for free.

The list isn’t enormous, but that’s because the list of airports with free Wifi is similarly not enormous. It’s a good list, filtered by US state, and including Austria and New Zealand. If you’re going to be stuck in an airport somewhere (and if you’re flying, you probably will be), why not make it one with free Wi-Fi? Check this list before you fly.

For more options for finding Wi-Fi in airports, check out an older MakeUseOf post.

There’s Wi-Fi everywhere now, it seems. Free Wi-Fi’s a bit harder to find, but if you know where to look, you’ll be able to eat great food, buy great stuff, fly the world, all the while staying connected to the Internet.

Whose Wi-Fi do you use? How do you find hotspots? Which one is your favorite wifi hotspot finder? Let us know in comments!

Photo Credits: Kolya, Lloyd Budd

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on Twitter ? Now you can follow MakeUseOf on Twitter too.

Related posts

• JoikuSpot – Connect Your Laptop to Internet via Cell Phone (5)
• How To Set Up Your Own Secured Wi-Fi Hotspot (16)
• TripSay Brings Travel Recommendations From People Like You (6)
• Travel The World with Hello Backpacker (4)
• Things To Know When Using a WiFi Hotspot Or a Public PC (14)
]]> http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/always-stay-connected-with-these-wi-fi-hotspot-finders/feed/ 10 http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/6-sites-to-make-flying-a-whole-lot-easier/ http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/6-sites-to-make-flying-a-whole-lot-easier/#comments Thu, 22 Jan 2009 15:01:34 +0000 David Pierce http://www.makeuseof.com/?p=11043 Flying’s no one’s favorite thing. Unless you’re a pilot. But for most of us, flying’s little more than a hassle. Most of the annoyance of flying is due to the airport – checking in, security, terrible food, no outlets, and the like.

Time spent getting a ticket and waiting for your flight (which is often many, many hours) can be miserable, but it doesn’t have to be. Using these five tools, you’ll be able to make your time in the airport a little more bearable, and maybe even a little shorter.

A disclaimer: as I’m in the US, I can’t vouch for all of these tips working anywhere else. Most of them should, but some sites and policies are different outside the US.

1. Book It



Instead of using the airline sites, try using Tripeedo. Tripeedo’s an easy way to search most of the major airlines for tickets, as well as some of the best bargain sites like Kayak, Travelocity, and Orbitz.

Finding a flight’s as easy as typing where you’re coming from and going to, and Tripeedo does all the searching for you. You won’t buy your ticket from Tripeedo, but it’ll put you on the page you want to see – unlike most airline sites.

For more, check out Tripeedo’s directory listing.

2. Check Your Flight



If your flight’s going to be delayed, it’s often going to happen well before you even get to the airport. Luckily, there are several ways to check your flight status before you even leave.

You can check your airline’s website, but the status page is usually hard to find. Instead, try Googling your airline and flight number, like “Delta flight 365″ for a quick status check at the top of your search results.

If you want to know much more about your flight, try FlightAware. You’ll get a map of the flight’s path, with how far away it is, how fast it’s going, and a whole bunch of other useless but fun information.

3. Check In Faster



Most airlines these days allow for online check-in. That means you avoid the long lines, the obnoxious people, and the terror of almost missing your flight when the attendant is inhumanly slow.

Go online, check in and print your boarding pass, and head straight to the gate. In just a few minutes of research, I found that American Airlines, United, Continental, Delta, Alaska Air, Frontier Air, Southwest and Spirit Airlines all offer online check in – and that’s just the first page of Google! To find your airline’s site, Google “online check in” plus your airline, and you’ll be good to go.

4. Fly Through Security



Airport security’s a pain, but there’s just no way around it. You can, however, make the process go a whole lot faster by following some critical steps. Wired Magazine created a how-to Wiki called “Fly Through Airport Security.”

Among the useful tips are things like checking the TSA website to find out the average wait times, and only using two bins for your stuff. Got a great tip? You can add it to the Wiki right on the Wired site.

5. Find An Outlet



Outlets are a precious commodity in the airport. Though I recommend to always bring a power strip, or at least a power splitter, to the airport when you travel, I nearly always forget to do so.

Thanks to my failure of a memory, I rely on the Air Power Wiki. The Wiki is a guide to airports all over the world, letting you know where to look for a free outlet. It’s often updated, and you can even update it yourself- either way, it’s a killer way to find a power source anywhere. Best of all, the outlets are often in places I wouldn’t think to look otherwise, like this one in Dublin: “At the Gate Clock bar: turn left in the main bar door, look for tables on the left: the table just past the elevator has a pair of sockets near it on the bar side.”

6. Find Wi-Fi



You’re through security, ready to get on your flight – and your flight gets delayed for 8 hours. Problem? Not if you know where to look! Free or cheap Wi-Fi is out there, just waiting to be found.

Before you leave for the airport, check a couple of these sites to find out your Internet situation. First, try the list of “Free wifi airports” compiled by SmallBusiness that tells you which airports, and where in those airports, you’ll find free Wi-Fi. If you can’t find free, find cheap. TravelPost has a guide to 219 US airports with Wireless locations, types and prices for each one. For the most complete list, though without prices, try weather.com’s “Airports with Wi-Fi” list. You’ll be able to see just about every location in every American airport that will offer you Wi-Fi, free or otherwise.

Armed with a boarding pass, the right amount of time, the right security tips, Wi-Fi and a power source, the airport won’t seem like such a hassle anymore. Flight’s delayed for 3 days? Who cares, you’ve got Wi-Fi! Just don’t steal my outlet.

Photos: Travelin’ Librarian, alist, catcubed, futureshape

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on Twitter ? Now you can follow MakeUseOf on Twitter too.

Related posts

• 10 Travel Websites that should be Bookmarked (19)
• Top 5 Airline Flight Tracking Websites (12)
• Help Predict Airport Flight Delays & Save Time With Flightcaster (0)
• 6 Useful Last-Minute Booking Sites For Your Next Trip (4)
• 6 Amazing Web Communities for Exchanging Favors (7)
]]> http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/6-sites-to-make-flying-a-whole-lot-easier/feed/ 11 http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/turn-your-mobile-phone-into-a-wifi-hotspot-with-joikuspot/ http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/turn-your-mobile-phone-into-a-wifi-hotspot-with-joikuspot/#comments Thu, 18 Dec 2008 15:01:25 +0000 James Yeang http://www.makeuseof.com/?p=9166 JoikuSpot Light is an awesome piece of freeware which allows you to tether your mobile phone’s 3G capabilities and turn it into a wi-fi hotspot. Bascially, it gives you a dead-simple way to connect your laptop or pc to internet via cell phone.

Not only does this mean you’ve got a wi-fi hotspot in your pocket – this also means you have less hardware to lug around if you want to use your laptop and connect to internet through mobile. No more Bluetooth/Cable/USB dongles. Everything’s now 100% wireless.

Joikuspot currently runs on the Symbian platform, which means it caters for the higher end Nokias (N and E series) as well as a few of Samsung’s higher end phones. Of course, all phones supported share the same criteria which is that the device has to support data transfer (eg. 3G, EDGE, HSDPA, GPRS), and the phone has wi-fi capabilities (needed to broadcast the wi-fi you create).

It’s extremely simple to set up and easy to use. All you need to do is run the program on your phone and voila – instant hotspot. You can even hide the mobile app in the background on your phone as you go about your daily business.

Some of my favorite features include:

Encryption support – Joikuspot is incredibly secure and supports WEP including 128bit key generator for your security. This ensures that you maintain control over who uses the wifi generated from your phone, and to ensure your session is fully secure.

GPS Compatibility – If you feel generous enough to operate your mobile hotspot without a password and you want to share it with the world, Joikuspot allows you to sync up with your GPS (if your phone has one) and broadcast your location to the world on Google Maps.

Battery threshold – This feature shuts down Joikuspot when the battery level is too low. As you can imagine, intensive 3G AND Wifi usage will drain the battery extremely quickly. You can set it up so that it shuts off at a certain battery level so you never have to worry about empty phone batteries when you need to make a call.

Multiple connections – Joikuspot allows you to share your bandwidth with others or multiple devices at the same time so several people can share a single connection.

Auto reconnect – Works in the background to automatically reconnect every time a data connection is lost. This is crucial for a seamless experience.

Joikuspot comes in two different flavors.  Joikuspot Light supports HTTP and HTTPS protocols, which is enough to handle most casual users covering basic browsing, web based email as well as Instant Messaging. It doesn’t however support some of the more enterprise and businesslike features like Outlook and corporate email.

Joikuspot Premium however supports ALL protocols allowing users to use Outlook, YouTube, Web radio, FTP, VPNs, Skype and other programs requiring specific protocols that practically covers everything anyone would ever want to do on the web.

The premium edition costs 25 Euros ($35) once off (which is incidentally still cheaper than paying for wireless laptop broadband), and also has special bulk licensing options for corporate use, but for most users (like me) – the free light edition is good enough.

This software has also been making waves in the international arena having recently been voted by Forum Nokia as 2008’s Star Developer, an award handed out to recognize the most unique and innovative applications developed for mobile phones based on the Symbian OS.

Of course before you use this to turn your cell phone as a wireless modem, ensure that you’re on an unlimited data plan because the data usage is understandably intense for this application. As for me, I wirelessly hooked up my iPod touch to my phone, so I’ve now got a device which gives me the internet experience of an iPhone 3G… at a third of the price.

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on Twitter ? Now you can follow MakeUseOf on Twitter too.

Related posts

• How To Set Up Your Own Secured Wi-Fi Hotspot (16)
• How to Set Up Laptop Wireless Internet Access Through Your Cellphone [Windows] (36)
• 6 Cool Downloads for Your College Kid’s Windows Mobile Phone (1)
• 5 Wi-Fi Hotspot Finders To Find Free Wi-Fi Spots Near You (16)
• Using Yahoo Go to Stay Connected On Your Mobile (8)
]]> http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/turn-your-mobile-phone-into-a-wifi-hotspot-with-joikuspot/feed/ 3 http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/secure-your-wireless-network-here-is-why-and-how/ http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/secure-your-wireless-network-here-is-why-and-how/#comments Fri, 05 Dec 2008 03:57:11 +0000 Aibek http://www.makeuseof.com/?p=8528 I was watching some program the other day and was surprised to find out that many people never secure their wireless networks. Some don’t know about it, others just ignore it… If you have a wireless network set up at home make sure it’s secured. When you have an unsecured wireless network even people with a basic computer knowledge can connect to your network, use your connection for downloading illegal material and easily see every single things you do on the internet.

Video below is a perefect example of why you should always secure your wireless network connection.

If you’re a regular MakeUseOf reader I am pretty sure you are already aware of it. So my only suggestion to you would be to set your wireless to use WPA instead of WEP encryption. As for the folks who are not really sure if their wireless is secured, read on for a quick how to guide.

Securing Your Router and Wireless Network Connection

Go to ‘Network Connections’ and search for Wireless Networks in range. This should get you all available wireless networks in the area.



Now you should be able to see whether the wireless network you’re “Connected” to is secure or not. If it’s secure, the only thing you need to do is check if it is using WPA or WEP encryption method. Right click on the network, select ‘Properties’ and then Look for ‘Encryption Type’



(Please note simply changing the encryption type from properties won’t work. You will need to access your router and change security settings for the wireless access. So just read on.)

On the other hand if your wireless network is unsecured then here is what you need to do to secure it.

1. Access your wireless router: In most cases you should be able to access your router by simply typing 192.168.0.1 IP address into your browser’s address bar. In case it doesn’t work for you then go to this website. Here you can get both the default IP and default username and password details for your router. You only need to know it’s model.



2. Secure your wireless network setup: Once you’re logged in to your router, go to the wireless tab and from there to security. Next, set the Authentication Type to WPA and enter the KEY (the new password for your wireless access).



3. Save: Look for the ‘Save’ (or ‘Apply’) option to save the changes.

4. Check: To check if you have done everything correctly, go to the Network Connections and scan for wireless networks. Your wireless network should appear as “security-enabled wireless network (WPA)”.

5. Connect: Double-click on your network and entere the details from step 3 to get connected.

6. (Optional): As an additional level of security for your router I’d recommend to change the default faactory preset acess details to your own. All of this can be easily done in router configurations page.

That’s about it. Got anything to add? Something isn’t clear? Ask questions and share your thoughts and tips in comments.

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on Twitter ? Now you can follow MakeUseOf on Twitter too.

Related posts

• How To Secure Your D-Link Wireless Router (13)
• Things To Know When Using a WiFi Hotspot Or a Public PC (14)
• Technology Explained: Open Router Ports & Their Security Implications (8)
• Technology Explained: How Does Wireless Internet Work? (31)
• One Network Admin’s Tool to Rule Them All (13)
]]> http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/secure-your-wireless-network-here-is-why-and-how/feed/ 25 http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/how-to-turn-an-old-router-into-a-wireless-bridge/ http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/how-to-turn-an-old-router-into-a-wireless-bridge/#comments Thu, 13 Nov 2008 21:01:24 +0000 Jorge Sierra http://www.makeuseof.com/?p=7288 You may some day encounter a situation in which you will require a wireless internet connection for a desktop computer.  Perhaps you have decided to move your office from one room to another in your home. However, the new room does not have the cable or telephone connection you need to bring that computer online.

Before you go out and buy a wireless network card or attempt to run wire through your attic, you might be able to save yourself time and money if you have an old wireless router lying around. You may be able to upgrade your old router with a different firmware that will allow it to act as a wireless bridge. That is, turn your old router into wireless bridge. A wireless bridge allows you to connect one network to another over the airwaves, rather than having to run wire from one room to another.



The free firmware that makes this possible is called DD-WRT.  Before reading further, check the DD-WRT supported device list to see if your router is supported.  If it is supported, be sure to check out the notes for running DD-WRT on the supported device page. You’ll need to refer to the recommended installation method later.

Requirements

- Broadband internet connection.
- Two wireless routers:

• One connected to your broadband internet connection to serve as the access point.
• One connected to other machine(s) that need to connect to web. This one will need to support DD-WRT.

Initial Setup

1. Make sure your main internet router is working properly. Verify the wireless connection is working properly by connecting a laptop or some other device.

2. Set up the remote computer at the remote location.

3. Connect the remote computer to the router you will be installing DD-WRT onto. Just plug it into one of the ports on the hub (i.e. not the internet port or uplink port).

4. Open your browser and connect to the router’s web configuration page.

If you’re not sure what the address is, you may need to refer to the router’s manual. If the router is running DHCP, it is likely to be the address of the computer’s gateway. In Windows XP, go to the Control Panel and then Network Connections. There Double-click on your LAN connection and go to the Support tab. The default gateway will be listed there. You can also check it on CIRT.net along with other details such default username and password for the router.

Download DD-WRT

Now, you need to download the DD-WRT.

1. Go to the DD-WRT download page and Navigate to the stable directory.

2. Navigate to the latest version (you can sort by date descending).

3. Navigate to the Consumer directory.

4. Navigate to the proper directory for your router’s manufacturer and then the model/version of the router. You should be able to find the model and version number printed somewhere on the router.

6. Download the .bin file of your choice.

The notes for running DD-WRT on the supported device list may mandate you use a specific version. If not, I recommend you select either the mini or the standard. If you want to know the differences between the different versions, check out the File Versions section of the What is DD-WRT? page of the DD-WRT wiki.

Install DD-WRT

If you downloaded DD-WRT from your main internet connection, you may need to copy it to a USB drive to install it on the remote router from the remote computer. The remaining instructions are to be run from the remote computer connected to the remote router where DD-WRT is to be installed.

Install DD-WRT according to the installation instructions on the wiki.  Use the installation method recommended for your device in the notes on the supported device page (if applicable).

Warning: It is possible to brick your router when you install the new firmware (i.e. render it useless).  Please take caution in reading the installation instructions carefully.  I recommend you install DD-WRT on an old router that you are currently not using, so that if something does go awry there is no major loss.

Configuring DD-WRT as a Client Bridge

1. Once you have DD-WRT installed, open your browser to http://192.168.1.1 and log into the router. In older versions of DD-WRT, the default username is root and the default password is admin. Be sure to change the default password to secure your router.

2. Next, click on the Wireless tab at the top.

3. Set the Wireless Mode to Client Bridge. Then click Apply.

4. Set the SSID to that of your main wireless router that is connected to the Internet.  In my case, my main wireless router SSID is sierra. Then click Apply.



5. Click on the Wireless Security tab in the second row of tabs, and configure the router to match the security settings as your main router. In my case, my main wireless router has WPA security mode with TKIP shared key, so I set up DD-WRT to match it.

6. Click Apply.



7. Click the Setup (very first tab in the upper left) to configure the LAN settings.

8. Assign the router a Local IP Address on the same subnet as your main router, but give it a different address.  That means that all the numbers for the address will be the same as the main router except for the numbers in the fourth box.  For example, the address of my main router is 192.168.1.1 so I gave my DD-WRT router an IP of 192.168.1.2.

9. Set the Subnet Mask to 255.255.255.0.

10. Set the Gateway and Local DNS to the address of the main router.



11. Click Apply.

Your DD-WRT router should now allow you to connect your remote computer to your main internet router through the airwaves!  If you ever need to reconfigure the DD-WRT router, just be sure to remember the new IP address that you assigned in step number 8.  You could always use a nice label maker and slap it right onto the router.

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on Twitter ? Now you can follow MakeUseOf on Twitter too.

Related posts

• How To Troubleshoot Weak Wireless Connections (15)
• How To Set Up Your Own Secured Wi-Fi Hotspot (16)
• How To Secure Your D-Link Wireless Router (13)
• 8 Tips To Effectively Boost Your Wireless Router Signal (70)
• Technology Explained: How Does Wireless Internet Work? (31)
]]> http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/how-to-turn-an-old-router-into-a-wireless-bridge/feed/ 36 http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/can-i-find-my-wifi-encryption-key-from-a-machine-that-is-online/ http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/can-i-find-my-wifi-encryption-key-from-a-machine-that-is-online/#comments Fri, 13 Jun 2008 20:19:49 +0000 Karl L. Gechlik http://www.makeuseof.com/?p=2843 I took a little trip to my sister’s house a few weeks ago and I needed to get some work done. I whipped out my HP 2510P Tablet and proceeded to connect to their wireless network named ever so cleverly… “TheInternet”.

So when I saw the custom name on their router’s SSID, I figured someone configured it and could give me the WEP key. I asked and I was met with a dead stare.



“What’s a WEP? Is that like a USB?”

“It’s the password you set when you set up the router”

“What’s a router?”

“Are you sure you are really my sister?”

Have you had this scenario happen to you? You have one machine online and want to bring another one up and you have no idea what your key is? I can’t say I have done this personally but I see it happen on a daily basis around the office. Don’t get me wrong this IS a security risk to your key but if your machine is locked up when not in use you should be ok! Don’t tell my IT buddies I told you about it though – I would probably get kicked out of the Admin’s club .

The freeware we are looking at today is called WirelessKeyView from Nirsoft. WirelessKeyView finds ANY wireless network keys (WEP/WPA) stored on your machine. This includes keys stored by the ‘Wireless Zero Configuration’ service of Windows XP and by the ‘WLAN AutoConfig’ service of Windows Vista. In other words it will work on XP or Vista (XP requires you have the KB918997 update installed) It does not matter which flavor of 802.11 you are using. This app will retrieve any Wireless Key stored.

(The image below was used directly from the NirSoft website as I am not about to share my WEP’s with the general public for obvious reasons!)



Once you have found your keys, WirelessKeyView allows you to export them to an HTML or TXT file as well as copy them to the clipboard for some easy pasting action;

Alrighttty then, let’s get back to getting my tablet online.

I walked over to my sister’s laptop which was already on line via WiFi. I browsed on over to the NirSoft website; which makes some really cool free software. (I have used lots of their products before to recover all sorts of office document passwords) Now upon firing up their “Wireless Key View” i instantly saw her WEP passcode. It was a computer generated strange looking password, I might add!

Now I popped that key into my tablet and back to blogging working I go.

(By): Karl L. Gechlik is a superhero of the IT industry who wears many hats and changes in telephone booths. Karl mostly uses his powers for good and the occasional hysterical prank. Get your geek on & follow his geeky antics at askTheAdmin.com today.

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on Twitter ? Now you can follow MakeUseOf on Twitter too.

Related posts

• Quick Tip: Change the Windows User Password via Command Line (8)
• Keeping Under the Radar and Securing Your PC Files (21)
• WinHack – How to Change the Windows Start Button (Win XP) (20)
• Windows Registry Tweaks (Part 2) (8)
• Untangle your computer with Unlocker (8)
]]> http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/can-i-find-my-wifi-encryption-key-from-a-machine-that-is-online/feed/ 13 http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/is-your-wireless-network-safe/ http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/is-your-wireless-network-safe/#comments Sat, 17 May 2008 22:15:26 +0000 Tina http://www.makeuseof.com/?p=2351 By now wireless networks are virtually everywhere, easily accessible and often freely available. Most of us have it in our home, surfing the web anywhere inside and outside the house, reading mails in bed first thing in the morning, or listening to streaming music in the kitchen while doing the dishes.

The image to the left was graciously provided by LightFusionStudio via stock.xchng VI.

But is your wireless network safe? Did you take all the commonly recommended precautions? Did you…

• change the default router password?
• change the default IP subnet?
• disable remote router access?
• change the default SSID?
• disable SSID broadcasting?
• turn on the router firewall?
• enable data encryption, preferably WPA/TKIP?
• enable MAC filtering?

Did you or is this all Greek to you? Net-Security.org has a pretty good article explaining all relevant terminology and why it’s important to take the aforementioned steps.

Now if you did follow all of the advice, is your wireless network safe? Probably not. Even the strongest encryption can be hacked, every firewall has a hole and if someone really wants to break in, they will find a way. It’s not very likely, but it’s still possible.

What remains to be done is monitor your wireless network for suspicious activity. If you don’t find your router’s built in MAC address login and protocols convenient to use, here’s an alternative. AirSnare is a thorough network monitor for both wired and wireless networks from Windows 98 up to Windows XP. It will detect all active MAC addresses and monitor their activity. Warnings will be issued if unknown / unfriendly MAC addresses are detected.

However, before you go ahead and download AirSnare, you should be aware of a few potential issues:

• it was last updated in 2006
• it may not support all network cards
• it may cause problems with Windows 2k
• it only works with WinPcap 3.1 (new version 4.0)
• the support forum seems broken

Nevertheless, AirSnare can be a valuable tool. The main window shows three major categories on the left: Network Adapters, Unfriendly MAC Addresses and Friendly MAC Addresses. To start monitoring your network connections, double click the respective network adapter(s) or right-click and select >Start. Then watch for detection of unfriendly MAC addresses. You can manually add friendly MAC addresses by right-clicking the category and selecting >Add New or you right-click on a MAC address reported as unfriendly and select >Add to Trusted.



AirSnare optionally scans for MAC, TCP and UPD traffic, and you can track connections via the AirSnare or Ethereal protocols. DHCP requests can be shown in a separate window. Per default there is an audio alarm when potential unauthorized actions, routers, ARP Poisons, MAC Spoofs or Gateway connections are found. The audio alarm can be turned off via >Options menu >General tab >Alert section >remove checkmark infront of Play WAV Alert Sound.

The AirHorn option is a cool idea, but as of Windows XP SP2 won’t work, if the windows firewall is on and the messenger service is turned off on the receiving machine. I couldn’t get the >Send E-mail on alert option to work either.

So what do you do when you detect a questionable MAC address? If there is suspicious activity on your wireless network, you best change your network key, exclude the MAC address via your router, and eventually change your IP subnet. If the activity comes in via the wired network, you should also increase your local security, scan your system for malware, update your firewall, and lock up your network as best as you can.

How do you keep your wireless network safe? What tools are you using and what’s your experience with them? Do you know of a better, free alternative to AirSnare? Please share and leave a comment!

(By) This post was written by one of our regular authors, Tina from Recommended.

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on Twitter ? Now you can follow MakeUseOf on Twitter too.

Related posts

• Your Computer, Your World – How to Keep Out the Mindless (51)
• WinHack – Speed Up Your Windows XP Computer (Part 1) (21)
• WinHack – Speed Up Your Windows Computer (Part 2) (14)
• WinHack – How to Change the Windows Start Button (Win XP) (20)
• Vista Switcher – Replace Windows’ Alt-Tab With Something Cooler (9)
]]> http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/is-your-wireless-network-safe/feed/ 5 http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/6-amazing-web-communities-for-exchanging-favors/ http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/6-amazing-web-communities-for-exchanging-favors/#comments Sun, 10 Feb 2008 04:14:37 +0000 Tina http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/6-amazing-web-communities-for-exchanging-favors/ A popular proverb states you don’t get anything for nothing in this world. This wise statement certainly holds true for the websites below. They are free in that you don’t have to pay money to take advantage of the service they offer. However, what they will cost you is some time and dedication.

(1) Couch Surfing / Hospitality Club – These two are completely independent communities, however the idea behind both projects is very similar, thus they share spot #1. Check out video below for a quick intro.

Couch Surfing

Sign up for Couch Surfing if you would like to meet and interact with people around the world. The motivation of this community is to share whatever you have with others – your expertise, a bit of company, dinner, a cup of tea or your couch or guest bed. As a member you can set up a profile in which you write about yourself and describe what you have to offer. People interested in meeting you or surfing your couch can contact you through your profile. Within the community you can join groups for special interests, for example to hear about meetings or get togethers in your area. Once you met someone through the site you can leave a reference on their profile and become their friend. I have been a member of Couch Surfing for almost two years, hosted several dozen people, gave them a tour through my city, had meals and went out with them. I was hosted by two people and I can tell you, it’s such an incredible feeling to be welcome and treated like family by a stranger far away from home. The only negative experiences I made were with people who didn’t show up or canceled last minute. Other than that everyone was at least nice, but most people I met were awesome.

Hospitality Club

Now that you know about Couch Surfing, there is not much left to say about Hospitality Club. It’s the same, but different. Many avid Couch Surfers are also members of Hospitality Club and vice versa. I like to keep it simple and decided for the site that looked cooler and seemed more easy to use. For example Hospitality Club urges guests to share their personal information including passport number with their hosts and encourages hosts to check the passport of arriving guests. While this is a good precaution, it somehow turned me off. I’m not a control freak, I like to be a bit naive and trust in common sense and humanity. Couch Surfing just seemed more like I would fit in there.

(2) FreeCycle

The Freecycle Network™ is a nonprofit movement, dedicated to the free exchange of anything people want to part with. Furniture, electronic devices, toys, clothes, anything. It’s subdivided into individual local groups, located across the globe. These groups are basically Yahoo Groups that are utilizing the eMail list feature. You may post OFFERED as well as WANTED items to the public list and anyone who is interested or can help out will contact you directly. The groups are moderated by local volunteers. To sign up search for your community or browse all existing groups. If you find that there is no group in your area, you can start one and add it to the Freecycle Network™. Currently the network consists of 4,233 groups with a total of 4,444,000 members.

(3) FON

FON is the world’s largest WiFi community. FON members, also known as Foneros, share their WiFi connection with others for free. In return, when they leave their home base, they can use the WiFi connection provided by other Foneros for free. If you do not wish to share your WiFi for free, you could even make a little money. However, this would exclude you from using FON Spots for free.

With FON Maps you can check whether or not a FON Spot is available in your area. The image below shows a random selection from a residential area in Germany’s capital Berlin. Every yellow face represents one available access point.



(4) GeoCaching

GeoCaching is the modern form of treasure hunting using the internet, geographical data and a GPS device (although you could manage to do it without the gadget). You can hide a treasure (cache) yourself, then log onto the site and share the location. Or you can look for caches hidden in your area and begin searching for them.

(5) BookCrossing

BookCrossing has been around for a long time. It’s an adventure for people who love to read and share. Share your favorite book with a lucky stranger. Sign up with BookCrossing, receive an ID and printout explaining what BookCrossing is, paste it in your book and then set it free – anywhere. You can leave the book on a bench in a park or lay it on someone’s care in the parking lot or drop it in a mailbox. If you’re lucky the recipient will log into the BookCrossing website, report the book with the ID they found inside and leave a comment about how they liked it.

(6) PostCrossing

PostCrossing may sound like BookCrossing, but the two have little more than a similar name in common. PostCrossing is about receiving postcards from around the world. Signing up requires sharing your postal address. The next step is to request an address and mail this person a postcard. To verify that your postcard was sent and received, the recipient will submit the ID you noted onto your card to the site. Next you’re in the queue to receiving a postcard from a random stranger somewhere on this planet. I’ve tried it, it really works!

Isn’t it amazing what possibilities the internet has opened up and how we can connect through it? What are your thoughts on these communities and which pages did I miss? Please share!

This post was written by one of our regular authors, Tina from Recommended.

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on Twitter ? Now you can follow MakeUseOf on Twitter too.

Related posts

• 6 Unique Web Communities That You Won’t Forget (54)
• Wakoopa – Find Out What Software You (And Others) Use Most (10)
• Use Hunch to Answer Your Questions & Make Decisions (4)
• UrbanDictionary – Words Defined by Average People (16)
• PMOG : The Social Browsing War Begins! (7)
]]> http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/6-amazing-web-communities-for-exchanging-favors/feed/ 5