Video Tutorial - WIFI Antenna Boost

How can I boost my signal strength?

Folks, I have been asked many times about what can be done to improve the wireless signal produced by a home router/WAP. And, like so many things in life, there is no one, single, best answer. A weak signal slows you down, and can cause "connectivity issues" (aka "disconnects").

Methods for a stronger signal, at a greater distance, include:
* Replace your router's firmware with a Linux-based system that allows for "antenna gain" adjustment. (Advanced) -- free.
* Add a "reflector" (Simple) -- free.
* Replace your antenna with a "signal boosting" (aka "range extending") antenna, or a directional antenna. (Simple) -- $25.
* Upgrade to a Wireless N router. (Simple) -- $100.

I recommend the last option. Wireless N routers are quite reasonably priced now. But, as I mentioned in If It Ain’t Broke, Don’t Fix It*, some people have a need to "tweak" and "hack", and try to give things "more power" (ala Tim "The Toolman" Taylor). If you're one of them, check out this video...
[vodpod id=Groupvideo.2167311&w=425&h=350&fv=]
more about "WIFI Antenna Hack!", posted with vodpod

.. and should you decide to try this at home, of course, you will be doing so "at your own risk", and any sane person would have six paragraphs of legalese here. I will simply say that, if you open up your existing antenna, and it is a plain wire as shown in the video, and does NOT have a dipole, you can do this and expect a modest improvement.

And, you may want to look around the Internet some. There are, literally, thousands of these hacks and tips.

Copyright 2007-9 © Tech Paul. All rights reserved. post to jaanix

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Which Is Better, Ethernet Or Wireless?

This networking question was submitted by a reader recently, and I think it may be of interest to "everyone".

Q: Paul, I am hoping for some guidance. I will soon be moving, and will have to set up a new network. I have three computers, a laser jet printer and a photo printer. My old network was wired and worked well, but I have heard that the new wireless is faster.

Which is better these days, wired or wireless?

A: I hate ambiguous answers, but in this situation I really must answer, "that depends". And I must also say that it really isn't a case of one being "better" than the other.
In my experience, a "blended" network (both wired and wireless) is the most common.

Consideration #1: Mega-bits-per-second:
1) Wire "speed" is typically either 10/100, or 1,000(Gigabit).
2) Wireless "speed" is either 54 (g) or 270 (n).
... and your Internet is coming into your home at.. 1.5? 3? 6 Mbps?
(My point here is that, as far as sharing your Internet is concerned, even a very old 10 Mbps network is "fast" enough.)

Consideration #2: Stringing cable:
Most newer homes are built with Ethernet wiring, and so your network is already there (to a large degree), but for older homes a very real concern -- should you choose to go Gigabit wired -- is where will the wires go? How will you get them upstairs?

This is not an insurmountable issue (and, you could hire a professional) but it may be that wireless is the best for you.

General advice:
* Networking gear defaults to the speed of the slowest component.
What that means is, let's say you go and buy a brand-new Wireless -N router (technically, a "WAP") that runs at 270 Mbps, and the adaptor on your 2 year-old laptop is a G, your connection will be at 54 Mbps.
And if the port on your Desktop is Gigabit, and your cable is Cat 5e or better (Gigabit capable), but there's no Gigabit port on your router.. your LAN is running at 100 Mbps.

The trick is to make sure everything 'matches'. For instance, in the first example (laptop), buying a Wireless-N PCMCIA card, or USB dongle, will now give you the 270 you bought the fast router for. And for the Gigabit example, a new router that has Gigabit ports will make things 'match' and give you a Gigabit LAN.

Last bit of advice: Buy the fastest gear you can afford. You may not get full advantage of it today, but it won't be a bottleneck tomorrow.

Copyright 2007-8 © Tech Paul. All rights reserved. post to jaanix

If It Ain't Broke, Don't Fix It*

There is something wonderful in this simple philosophy. It certainly is an aggravation saver, and I believe it is a good, honest, tip for a happier life. It is applicable in all aspects of our daily lives -- including our tech gadgets.

Some people (me), though, have some malformed gene, or mis-wired section in their brain which renders them constitutionally incapable of keeping their mischievous little fingers off of a perfectly functioning device. These people have a strange compulsion to try to "make it better". They just have to open it up and look at what's inside...
A highly Scientific Study (that I just made up) has proven that a full 9-out-of-10 of these personality-types not only fail to "improve" the device, they fail to get all the pieces back inside, much less back in their proper places.

The modern name for these people is "tweaker". The most 'famous' tweaker was probably Tim ["the tool man"] Taylor, a character made famous by Tim Allen on Home Improvement. (I loved it when he "improved" the kitchen garbage disposal by powering it with a chainsaw engine.) His motto: More power!

Yes, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" is a very good Rule. For that 90% of tweakers who only succeed in disassembling the object of their interest, it ought to be a Law. However (you, Dear Reader, were expecting a "however", right?), tweaking can be a good thing. Tweaking sometimes leads to Invention. Successful and repeatable tweaks are called "optimizing". And who can argue against optimizing? Not me. A great deal of Tech--for Everyone is about optimizing your PC.. such as today's tip.

Tip of the day: Optimize your computer with the latest device drivers. Most of my readers should be aware of the existence of the small programs that allow the software on our machines (primarily the OS) to interact with the hardware, which are called "device drivers". If you've ever added a new device, you (typically) had to put in a CD and install the "driver" to get it operational. My readers probably also know that, like other programs, drivers get "updated", and improved, occasionally. Did you also know that by seeking out, and installing the latest drivers, you can have a faster machine? Or, that your device may suddenly have more "features" and capabilities? Today I'm going to show you a method to use that I consider the first step, and tomorrow I'll describe the more aggressive and effective approach, as well as how to "undo" a driver update if things should go wrong.

The first step is to create a System Restore point, to give yourself a fallback position. I reco doing this whenever you make significant changes to your machine. (To see my series on the System Restore tool, click here.)

Then you need to access your Device Manager tool. There are a couple of ways to do this, but I use Start >right-click My Computer >Properties >Hardware tab >Device Manager. Now you will see a list of the components on your machine, as shown in the example below.
Some, in fact most, of these items you do not need to worry about updating. The items that typically will give you the most improvement are: graphics, sound, printer, network (or modem) adapter, and (sometimes) monitor.

Begin by selecting the device you want to update the driver for -- I am going to use for demonstration the sound on a laptop computer -- and 'expand' the hardware list by clicking on the "+" sign next to the proper category, in my example that will be the "Sound, video, and game controllers" category.

Next, double-click on the device name to open its Properties dialogue window. In my case that's "ESS Maestro PCI Audio", and then click on the Drivers tab, which will now open a window that looks like this.

Now click on the Update driver button, which launches an automated process called the "Hardware Update Wizard". Accept the default radio button setting ("Automatically") and click "next".

Now Windows will go out and "search" for a "better" driver than the current version, and when it finds one, will help you install it via a couple of "Next" clicks. Do this for all the devices (device types) that I listed above.
Unfortunately, the  most common result of the search returns this window.

This is because Microsoft has built into the search parameters a complex formula of what constitutes "better". To them, better does not just mean "newer" (ie, a more recent version number), but whether or not the driver has been tested and approved in the Microsoft labs (for a fee), and whether or not the driver's author has shelled out the dough to buy a digital "certificate" (for another fee).
Since this is a simple driver, and not a new miracle accounting program, or other retail piece of code, most authors skip these expensive steps... and so the Update search will disregard these drivers as if they didn't exist. Tomorrows post will deal with this issue.

But doing this process can and does produce results, and it is the method I reco as the first step in a faster/better PC. New drivers are released all the time, so I do this every so often.

To read Part 2, click here.

Today's free link: I have reco'd the popular Mozilla Firefox web browser here before, and I think it's only fair to tell you of another -- Avant uses the IE 7 rendering engine, but advertises itself as the "fastest browser on earth". I like it for its built-in security features, such as tracks erasing, and its rss reader. Take a look at the Avant homepage, and then give it a try.

Copyright 2007-8 © Tech Paul. All rights reserved. post to jaanix

Getting Rid Of Malware, Step 1*

What do you do when your PC is displaying all the signs of having been infected, but your antivirus and anti-spyware scan reports come back clean?

This was the case for a fella who called me for advice recently. He had done things 'right' -- and by that I mean he has a firewall, he keeps his antivirus definitions up to date, and he runs a couple of anti-spyware applications -- but suspected his machine had been hacked anyway.

He couldn't do things he was used to doing (like deleting a file) and his machine was "really slow."
But according to his scanners, his machine is in perfect shape.

Tip of the day: If you should find yourself in a similar situation there are several steps you can take to help resolve your questions and (hopefully) fix your machine without taking the drastic step of wiping your hard drive, formatting, and reinstalling Windows.

The first step is to use a scanner that isn't installed on your machine. Here's two ways to do that: one, if your antivirus allows it (and most of them do these days), follow its instructions and make an antivirus recovery disk. This is a bootable disk that scans your system before Windows loads.

To use one, put it in your CD tray and restart your machine. A plain-text sentence will appear telling you to "press any key to boot from CD..." (if you don't see this, click here.) When you see it, hit your spacebar or, well, any other key, and then follow the instructions. When it's finished, remove the CD and restart your machine again.
[note: you may also use a properly prepared USB thumb drive. Click here to read my article on how to do that.]

A second method is to use an online scanner. I have a list, with links, of several good online scans on my Website, here. Quite a few of the online scanning tools will try to sell you their full application, but you're under no obligation to buy. The big advantage to these two methods lies in the fact that they have not been compromised, or altered, and the files and scanners on your machine may be-- the modification being done by the virus or hacker.

Another thing to do is scroll down to my "Today's free link" and download HiJack This! Run it and dump the result into a .txt file (there's instructions for this) and then register on one of the HiJack This! forums (there's instructions for this too) and post your results there. Before too long, an expert anti-malwareologist [don't bother looking: I just now made that word up] will have looked over the intricacies, and will post his analysis and instructions. These guys (and gals) are really, really good at what they do, and you can trust their answers.

Also run CheckDisk with the "r" "f" switches (this probably will require a reboot) to make sure the problem is not your hard drive.
Click on Start >Programs >Accessories >Command prompt. In the white-on-black window type "chkdsk /r /f" (no quotes, and be sure to include the spaces). You may be told that certain files are in use, and asked if you want to "schedule this at the next reboot Y/N?" Type in a "y" and restart your machine.

Hopefully these efforts will be rewarded with a rejuvenation of your machine, and you will be back in business again.  If not, you have my sympathy. You may have a rootkit and then your best solution is to re-format your hard drive and reinstall everything, or enlist the aid of a professional

Today's free link: HijackThis™ is a free utility which quickly scans your Windows computer to find settings that may have been changed by spyware, malware or other unwanted programs. HijackThis does not clean infections, but creates a report, or log file, with the results of the scan. A large community of users participates in online forums, where experts help interpret the scan results to clean up infected computers.

Copyright © 2007-8 Tech Paul. All rights reserved. post to jaanix

Add Firewire 800 To Your PC-- Fast Video Transfer

Adding new capability to your PC is called "upgrading", and today I am going to tell you how easy it is to upgrade your machine to include Firewire capability.

Firewire "transfer technology" is faster than USB and can be a real benefit to those of you who own digital camcorders, or are thinking of transferring your VHS video tapes onto DVDs, or are otherwise working with digital video.

First of all, what is Firewire (aka 1394)? Firewire is, in essence, a wire (cable, actually). It looks and feels and acts very much like your quite familiar USB cabling-- it is so similar looking that they changed the shape of the plug so you can tell them apart. The USB is rectangular, and the Firewire has an angular extension on one end.

The main difference between the two data transfer technologies is speed: the original USB speed is 12 Mbps and the original Firewire is 400 Mbps, the newer "2.0" standards (which you really should have by now) is 480 and 800 million bits per second, respectively. So, if you have large data blocks to transfer -- such as video -- from one device to another, Firewire 800 is the way to go.

Tip of the day:If your machine did not come with a Firewire port, or if it did but it is the older Firewire 400 type, upgrade your system by adding a PCI expansion card to your PC. The photo above shows a two-port Firewire PCI card. These expansion cards come in a variety of flavors; some offer more ports, or "combo" ports like 2 USB + 2 Firewire. They are very affordable: the simple 2 port shown above can be found for $18.

Installing an expansion card is not difficult but if you're not inclined to try it yourself, a Tech Support and/or Repair person (like myself) will not charge you much to put it in for you. It is a simple matter of inserting it into a white slot on the motherboard.
1) Load the device drivers: It may seem counter-intuitive to run the Install CD before the device is actually in the PC, but this is the usual method. Insert the CD that came with your card and follow the wizard. This will install the Plug-and-Play device drivers for your new device.
2) Prepare your PC: The next step is to completely power-down, and unplug your computer from the wall outlet. Now open your computer's case; typically there's two small screws holding your side panel in place. Lay your PC on its side so that the motherboard is down at the bottom, and you can see all the slots and components.
[Attention: Do not reach inside the case unless you are wearing an antistatic wristband, or until you have touched a bare metal section of the case's frame. A very, very small dose of static electricity can ruin electrical components inside a computer.]

Find an open (white) PCI slot, and remove the corresponding metal tab from the back of the case. This will open up an outlet for the faceplate of the expansion card.
3) Install the card: Gently, but firmly, insert the card into the open slot. You want to use enough force to fully "seat" the card into the slot. 4) Validate your install: Plug your PC back into the electrical outlet and power up your machine. Windows will launch, and it will detect your new hardware. A small dialogue window will open down by your clock that tells you that Windows is installing your New Hardware. Unless there is some glitch, you are done. You can start using your new device.
* If Windows does NOT detect the new card, insert the Install CD and go through the wizard again. If this still fails to install your new card, it is likely that the card itself is not fully inserted into the slot -- power-down and really push it in this time. Repeat step 4.
If this fails (and this is unlikely), read my troubleshooting article here.

Laptop owners: For those of you who want to add this capability to your notebook PCs, the steps are very similar -- except you won't be using a PCI expansion card. You will want to purchase a Firewire PCMCIA card, such as the one shown here.

Today's free link: Teen Chat Decoder. From site: "This free Teen Chat Acronym Decoder lets you 'Crack The Secret Code' your teen uses online, in Chat Rooms, online chats, Instant Messages, & Text Messages. This is an awesome software for parents because it gives you an inside look into your teenagers online life."

Copyright 2007-8 © Tech Paul. All rights reserved. post to jaanix

Run your defrag tool for a faster machine*

I am continuously surprised at how many PC users have let a year or more pass since their last defrag, or never have defragged at all. "Why is my machine slower than it used to be?" That is a very common question. It is a question with no single, or simple answer. Yet there is a single and simple step you can take which will improve the speed at which your machine reads and writes data, and which, if done regularly, will keep it at near the speed it had when it was new--it's called "defragging" (short for defragmentation). Defragmentation remedies file fragmentation, which occurs, invisibly to you, over the course of time.

Tip of the day: It is commonly suggested that you run a defrag at least once a month. I recommend that you schedule your defrags to run automatically using Windows Scheduled Tasks tool. Set it and forget it, as the old saying goes. Here are the steps to do it:

1) Start>Control Panel, click Performance and Maintenance and then click Scheduled Tasks.
2) Double-click Add Scheduled Task to open the Scheduled Task Wizard, and then click Next.
3) Follow the wizard to set a schedule for when to run the defragmentation program (I recommend running it late at night, as it can take a while to complete), and be sure to supply a password for the account on which you want the task to run, and mark the checkbox "wake the computer to perform this task."
4) Check the box for Open advanced properties for this task when I click Finish. On the Run line, add the drive letter for the drive to be defragged. For example, %SystemRoot%\System32\Defrag.exe c:

(This example is for XP, but you can do it in earlier--all the way back to Win 95--versions as well)

Another thing you can do is get rid of the files on your hard drive that you no longer need: such as emptying your Recycle bin and deleting your temp files (a quick, safe, and simple way is Windows Disk Clean Up tool) and there are some nice applications to automate and/or simplify this for you, such as today's free link. Also, use Add/Remove Programs to remove applications you no longer use. Go to Start>Settings>Control Panel>Add/Remove Programs and wait for the list to "populate". Click on those programs you are certain you have no more use for and click on the Remove button.

Today's free link: CCleaner CCleaner is a freeware system optimization and privacy tool. It removes unused and temporary files from your system - allowing Windows to run faster, more efficiently and giving you more hard disk space.

* Yes folks, I have posted this article before. I remind you that you should run defrag once a month at the minimum.

Copyright 2007-8 © Tech Paul. All rights reserved.

post to jaanix

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