My wireless connection at home isn't secure. I share it with a neighbor when they are in town. My other nearby neighbors don't use wireless, but that may change. If I see a car parked in my front yard with a guy hunched over I'll know whats going on. Security of your data should be important to us. What can happen if someone gets on your network? They can see all your files. That means steal the files, change the file and ultimates crash your computer if they wish. Even if you don't care about your files, you should care about your PC. (PCSS visits are welcome but can be costly!)
Securing your wireless network isn't the easiest thing to do. There are two parts of the security. #1 is to secure your wireless router. If you haven't changed its default password a hacker can easily get to the router and change ALL your settings including security. Even sneakier is for them to just pick up your security settings, thus opening up your supposedly secure network without you knowing. To secure the router you have to go to the routers built in management console. This differs per router, but you should have gotten documentation from the router manufacturer on how to do this (you can generally get that info from the manufacturers web page). Then you need to go to the security or setup section of the console and set a password. Make it a strong password with numbers,letters and symbols. Write it down so you won't forget it! After setting the password the router will reboot and you'll have to enter the new password to get into the console.
While you are in the router you should go to the Wireless security section and make sure security is turned on. The best security choice is WPA. Any security is better then none, but WPA is stronger and less likely to be hacked then the old WEP standard. I've seen WEP hacked in under 10 minutes with the right equipment. When you set up the security you'll be asked to give a passcode or you will be given a security number. Write these down, because your wireless devices will now need the code to get on your network. You'll also have to give the code/number to anyone you want to use your wireless network.
If you have questions or need help, we are here to oblige!
Monday, March 31, 2008
Monday, March 24, 2008
#123 - Monday Reflections on reliability
Its a cool Monday after Easter in the Alleghany Highlands. My computer, printer and monitor started up without incident. Now that may not seem like a huge Woohoo moment but computer reliability is very important to the world.
Back in the early days of hard drives, keeping them running over a year was a big accomplishment. Just last week a customers hard drive crashed after 5 years of pretty heavy use. The drive sent out warning noises and even some funky error messages before passing on. The customer wanted to know why the hard drive ceased to function. The expectation has changed from I know its going to crash to Why do they crash?
Hard Drives are the key to all PCs. They are disks of metal spinning very fast (7500rpm in a desktop) with a magnetic head positioned millimeters from that spinning disk. Several mechanical and electrical components that can (and will) fail. The tolerances are very fine, the machining of the components exacting and fit and finish precise. Mean time before failure is 4-5 years of continuous operation. Modern marvels if you ask me, but still the main reason PCs crash.
Now if a desktop hard drive is amazing think about the laptop hard drive. One third the size with teeny tiny components. They get bumped all the time, put in strange positions and subject to extremes in temperature seasonally. Mean time before failure is approximately the same in portable hard drives. Now that is amazing. Actually a laptop hard drive is fairly easy to replace and if you get a new one they usually are faster speeding up the whole laptop.
Back in the early days of hard drives, keeping them running over a year was a big accomplishment. Just last week a customers hard drive crashed after 5 years of pretty heavy use. The drive sent out warning noises and even some funky error messages before passing on. The customer wanted to know why the hard drive ceased to function. The expectation has changed from I know its going to crash to Why do they crash?
Hard Drives are the key to all PCs. They are disks of metal spinning very fast (7500rpm in a desktop) with a magnetic head positioned millimeters from that spinning disk. Several mechanical and electrical components that can (and will) fail. The tolerances are very fine, the machining of the components exacting and fit and finish precise. Mean time before failure is 4-5 years of continuous operation. Modern marvels if you ask me, but still the main reason PCs crash.
Now if a desktop hard drive is amazing think about the laptop hard drive. One third the size with teeny tiny components. They get bumped all the time, put in strange positions and subject to extremes in temperature seasonally. Mean time before failure is approximately the same in portable hard drives. Now that is amazing. Actually a laptop hard drive is fairly easy to replace and if you get a new one they usually are faster speeding up the whole laptop.
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
#122 - Working on the web
The latest rage on the web is office applications there. Not only do you save your files on the web, but your word processor, spreadsheet and calendar are run on the web and not on your PC. Benefits of being online include never losing your data (they keep it an back it up). Being able to access your data anywhere there is an Internet connection. Not having to worry about software upgrades (done on the web!). You also can use a MAC, PC or Linux machine to run literally all these applications.
There are literally thousands of applications now on line. The Google apps that we discussed in a previous blog: Blog #84 were some of the first and still are the best, but there are many more apps now online. You can convert to a PDF file, Edit Photos, do translations and of course play games. Here is a site with a listing of many of the applications: Web Application List Site
So how good are these applications and should you use them? We've tried many of the Google apps and though they are workable, we'll stick with Word, Excel and Outlook. The online Office wannabes are OK for sharing files with others but you'll be searching for features as soon as you try them. Life is really to short to have to learn more word processing commands. It took me 10 years to forget all the WordPerfect function commands I learned in the 80s!
Some of the applications are real good, like the Yahoo Babel Fish translation tool and the photo sharing sites (Snapfish & Shutterfly are our favorites). If you think you would like to try some go to the Web Application site above or the Google program site here Google World.
I do all my blogging online using google Blogspot. I type it up on line and then save it there. Its a wonderful example of a web based program that is intuitive. Now if Microsoft starts to move their applications to the web I may follow. They would have to run at least as fast as what I have now. I would like to have something different then Outlook. I really liked the Lotus Organizer program I used for 15 years. I hated to move to Outlook but the latest Palm software won't sync with Organizer, sigh...
Let us know if you like any of the online applications!
There are literally thousands of applications now on line. The Google apps that we discussed in a previous blog: Blog #84 were some of the first and still are the best, but there are many more apps now online. You can convert to a PDF file, Edit Photos, do translations and of course play games. Here is a site with a listing of many of the applications: Web Application List Site
So how good are these applications and should you use them? We've tried many of the Google apps and though they are workable, we'll stick with Word, Excel and Outlook. The online Office wannabes are OK for sharing files with others but you'll be searching for features as soon as you try them. Life is really to short to have to learn more word processing commands. It took me 10 years to forget all the WordPerfect function commands I learned in the 80s!
Some of the applications are real good, like the Yahoo Babel Fish translation tool and the photo sharing sites (Snapfish & Shutterfly are our favorites). If you think you would like to try some go to the Web Application site above or the Google program site here Google World.
I do all my blogging online using google Blogspot. I type it up on line and then save it there. Its a wonderful example of a web based program that is intuitive. Now if Microsoft starts to move their applications to the web I may follow. They would have to run at least as fast as what I have now. I would like to have something different then Outlook. I really liked the Lotus Organizer program I used for 15 years. I hated to move to Outlook but the latest Palm software won't sync with Organizer, sigh...
Let us know if you like any of the online applications!
Monday, March 3, 2008
#121 - Technology in Mexico
I just got back from 8 days in Mexico. Click here for a link to the visit blog. Here are some thoughts on technology there.
I had wireless Internet at both hotels we stayed at. It was free in the smaller town of Actopan, but it was a secure site so the desk clerk had to give us the pass code. In Mexico City, the wireless was pay as you go, but you could use a US provider such as Boingo ($10 US per day or $21 for the month). Speed seemed similar to US wireless sites, with busy times when they were slower and times (6AM) when they seemed very fast.
Cell phones were everywhere and people on our trip that got International access had the same "can you here me know" issues in the country. Two of the guys from Charlotte on the trip had Blackberry units and could get the Internet and email if they had telephone service.
I saw lots of old PCs and CRTs in the country areas. None of the people we were helping had PCs or cell phones (and you wouldn't think they could afford any with earnings of less then $5 per day). All of the staff people from Habitat had cell phones, though when I asked only a few had PCs. They had access to PCs in their office. Laptops seemed more rare though we saw several in our restaurant in the town of Actopan. There were many Internet cafes near middle and high schools. The cafes all had old PCs and CRT monitors. I believe they all had broadband Internet (I didn't see any dial up connections). We even saw painted adds for Internet cafes on very old lean to type buildings.
Not many laser printers were around, just inexpensive inkjet printers. The printed receipt I recieved from both the Actopan(small town) and Mexico city hotels were from inkjet printers and could barely be read (using the ink to the last drop).
I didn't see alot of computer stores, though that may be more what sections of town that I was in. I did go to an open market in Actopan and saw several people selling old Palm PDA units and lots of AC adapters (the blocks you plug into the wall) for all kinds of items. They were just on a folding table and obviously very used.
With the lack of PCs around, you would think Mexico would be an ideal place to export the old PCs, printers and monitors. I'm not sure that is happening, but I constantly get questions from customers on what to do with their old PCs.
I had wireless Internet at both hotels we stayed at. It was free in the smaller town of Actopan, but it was a secure site so the desk clerk had to give us the pass code. In Mexico City, the wireless was pay as you go, but you could use a US provider such as Boingo ($10 US per day or $21 for the month). Speed seemed similar to US wireless sites, with busy times when they were slower and times (6AM) when they seemed very fast.
Cell phones were everywhere and people on our trip that got International access had the same "can you here me know" issues in the country. Two of the guys from Charlotte on the trip had Blackberry units and could get the Internet and email if they had telephone service.
I saw lots of old PCs and CRTs in the country areas. None of the people we were helping had PCs or cell phones (and you wouldn't think they could afford any with earnings of less then $5 per day). All of the staff people from Habitat had cell phones, though when I asked only a few had PCs. They had access to PCs in their office. Laptops seemed more rare though we saw several in our restaurant in the town of Actopan. There were many Internet cafes near middle and high schools. The cafes all had old PCs and CRT monitors. I believe they all had broadband Internet (I didn't see any dial up connections). We even saw painted adds for Internet cafes on very old lean to type buildings.
Not many laser printers were around, just inexpensive inkjet printers. The printed receipt I recieved from both the Actopan(small town) and Mexico city hotels were from inkjet printers and could barely be read (using the ink to the last drop).
I didn't see alot of computer stores, though that may be more what sections of town that I was in. I did go to an open market in Actopan and saw several people selling old Palm PDA units and lots of AC adapters (the blocks you plug into the wall) for all kinds of items. They were just on a folding table and obviously very used.
With the lack of PCs around, you would think Mexico would be an ideal place to export the old PCs, printers and monitors. I'm not sure that is happening, but I constantly get questions from customers on what to do with their old PCs.
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