Set Up and Troubleshoot a Home Computer Network

Setting up a home computer network may sound daunting, but it’s relatively simple, provided you break everything down into specific steps. Home computer networks are ideal for sharing a wireless connection among multiple computers, especially for those who have a home office, teenagers, or another computer configuration.

Purchasing a Router
Before you begin to worry about software, worry about hardware. A excellent router, like a Cisco router or a Linksys router, will save you from having to endlessly reboot and reprogram while still allowing you to quickly set up a home network. Make sure you buy from a company that has years of experience designing high quality routers that are capable of handling high amounts of traffic (such as data heavy media files). Virtually any home network will run smoothly without irritating slowness or delays.

Wireless Bandwidth
After you’ve purchased a router, the next step is to determine how much bandwidth you are receiving from your wireless connection. This becomes particularly important if you have a household where the network users are habitually downloading movies or other large data files. While a router can rapidly transfer this information, it is constrained by the amount of bandwidth available to the household. A connection that transmits data at 2.4 GHz with a 54 megabit speed is usually adequate to the task.

If your network feels exceptionally sluggish, check to make sure that you are receiving the wireless by ‘pinging’ the network. Alternatively, if you are receiving the full wireless bandwidth but are still experiencing slow results because of the types of media you are transferring, you may consider paying for a faster service.

Software Drivers
While software drivers for networking are fairly easy to find and download from the Internet, purchasing software directly from a computer retailer is recommended as a way to keep your network free of faulty software. A higher incidence of spyware and viruses makes downloading free software inadvisable, especially for something as sensitive as a computer network.

Purchasing software from one of the major companies, such as McAfee or Symantec, will also provide you with another vital component of wireless home networking: a firewall. Because wireless networks are difficult to secure, the best option is to buy software that not only allows you to network, but is built specifically to keep out uninvited users. Firewalls are designed to protect your valuable information behind a tightly secured ‘wall’ which can’t be accessed unless a very specific encrypted code is used.

Basic Set-Up
Now that you have all the components, you’ll want to set up the router first. Install the software driver onto each computer that will use the network. Set up a passkey that is fairly hard to break. Avoid simple or obvious terms that an outside user could easily guess. Set up each computer with this information.

The company that is providing your wireless connection will usually assign you a name and a passkey. However, in some configurations, you will be able to reprogram this information.

Troubleshooting
No matter how expertly a system is set up, on occasion a technical problem manifests, resulting in a lack of connectivity for computers. There are a few ways to quickly check what’s working and what’s not.

Usually, problems are caused by one of two things: the software on the computer itself is malfunctioning, and not allowing the computer to connect. You can test this by seeing if any other computers can connect to the network. If they can, the problem is local to that computer. A simple reboot of the software should solve this problem. However, if the software continues to be unable to connect to the internet, you will need to uninstall the software, and then reinstall it. Sometimes, a version can become corrupted. By wiping it clean and starting anew, the problem should resolve itself.

The second most common problem is that the router needs a quick reboot. If you purchase a quality router, you will not have this problem very often, although every now and again even the best routers need a quick reboot. Turn the router off for at least thirty seconds. Switch it back on, and check your connectivity in about ten minutes. This gives the system plenty of time to reset itself.

If this doesn’t work, the wireless provider may temporarily be out. Call your wireless provider to determine if they are experiencing an outage, and when you can expect the resumption of service. If all of these methods don’t resolve your problem, there is a basic flaw in your initial setup.

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Create your Own Blog

Blogging has developed from a specialized hobby to a full-time occupation. Many writers live off of their blogs, and anyone with something unique to say can gain an audience and a steady paycheck with the right techniques.

Starting A New Blog
Launching a blog requires some planning. This starts with the name and address of the blog.

It’s important to pick a good domain name, as the URL of a website is one of the most powerful tools that a blogger has at his disposal for repeat traffic. Think of a domain name as a 21st century toll free number: It has to be memorable or it won’t be effective.

blog’s domain name should be descriptive of its subject and preferably a bit unusual. For example, a blog about arrowheads could simply be titled, “Arrowheads And How To Identify Them,” but something like “As The Arrowhead Flies” would be more memorable.
Bloggers should also try to pick a unique subject or to bring a unique perspective to the entries. Writing about hundreds of subjects will rarely lead to a successful blog. Content should be focused and direct. Visitors should know exactly what type of information that they can find on the blog, and using direct and simple approach improves the chances of regular traffic.

Blog Hosting Providers
Most bloggers use a hosting provider like WordPress.com or Blogger. There are several major advantages to these services. They’re inexpensive and may even be free until a blog develops large amounts of regular traffic. Also, the online blogging software provided by these hosting services offers instant, easy organization for a blog of any size.

Many bloggers know only basic HTML and don’t really want to invest a lot of time into things like page design. For these individuals, integration with a hosting provider can keep costs down while streamlining the blogging process. They’re also ideal for first time bloggers because they simplify the process. By using a hosting provider you’ll spend more time writing and less time worrying about page design and web programming languages.

Professional and amateur bloggers will need to consider the price and uptime of various hosting providers before making a selection. The service packages of websites like WordPress.com and Blogger change quite often in both price and offerings. It’s usually a good idea to start out with a package that offers at least 50% more capability for incoming traffic than you plan on using each month. This way, your blog won’t suddenly crash if you write a successful post.

Blogging services can quickly become expensive. They’re worth the money in the long run, as they’ll allow you to keep all of the earnings from ads on your new blog–which is something that free alternatives with “unlimited bandwidth” won’t offer you.

Speaking of money, you’ll have to be on the lookout for ways to make a profit from a blog. Most blogs use ads from Google and Amazon Marketplace. Many bloggers also offer other services and products directly from their sites.

Promoting Your Blog
Blogs need to be promoted in order to flourish. It’s very rare for a blog to receive large amounts of traffic from search engines like Google alone, especially when the blog’s just getting started. A good promotion strategy is absolutely essential, and a strong promotion strategy begins with social media websites.

Promote each blog post from a new blog on websites like Twitter and Facebook. Don’t spam your friends and followers; only post a single link to each blog post, and try to reach out to other bloggers through social websites. Developing a relationship with other writers will allow you to learn about the good habits that lead to regular traffic. You can even ask another writer to post a guest entry on your blog from time to time. This is a good way to build an audience of regular readers.

Always check the comments for each entry and respond to your readers. Cultivate a sense of community by interacting with each commenter and even addressing some of their questions or comments directly in new blog posts. This encourages the return traffic that is important for a new blog.

Finally, blog regularly. Any blog will fail if it doesn’t have regular posts. Posting once a day or more will keep visitors coming back and will quickly lead to better opportunities for money and better traffic. Every blogger should consider consistency to be extremely important–keep a consistent stream of quality entries for the best possible success.

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How to Assign Shortcut Keys in Computers

Windows Vista has a screen capture/screenshot tool that is actually pretty decent. You can take region captures or full screenshots and easily save them using this tool.

Note: The snipping tool doesn’t exist on every version of Vista. To turn it on, you’ll have to go to “Turn Windows features on or off” in Control Panel, and check the box for the Tablet PC utilities.
The only problem with this tool is that there’s no hotkey to bring up the window. But here’s how to change that.

Visit the Start Menu, and then click on All Programs. Click the Accessories folder, and you’ll see the Snipping Tool.
Right click it and go to the Properties screen. You’ll see a Shortcut key text box.
The only annoying thing with this trick is that you can’t use the PrintScreen key… but no big deal. Let’s assigned Ctrl + F12 because it’s easy to remember that many users don’t use for something else.

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Remove Page Info From Printed Pages

By default browsers will add the date, page number and URL to any page printed from the Internet. For most (if not all) of the printables on this site, you probably don’t want text at the top and bottom of the page. Luckily it’s pretty easy to fix, just pick your browser and follow the instructions below.

Internet Explorer 7 Printing Tips
By default there’s a small image of a printer, click that and go to “Page Setup…”. Below is a screenshot showing the button you’re looking for.
Go to “File”, “Page Setup…”, then erase the text in the “Headers and Footers text boxes.
(The default for header is &w&bPage &p of &P and for footer &u&b&d if you need to put it back later. IE’s default margins are 0.75 inches.)
Click the “OK” button and you’re done.
Firefox Printing Tips

From the menu in the top left corner of your browser, choose “File”, then “Page setup..”. Go to the second tab called “Margins & Header / Footer”, in the drop down lists choose “Blank” for all the items you don’t want printed. The screenshot below gives a better view of what I mean.
If you want, you can also adjust the print margins here as well, Firefox’s default margins are set at 0.5 inches. Once you have your setting chosen, click “OK”, and you’re done!
If you’d like a faster way to get to the print preview feature from within Firefox, the Print / Print Preview extensions is very handy. It adds a submenu to your context menu (the menu that pops up when you right click on a webpage) with “Print”, “Print Preview” and “Page Setup”. Much faster if you change margins, headers etc. often.

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Disable Windows 7 Login at Startup

When you start your Windows Vista or Windows 7 computer, by default the system makes you enter your password to log in. Here’s a way to get around it.

When you first install Vista or 7 and start using it, you are required to enter in a password for your account. But after that, you’re not really given a choice to remove the password if you don’t want it. You’re just sort of stuck typing it in every time and that can get old rather quickly!

If you’re not the only one who uses your computer, consider leaving it this way. It is a good security feature and it helps to keep all of the different accounts, files and preferences separate from each other. But if you’re the only one who ever uses your computer, you should be able to get rid of the password prompt if you want.

If you’d like to bypass the Windows Vista and 7 log on process and remove your password, just follow these steps:

Go to Start, Control Panel.
Click on the User Accounts and Family Safety link.
Next, click on the User Accounts link.
Under the “Make changes to your user account” section, click on the Remove Your Password link for your account.
On the next screen that comes up, enter in your current password.
Click on the Remove Password button to confirm everything.
Close out of all the open windows and restart your computer. That will allow you to test the system to make sure your password really was removed.
From now on, when you start up your Vista computer, you will be taken to your desktop automatically and you will no longer have to worry about a password.

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