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I had a couple of dead spots in my house with my wireless signal and wanted to get a little more coverage in the house. I already had a Linksys WAP54g wireless access point so I went out and grabbed another one. Here are the steps that I did to have 2 wireless access points connected to my network:

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The use of computers at home has turned many novice users into computer geeks.  In order to protect yourself from hackers, you need to know computer geek terms like routers, hubs, switches, Ethernet cards, firewalls and a host of other terms that you probably never thought you would know.

Part of the reason home users are more familiar with these terms is the vendors have made the devices more affordable and much easier to use.  This benefits both the vendors (by seeing more sales) and the home user (by being provided with more protection).  An entire family can now use wireless technology to connect to the Internet whereas they once had to run wires all over the house.  Home networking is easier and cheaper than ever before!

However, home users may not appreciate the need for securing their network from hackers until it is too late.  Hackers look for unprotected networks, even home networks.  The hardware and software sold by vendors have good default settings, but there is more you can do to protect yourself.

Most of us want to skip over the manual and just get the hardware or software installed, but the manual can provide important user settings and configuration information you may need.  If you have skipped it, you may want to dig it out and read it to learn more about securing some of the following areas:

• Router (Wired) - This is the device that sits between your broadband modem and your computer.  The broadband modem connects to the router which then has a couple of ports that hook up your computers to.  The first thing you should do is change the password on the router.  Almost anyone who works with home based routers will know the default passwords that are set by the company.  Even better this information is freely available from their company support sites. 
• Router (Wireless) - Like the wired router, this to sits between your modem and your computer.  Besides having some ports on the back of it for wires, this device can also accept computer connections using wireless cards.  In addition to changing the admin password, you will also need to configure your wireless options so you are not sharing your connection with people that you don’t want to use it.  Under your wireless router settings for security, we recommend that you set the security to use WEP - 128 bit encryption.  What this means is that once your set a secure password for the wireless, a user would have to know this 26 character length key before they are able to use your internet.

Making your home network more secure just takes a little reading and a little time.  But, it is much easier to learn to secure your network than it is to try to clean up a mess a hacker can make if they are allowed into your network.

Because it has been in the news, most computer users are aware of the fact that they need some type of antivirus software on their computer.  However, you may use software and hardware that resides outside your personal computer.  Things like email programs, file transfer protocol (FTP) services, web pages and other services are tied to other computers, known as servers.  What can be done to protect those servers from virus attacks?

Computer viruses can attack all computers on a network(including your home network if you have one), from your personal computer to a server that assists the entire organization.  A server is basically the same as a personal computer, but because it serves more people, it has more memory, disk space, and processors to carry the workload.  There are normally email servers dedicated solely to sending and receiving email.  Most web pages are served on exclusive servers that only deal with web traffic of those pages.  Some places, if they share quite a few files with others, may even have a server dedicated only to file transfers.

These servers basically work just like your personal computer, so that means they are subject to attacks of viruses and other malware generated by hackers.  It is just as important – if no more so – that they be protected against attacks.  If a server receives a virus, it may affect anyone who connects to it, not just one individual. 

Most servers have antivirus software installed to protect against an attack.  Most also have a firewall, which protects the server from entry points that are vulnerable to hackers.  But what else can be done? (more…)

Yesterday, I was helping my brother get his Verizon DSL up and running.  We were having a problem with the install cd, so I gave them a call on their 800 number to get him activated.  During my conversation as I always do, I asked the phone representative where his call center was located.  It really doesn’t matter to me where the support is coming from but the answer that I received was quite humerous.  He responded by telling me that “I cannot tell you”.  I asked him why and he said “Because it is a matter of security”.  I couldn’t help but to burst out laughing.  I asked him if he was serious and he was.  I have asked other companies such as Direct TV and never had a phone rep tell me that it was a “secret”.

Verizon, what are you afraid of?  I just really can’t see people waiting to take out your call center.  Or are you afraid of telling the truth??? 

If you have more than 1 computer in your house, you definately should consider networking them together:

• You will be able to work anywhere in your house and in most cases outside the house.  Imagine sitting down on your favorite chair on your front porch and being able to use your laptop the check for that important email you were expecting from your kids.
• A home network will allow you to store all your needed documents in one place.  How many times has one of your children sat down at the computer to work and the other one comes along and says they need to use the computer because they have homework too.  Now the arguement can be avoided because they now access their files from any computer on your home network.
• If your computers are networked, that also means your internet connection is available for any of the computers.  No more fighting about who wants to use the internet.
• You can purchase that awesome laser printer and not have to worry about it being tied to a specific computer.  Every computer on your network can now print to it.

Hopefully after reading this, we have given you some ideas on the advantages of having a home network. 

A NAS (Network Attached Storage) device is an external hard drive that gets connected to your home network either through an ethernet cable or wirelessly using a wireless router.  This device is accessable from any computer on your home network.  Your are correct in thinking that you can just simply share out your hard drive on an existing computer, but in this situation, the computer must always be on and you also have to configure your desktop firewall so other users to access your computer and it must always be on.

I use a NAS device in my home network because it give me a common location to store all of my files.  For example, I just recently purchased a new laptop with built in wireless and now when I am using the laptop, I can go to the NAS device to access my business files and also know that I am getting the most recent versions of the files and then even go to my desktop computer to access the same files.

Network Attached Storage devices are no longer just used by big companies for file storage.  The common home network user can now purchase these for under $200.00 and use them for the whole family to store their common files. 

We like wireless devices because of the flexability of not needing to run cables, but keep in mind that the wireless NAS devices are going to be slower.