5 ways to speed up and improve your wireless network for free

First off I need to mention that I live in an apartment complex, and getting wireless to work properly is extremely hard, and I guess I can say that I've learnt a lot form tweaking it so much. Recently I read a similar article on Microsoft's website, but most of the stuff in there is impractical. All they seem to say is upgrade all your devices and buy more stuff.

So here are 5 tips that are guaranteed to make your wireless connection work better for free. These "tweaks" can be performed in most settings and it shouldn't be a much of a problem to implement in your home or even office network. Make sure you secure your wireless network too though.

1. Find the right channel for your router. First make sure that you don't have any cordless phone in your own house that might be causing interference. If you find that your wireless connection gets weaker whenever you get a call, try changing the channel on your cordless phone. Then download net stumbler on one of your computers with a wireless card (it should work with most cards). Open it and check what channel other people are broadcasting on. People will usually be using either channel 1, 6 or 11, so try to stay away from these channels, but you never know. Then change your router's channel to some other channel no one else is using. You'll need to know how to work with the router configuration page to do this.Keep in mind though that other people might have cordless phones running on the same channel which might interfere with the your signal, so you'll have to use the trial and error method to find the perfect channel.
2. Switch to OpenDNS. Although this tip is more of a improve your "Internet speed" tip, its still good for getting better speeds through your wireless network. And since most people use their wireless network for Internet, I recommend replacing your ISP's dns service with OpenDNS. Instructions on how to configure your router to use OpenDNS can be found on their website. Basically its just copying and pasting a couple of IP addresses, so I won't mention how to do that here.
3. Move your router. Yes, although this is pretty self explanatory, most people ignore this tip. Try to move your router to a central location in your home. Although this might be kind of hard, since you're bound by the location of your high speed modem, phone line or even your cable line, its not always impossible. You don't have to move the router from one room to another, just moving it from one side to another side of the room should suffice. All you need to do is get 2 long pieces of Ethernet cable, it doesn't matter which kind since most routers have "wire management" so it'll accept any kind of cat-5 crossover, rollover or straight through cable and use that instead of short cables. This will enable you to move your router so that it is a bit more closer to the center of your home or closer to your laptop if you only use a laptop.
4. Change your wireless card settings. Most wireless cards are configured to the default settings of using wireless QoS and so on, so you'll want to tweak it to make it interface faster with the network. To start tweaking first press the Windows + Pause Break key if you are on Windows > Go to the hard ware tab > Click on Device Manager > Under Network Adaptors double click on your wireless and go to the Advanced tab. Here's what you can tweak on most cards:
   • Mixed more protection - Use CTS-to-self. This will make the speed faster since you are in a small home network
   • Power Management - Use the highest value, because this will make your card work faster. You might want to choose a medium or low setting if you want extended battery life though.
   • Roaming Aggressiveness - Use either the medium or lowest value in a home setting, so that your card won't keep searching for new connections, it'll just stay happy with the network in your home and won't connect to your neighbour's network.
   • Throughput Enhancement - Make sure you enable throughput enhancement to have the fastest speeds
   • Transmit Power - Use the highest option to connect to your network properly and get the fastest speeds
5. Update drivers/firmware and maintain your network. Here are a couple of things you should do with your network:
1. Update your drivers for your wireless card (usually found on the manufacturer's website) and the firmware on your router. Go to the manufacturer's website to get the latest firmware. Instructions on updating your firmware can also be found there.
2. Give your network a unique SSID and encrypt it! Why? Because your neighbour might be accidentally using your connection and making it slower, or someone might be using your network to download stuff on the Internet... so it is best to give your network a unique SSID and use at least WPA encryption if WPA2 isn't a choice. More instructions on that coming soon...
3. Make sure to also change the password to the router so that some one else does not modify the setting. I recommend setting a big password so it is impossible to crack.
4. Make sure your laptop and the router are using the 802.11 (wi-fi) G standard. Sometimes, if your laptop is set to use only wi-fi 802.11 B, even though it supports G, your router will only communicate to it using B, and not G which is way faster.

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Why does Google AdSense show public service ads?

Ok, so its only been a week so far and I've already had some experience with the way adsense works. Oh, and did I mention, I've discovered several AdSense NO-NOs. Oh and I also figured out when and why google displays public service ads. I figured that Google will usually display public service ads in one of the following scenarios:

1. Your publisher ID is wrong or improper. Or perhaps you did not comply to the google TOS.
   
2. You tried to modify the adsense code and accidently screw it up.
3. Google can't find any ads to match the content in the page.
4. You did not put the code in the template, and put it in a post instead - The thing that you should keep in mind is always have the adsense in your TEMPLATE ONLY. Don't try and put any adsense code into your posts, because it will not work. Instead you'll just get a ugly ad like the one shown below. Why? because once you post the code through most CMS systems the code will not stay in different lines (the linebrakes between the code will be removed), therefore it wont work.
5. Google might have "flagged" your page? (see below for more stuff on why I think that might be the case)
   
6. There was a hardware malfunction that occured at Google HQ.

Recently, I also had a problem on this page, where google kept showing public service ads. I'm not sure if Google has some approving system where someone has to come and approve a "flagged page" or if it was a hardware malfunction that caused public service ads to be displayed, but I'm sure it was one or the other. I'm certain that there were at least some ads that matched with the content. They page appears fine now though. This is how the page used to look before when the public service ads were displayed and had some intentional mistakes in it(I'm sure you'd agree it looked ugly with all that empty space) :

I've also pointed out some "imperfections" in the page when it was published for the first time (of course, they have been corrected now.. I think..). Perhaps that was what caused the page to be "flagged". I'm not sure. I'll be performing a couple of other tests to find out what the cause for public service ads might be.

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Stop Internet Explorer from crashing

If you've ever experienced IE crashing.. you know its not a good thing. Here's how you can stop the famous Internet Explorer from crashing over and over..

If you have the latest version of IE and know that you shouldn’t be using IE all the time, please skip to the How to fix Internet Explorer section I apologize for the stuff about Firefox that you might already know…

First off, you really shouldn’t be using Internet Explorer 6 or even 7 a lot. Why you ask? Because it is less secure, slower and outdated, especially if you’re using the older version of Internet Explorer, IE Version 6.

I highly recommend you get Firefox... because its better go check it out!

Use it as your primary browser and only use IE 7 (that’s the latest version) only when needed. However, sometimes you might need to use Internet Explorer for things such as Microsoft Updates.

If you window looks like the picture below. Don’t even bother reading the article… unless you upgrade to Firefox first because it is secure, faster, and better!

Internet Explorer 6 is a really old browser, which was designed many moons ago. This only means that you will leaving your computer wide open so that viruses/spyware/credit card number stealing thieves/bad stuff can come and take advantage of it. If your browser looks like the picture below...

Please go to Microsoft and download Internet Explorer 7. You have no reason not to!

Ok, so once you know you have IE 7, this is what you normally need to do to stop crashes, especially if you get the sysfader.exe error occured problem. You need to have administrator privileges to do this. Or else you’ll not be able to open the Internet Options window.

Step 1
Press the ‘Alt’ key on your keyboard so that you can see the menu bar. Click on 'Tools', then click on ‘Internet Options…’.

Step 2
In the window that pops up, go to the ‘Advanced Tab’. Scroll down to where it says ‘Browsing’.

Step 3
Uncheck the check box beside the phrase that says ‘Enable third-party browser extensions’.


Click on OK and restart Internet Explorer.

This, in most cases this should stop Internet Explorer from crashing due to other extensions you might have installed. If in case you are getting a sysfader.exe error that should stop as well. However, this might not sure all the problems that you have with Internet explorer if other settings (such as cookies) were previously messed around with.

In that case, please try resetting the Internet Explorer settings. Click on Internet Options again (please see step 1 above and follow those steps first before reading more…), then go to the advanced tab again, and this time click on the reset button. Click OK and restart Internet explorer.

TIP If you constantly get sysfader.exe errors with IE, please take a look at the sysfader.exe error page. (link opens in a new window)

Also, please keep in mind that many crashes might also be caused due to malware, spyware, viruses and other bad stuff that can be on your computer. It is highly recommended that you get rid of all malware on your computer that might be causing the crashes. More on that stuff coming soon...

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Stop green orange blinking lights on iPod - unplug iPod properly

If you are experiencing a lot off problems with your iPod shuffle or nano or mini or video any other type of iPod, even though you sync your iPod properly using iTunes, please read this post. It is important to know how to unplug your iPod from your computer so that you do not corrupt the music inside it. If you simply pull your iPod off the computer, chances are that it is going to ruin all the music that has been transferred to the iPod and give you the orange green blinking lights
.

Please be sure to reset your iPod if you get the orange green blinking lights error. Resetting instructions can be found here.

Step 1
Wait until iTunes tells you it is safe to unplug the iPod.
Step 2

Click (a normal left click..) on the safely remove hardware icon if you're using either Windows XP or Windows Vista. this icon should be on the bottom right hand corner of your screen in the "systray". You might have to click on the little arrow to show all the icons.Safely Remove Hardware icon in Windows XP:

Step 3
Click on the option that corresponds to your iPod. Once you get a tool tip that says it is safe to unplug the device, only then remove the iPod from your USB port.

That's it! if you follow these three simple steps or iPod should stop showing the orange/green blinking lights error.

You might also want to take a look at iPod shuffle problems part 1 and part 2 as well as how to fix the iPod shuffle posts, how to use iPod and iTunes post or other posts that are mentioned. Sadly, there are so many things you can do to completely fix your iPod!

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Beyond Teck - Version 3.14159

With a handful of ideas in my OneNote document (testing out OneNote 07 at the moment) and voice recognition (DNS 9 is absolutely amazing!) by my side, I think it’s about time I start writing again - just like I used to before. This time I'm going to make it a point to blog every other day or so about something interesting, and keep the whole world updated about my tech endeavors and write way more often. Why am I motivated and confident more than I was last time, you ask? Because I know a lot more than I did before and I seemed to have acquired the right tools for the job. Also, this summer has taught me that there are a lot of people in this world who really need a lot of help with computers and technology in general. Teaching people about Microsoft Word at my local community center was an eye opening experience and I learned that stuff I thought were really intuitive and easy to use were not so for many people new to computers. I guess there are a lot of people out there who really hate experimenting and breaking stuff =( .

By the way you might have noticed that this page now has Google AdSense advertisements (in case you didn't read this blog before then I just want to let you know that this blog was ad free before) all over it. No, it’s not what you’re thinking - this blog has not been hacked! I put them there myself for a couple of reasons:

1. I want to see what actually happens to my PageRank and if it increases traffic from Google. It is an experiment I wanted to try out, and had plans of doing so for a long while. Now finally because of the guys over at OverheardDaily.com (OD is still under construction apparently - but I can't wait till it launches) I was able to get my hands on some AdSense code.
2. I want to experiment with different revenue generation techniques (ad placement, colours etc.) with AdSense and see if it actually works. Right now the ads AdSense is showing is really random and weird ads, but I guess we'll have to wait and see.
3. I hope reason number 2 will motivate me to make more posts in this blog.
4. It's been a while since I've tinkered with blogger templates, and this was a great opportunity for me to force myself to actually look at the new blogger templates.

Okay, enough talking about the new BT. Stay tuned - really super interesting posts coming soon!

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Play MP3s or Podcasts through Embedded Player on your website

Ever wanted to make your own podcast? Or may be post some mp3s into your blog post on blogger or may be wordpress... Well as long as you have the music or video files, then its really simple to use embedded flash players to embed content such as MP3s, videos as well as podcasts in other formats in your blog posts.


There are a couple of options that you can use in order to put music on your blog or website. Firstly, if you have the server space then you might want to get your own player too, instead of using someone else's services. You can try something like the FLV players found on http://www.jeroenwijering.com or this http://www.macloo.com/examples/audio_player/ which is mostly for mp3s only.

If you realize that the server space isn't sufficient (which is bound to happen if a lot of people listen to your stuff) you might want to switch over to a service like odeo http://odeo.com/ where they'll host the files for you and you can still put it in your blogger post.

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I like Windows Live Writer

It's highly unusual that I praise people at Microsoft, but using Windows Live Writer for a while has changed my thinking considerably. I realize that Microsoft is a company and not one person that is working, and at first I believed them to be complete idiots, but it seems as though I'm wrong. Someone over there actually has some brains, and its a good thing they worked on the Windows Live Writer division at Redmond.

To be honest I couldn't care much for the ribbon interface that the new Office 07 has, it is merely a selling point for the majority of the people who don't realize that its the same Office 2003, except it has a more shiny appearance, which deceives people into thinking it it's a entirely different product altogether. But Windows Live Writer is what really caught my attention. It is the first time Microsoft actually has a useful tool, that is very similar to its paid rival ecto and many other similar blogging applications.

Surprisingly, Microsoft has caught on to the idea that the Internet is giving an opportunity to everyone in this world who has a computer and an Internet connection can express their opinion, communicate and try their hand at "15 minutes of fame". And as soon as they sensed this, they started working on Live Writer. A weblog authoring tool that much to my surprise, is quite good.

First of all let me describe to you the hidden superpowers of this almost idiot proof application. Idiot proof in the sense that any average computer user that knows what the term bookmark means can use this software, without learning how to do things "the right way".

Microsoft has taken into consideration Dual Booting. I guess that Microsoft realized that many people out there who actually have a blog, and would download an application solely for the purpose of writing applications to a blog most likely have dual booting operating systems also. This led them into thinking about this idea - if the same software is installed on both the operating systems, wouldn't it be great if both the installations of the same software have the same settings.

To clarity what I mean is this - I installed windows live writer on my Windows Vista partition and started writing articles and publishing them to this blog. Then I installed Windows Live Writer on my Windows XP partition. At this point I was wondering if I had to re-input all the details so that I could post to this blog, but no it was already DONE! Live Writer automatically allowed me to post to this blog! Just a quick fact I'd like to point out though - even though all the account settings had been entered for me I still had to Update the Account Configuration, however I didn't have to re-enter any blog details. Amazing... that's what I call idiot proof (well Live Writer is not completely there yet, but almost). Software that does everything on it's own without the intervention of the user. In an ideal situation the man should sit back and the machine should take control - that's the main purpose of employing machines to do work in the first place.

The screenshot at the top is that of the Windows Live Writer on XP (service pack 2 of course), and the one on the bottom is of Windows Live Writer on Windows Vista (With Aero). Notice the difference in the post editing area.

Second Factor that shows Microsoft is headed the right way - Good designing and good features. Yes, that's right, the words Microsoft and Good Design in one sentence can be considered an oxymoron - two contradictory terms. But interestingly, Windows Live Writer, and even other applications for that matter, are slowly becoming more aesthetically pleasing, and that's not it, Microsoft is finally coming to realize that providing one button is far superior than to have 5 menus.

Scroll up and take a good look at the interface - It almost looks like Microsoft Word for blogs, doesn't it? It provides all the options necessary, but at the same time it is also simple to use. If you want you can put pictures in the post and along with that also add effects to the pictures. How interesting is that? Surely, online blog editors will not offer these interesting services at your finger tips. It even has spell check in it. Note: The quality of the spell check is far from the quality of spell check in word processing applications such as Microsoft Word. Things such as place names are often underlined with red squiggly lines and repetition of words do not seemed to be picked up by the spell checker. What more can a blogging addict ask for? Indeed Microsoft is taking a step in the right direction, and if they keep heading that way I'm sure that the outcome will only be good.

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