They will have to logon every two hours.

To Wire or Not to Wire
Wireless networks are en vogue, but your installation won’t be successful unless you chose the right type of network and set it up properly. Wired networks require that each computer be connected via a wire to a central location, called a switch or hub. This often involves installing cables through walls and ceilings and can present a challenge for anyone.

If the computers in your home or office are all within 500 feet of each other, a wireless network might be for you. A wireless network has no cables. It can connect computers on different floors of a building or even across the street. Aside from the obvious benefit of not having wires, wireless networks are more convenient since the setup, configuration, and reconfiguration can often be done within minutes, without extensive planning.

Wireless networks, however, are not as fast as wired networks. If you play computer games or want to view streaming video or other high-speed multimedia, a wireless network might not have enough capacity. But, if you just want to check e-mail and view web pages, a wireless network is a good choice. To install a wireless network, you need a Wireless Access Point and a wireless network card for each computer. You will need to buy a wireless network card for each desktop computer, although most newer laptops come equipped with one.

Security is not a large concern in a wired network, since someone would have to physically connect to a wired network to break in. In wireless networks, a car parked outside with a laptop could easily connect to your network if you don’t have proper security in place. To prevent this from happening, encrypt your wireless network connections, or set a password to access the network, or do both.

Do It Yourself or Call a Professional?
If you decide to use a wired network, consider whether you will install it yourself or hire a professional. If you have a small number of computers that are all situated very close to one another, you may be able to buy pre-assembled network cables and connect them yourself. If you need to wire multiple floors and lay wire through ceilings and walls, you need a professional installation. If you go this route, it is best to begin with a floor plan of your office or home, determine what your current needs are, and consider how the network design can be adapted to future needs. A professional installer should be familiar with EIA/TIA standards, local wiring and electrical codes, and making custom cables. Network cabling professionals are often judged by the neatness of their work, because sloppy cabling is more apt to deteriorate over time, harder to manage, and poses more of a fire risk.

Having a wireless network or a wired network is not mutually exclusive. Many small offices have a wired network in addition to one or more wireless networks, depending on their needs. Wireless networks are continuing to get faster, more secure, and less expensive. Wired networks will continue to coexist with wireless networks, often in the same homes and offices.

Deryck Richards is the founder and managing partner of Desktronix. With an extensive educational background in computer information systems, Deryck currently manages hosting and data center operations for Desktronix. He also provides system administration and technical support directly to small businesses as he has since 2000. His areas of expertise include networking, Windows, Linux, and Macintosh systems and he is the author of The Guide to Technology for Small Business. For more information on Desktronix, visit [http://www.desktronix.com]www.desktronix.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Deryck_Richards http://EzineArticles.com/?Setting-up-a-Network----Wired-or-Wireless?&id=2991

( Story Blogged by Bruce Schneier)

The much anticipated DataCase application for the iPhone launched this morning.   The app, which costs $6.99, turn your iPhone into an easy-to-use wireless storage device that can be access by any other device on your wireless network. A one way drop box can be added to a normal machine to drop files onto the iPhone, or alternatively you can set up a two-way shared drive to move files between the iPhone and a computer.  (http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/08/12/datacase-launches-turn-the-iphone-into-a-wireless-drive 8/12)

DataCase Demo Video

Strategy Analytics reports that the popularity of touch-screen phones has helped LG expand its U.S. market share. The company has replaced Samsung as the second-largest maker of handsets for the U.S. Financial Times (8/11)

Yahoo unveiled a mobile version of its fantasy football portal offering the ability to set your line-ups, receive injury updates and make last-minute roster changes. Yahoo's PC-based Fantasy Football app also added some new goodies including a new draft application featuring a drag-and-drop queue and audio alerts. (Cynopsis 8/12)

 1. Setup all devices as Wireless Access Points (WAP) with the same SSID and WEP/WPA key. This is how the PC is able to hop to the next Access Point.

 2. All WAPs need to be plugged into ethernet and given a static IP.

 3. If possible, it is a good practice to also setup all wifi users on their own subnet and utilize a vlan in the switch for these access points. This becomes more important as the number of wireless users increases.

 4. Use separate channels to prevent interference among the WAP you are installing. The suggestion for three WAP is channels 1, 6, and 11.

 5. Use Netstumbler or another tool as you walk through the office to confirm coverage is adequate and that latency/signal strength is good.

 6. DO NOT use relaying within the WAP. This is for getting wireless to areas that do not have any ethernet jacks. It passes the signal from one WAP to the secondary WAP and then the signal is distributed from that. Only use this in areas that do not have any ethernet jacks as there is some performance degradation.

One of our customers has a large facility and users that use laptops throughout.  They take their laptops to meetings, offices of other staff members, and to the lunch room.  By configuring the environment correctly, they can all feel as if they're in the middle of any wireless access point.

Another way to make it smooth for our customers.  Visit us at IVDesk and see for yourself!

Ditch Your CD Rack, Install a Server
Home servers with huge storage will become common as part of the 'terabyte lifestyle,' researchers say.

Antony Bruno, Reuters
Jul 26, 2008 11:30 am

DENVER (Billboard) - Converting to a fully digitized entertainment library is a good way to cut down on clutter in the house. So what replaces the CD rack once you do?

The 500 GB hard drive that comes standard on most home computers today? Soon, even that won't be big enough to store and organize the massive amount of digital music, video and photography that consumers are accumulating as part of the emerging "terabyte lifestyle."

That opens the door to a new market, one that for now remains a niche afterthought to most people: home servers.

Most digital media today is stored on an individual computer and then synched to one device or another or streamed through a home network to an entertainment system or other appliance. The drawback with such a system is that all files will be lost should the hard drive crash, and it's very difficult to synchronize files across multiple computers, devices and users without overlap.

By contrast, a home server acts as a central storage hub for all the content in the home, and multiple devices can link to it in order to stream or otherwise access music, video or other content. A home server will even automatically backup and reconcile content stored on any connected device. And servers are far less prone to crashes.

The home server market is currently all potential, with only an estimated 400,000 U.S. households employing one today, according to multiple analyst reports, dominated primarily by tech enthusiasts and IT pros installing them in their homes.

But Forrester Research projects the U.S. market will grow to more than 4.5 million households by 2012, while the Diffusion Group predicts it surging to as high as 21.5 million in all of North America by 2015.

Driving this growth, of course, is digital content. It's hard to measure just how much content is now stored on home computers, but based on reported activity, it's certainly on the rise. A Forrester Research survey shows that the number of people viewing or managing photos on their computers rose from 26% of survey respondents in 2002 to 47% in 2007. The percentage of those owning an MP3 player went from 3% to 36% during the same time frame.

"The digital assets that people have are clearly climbing, and with that comes the potential need for a home server," analyst J.P. Gownder says. Diffusion Group senior analyst Ted Theocheung notes that the average computer user will have up to 2 terabytes of content stored by 2010.

But increased storage capacity is not enough to jump-start the market. The real appeal of the home server is its synching, streaming and management capabilities. The more devices in the house that need access to the same content, the more need there is for a home server.

According to Forrester, the number of homes with multiple computers increased from 25.8 million in 2002 to 47.8 million last year. These computers are increasingly being connected via a home network, the penetration of which has doubled in the same time period from 12% to 24%. And that's not even including the proliferation of iPods, mobile phones and other portable devices that need access as well.

"There needs to be something beyond backup to make the home server story come alive for consumers," Gownder says. "The server category has to demonstrate application extensibility where it's projecting things you couldn't do previously rather than just being a source of backup and storage. It needs to proactively help people with their media."

Hewlett-Packard's Media-Smart Server line, for instance, allows users to store their entire iTunes library on a server, from which any computer in the home network can then stream music. French company LaCie offers its Ethernet Disc Mini Home Edition service that does much the same.

Microsoft, and its Windows Home Server software that it launched in January, is expected to rule the home server market for the next five years, during which PC-based servers will be the dominant solution. But Theocheung says the real spike in consumer adoption won't come until after consumer electronics companies begin building server-like functions into their entertainment system products, which will overtake the PC as the primary source of such store-and-synch capability. In particular, he expects cable operators to be leaders in this transition, doing for servers what they did for DVRs by including the functionality in set-top boxes.

"That changes the whole model," Theocheung says. "If you have to buy these yourself, the trend is going to be slower. But when service providers latch onto this and let you just add $5 to your $100 monthly cable bill, it's not a noticeable impact. Then you're going to see some action."

Perhaps when this market begins to expand, music subscription services like Rhapsody and Napster will place support for their technology on these home servers. Rhapsody in particular has been aggressive about making its service compatible with non-PC music appliances. Meanwhile, the move to digital rights management-free downloads for purchased content will also be a key step toward ensuring that digital music takes advantage of the coming media server boom.

-- Access the full article here.

If you decide to purchase a home server,Computer Renaissance can set up and show you how to use the system. Find a store near you or call 1-888-COMPREN.

So I've had breakfast and I go to my PC to check email and messages. My wireless network at home now consists of a variety of devices and networks linked together. These include my Entertainment Server which links to various TV's around the house, the Sky Dish, cable TV, media audio players and recorders, HD radio tuner as well as the Toshiba Fenininity Server which allows us to control and monitor the stove, dishwasher, washing machine and dryer, climate control, breadmaker and a host of other appliances not to mention the HVS climate control.

I also have the latest Kindle which lets all of us read our personalised news. It aggregates the top stories from mother Herald as well as other papers and magazines of interest so we all get the version we want. Scared the hell out of me the other day when I opened my wife's logon by accident and all I saw was stories about TV and filmstars and their failed marriages and getting their 23rd adopted child out of Afghanistan which is the new Darfur. But then that is the beauty of it that we all get MeNews and not what someone else wants us to read.

I'm still into social networking in a big way, but have a number of portals that manage and aggregate each of my networks. I check my Music Portal which manages all the sites where I showcase my music. Now I can load my new songs, video's, blogs and gig calendar onto one site and it updates the 127 sites I feature on in one hit, according to each sites unique specification.

So it's time to go. I leave the house and activate the alarm which sends a signal to my iPhone to say the system is now armed and hop in the car. I drop the iPhone onto the little tray beside my seat and as I put the key into the ignition and my seat and steering wheel adjust itself to my preferred positions, my phone announces itself to the Wireless CANBUS so that it has access to the entertainment system.

I tell my integrated GPS navigation unit to take me to 'the office' select the podcast I want to listen to from those that are just audio as I don't want to get pinged by the distraction laws and get on the road. As I near the top of Chartwell Drive, my podcast pauses (I used to hate missing stuff when the old system just muted the sound) and the nav tells me that there is a serious traffic incident on High Rd that it has picked up on TMC and would I like to route around it. I say yes, and it seemlessly takes me on down Diana drive and I arrive at work right on time.

As I wait at a set of lights I check the Buddy feature on my GPS and see an image of my wife's car crawling along Bush Rd on her way to work. Her unit beeps to alert her that I have checked her location and she sends me a smart message back by tapping on the SMS keyboard on her nav unit which uses Bluetooth to send the message via her phone. Her car and system is a bit older than mine. 2009.

When I get to work my phone opens the carpark grill and after I have parked the car, it unlocks the door into the building and then into my office. I fire up my  Touchbook which has just been upgraded to Vista ("WE" like to be cautious about our computer network and go to the machine in the kitchen for a perfectly fluffy flat white.

As I have done forever, I start my day with email. My touchscreen notebook is now running Windows Vista Touch and although Microsoft has announced their new OS I will be using this one for another couple of years until our IT Department is comfortable that it is reasonably robust, especially given that it took 3 years to get most of the kinks out of Vista and for a while they went back to offering Windows XP again as an option in the 2nd half of 2009.

One thing that we have now universally adopted is Unified Communications. All my voicemail whether it comes from my landline, mobile or email is now waiting for me in my Inbox and with my iPhone or my notebook.

My days haven't changed much. Probably the only major difference is that I do now use video on a lot of my phone calls so I can see the person I am talking to. This has saved me a lot of wasted travel time given the disaster that is Auckland's roads today. They have started building the Auckland Harbour Tunnel, but it will be a couple more years before it opens for buses and T3 (cars with at least 3 peple in them) let alone ordinary traffic. So many meetings have been replaced by necessity with vidphone calls. Of course I can also do this on my iPhone 6, but unless I'm doing it over the Wireless LAN (and we still don't have one in the office) the costs are prohibitive.

At lunch time I quite often walk to the Subway for some exercise and of course their food has the Heart Tick. On my way, I check out their menu on my iPhone and wonder if the food will look as good as the picture. I specify exactly what time I will get there. On the way back I get the phone to play me some Utterz messages from friends while I'm walking.

On the way home I drive past a bar and get a Speights Mates message saying there is a Happy Hour Running and sending me an eCoupon to get 2 for one in the next half hour and prompting me to hit the forward button to send the same coupon to any of my personal Speight's Mates who are within a 2km vicinity to come and join me for an after work beer. I love location based marketing and decide it is only right to support people who have invested in this technology given that I helped to develop it. Isn't that called the fruits of your labour? Yes. I know hops aren't strictly fruit.

Before dinner, I go to my home studio and record a lead track on my Gibson LP Guitar onto my 8 track TASCAM for my latest song, nothing has changed there really, call me old fashioned. I still have my music on loads of web sites and while I've sold some songs, I haven't scored a number one hit yet.

I bought the new Internet TV Aggregation Server last year and replaced my MySky. Now that I have cable for internet as well as TV, I can cherry pick and watch exactly what I want when I want and am no longer subject to the whims of SKy TV. Yes, I still subscribe to Sky Sports Channel because they have exclusive rights for many events that NZ teams compete in such as All Blacks Rugby and do support NZ sport better than anything else, especially the biased commentators, although I wuldn't have a problem if Murray Mexted got some new material, but the rest is pretty much free. I don't have to watch ads although many programs have very overt displays of product i the story.

I finally got an 80" TV, the largest my wife would let me buy, and that wasn't easy. Sometimes we have multple screens running so that we can watch different things at once and have adapted to that. We tried the VR glasses from the new Nintendo, but they are very antisocial. Awesome for 3D movies tough! Home entertainment is now awesome. No more channels full of reruns of programs we have already seen umpteen times, I never have to sit through another show of Friends again! Now I can see exactly what I want when I want, subject to agreement in the house of course and we all have to compromise sometimes,

Along with cable came free international calling to anywhere in the world for a modest flat fee, so I don't use Skype much anymore. Finally a little music from iLike at the end of the day. I kept my CD's and vinyl as souvenirs, but for a flat fee of $10 a month to our ISP, the house can access and download unlimited music from almost all record companies in MPEG 9 which is great quality at 960kbit/s.

Not a lot has changed in 5 years, but life is certtainly a little easier than it used to be.

Recently I did a little experiment which lead me to believe wireless networks are the new rage, which to some isn't news at all.

How do I know this? Well a week ago I decided to do a little experiment to see how many wireless networks I could pick up while driving from my moms house to my girlfriends house. So I booted up my MacBook and then started KisMAC (Wireless network detection software), kissed my girlfriend and told her to drive safely and I was on my way.

Immediately hits started streaming in, both closed networks and open ones. I was startled at the amount of hits, roughly averaging 50 networks a minute, which was pretty crazy. The amount of networks picked up while driving was far more than I had in mind. In total I had picked up on 746 networks.

Guess how many of those networks were open? 161. Twenty one percent of all the networks I found were wide open, just begging to be abused. If I was able to export the data and correctly sift through it, I would be able tell you how many networks have default names, which is in some cases an indicator of default network user name and password. Big no-no here people.

Seeing such a level of wireless network growth is surprising to me, but seeing that many open or possibly open networks isn’t. So I say to you, try to sometime if you own a wireless laptop. Download some free software, walk around town and see what you turn up, but Im not asking you to join them. That’s illegal.

In order to function properly, a horn antenna must be a certain minimum size relativeto the wavelength of the incoming or outgoingelectromagnetic field. If the horn istoo small or the wavelength is too large (the frequencyis too low), the antenna will not work efficiently.

Horn antennas are commonly used as the active element in a dish antenna. The horn is pointed toward the centerof the dish reflector. The use of a horn, rather than a dipole antenna or any other type of antenna, atthe focal point of the dish minimizes loss of energy (leakage) around the edges of thedish reflector. It also minimizes the response of the antenna to unwanted signalsnot in the favored direction of the dish.

Horn antennas are used all by themselves in short-range radar systems, particularlythose used by law-enforcement personnel to measure the speeds of approaching or retreatingvehicles.

]]> http://xsection.wordpress.com/?p=13 Fri, 11 Jul 2008 03:59:33 +0000 xsection http://xsection.wordpress.com/?p=13

How To Build A Tin Can Waveguide WiFi Antenna

for 802.11(b or g) Wireless Networks
or other 2.4GHz Applications

Collect the parts:

You'll need:

• A N-Female chassis mount connector.
• Four small nuts and bolts
• A bit of thick wire
• A can

Drill or punch holes in your can to mount the probe

]]> http://networkinstruments.wordpress.com/?p=546 Tue, 17 Jun 2008 17:42:53 +0000 Stephen Brown http://networkinstruments.wordpress.com/?p=546 You may remember back in mid-2007, Sprint Nextel made an announcement to invest $5 billion into building their WiMAX network to offer high-speed wireless Internet access. I thought I would take a quick look today at "why" wireless providers are looking at WiMAX. Tomorrow, I will track the current and future state of WiMAX networks.

The Last Mile
The "Last Mile" is a term, at least in the communications industry, that refers to the final leg in the journey of delivering the product or service to the customer. So for internet providers it would be the last mile of cable or wiring that connects the customer to their network.

With the cost of internet services going down and bandwidth demand from customers increasing, providers are looking for the least expensive way to provide high-speed access to customers. Connecting customers individually is very expensive, which is why a wireless technology like WiMAX is attractive.

An article by NEC Unified Solutions, "WiMAX and the Last Mile" explains the advantages of WiMAX:

"WiMAX delivers high-speed broadband Internet without the need for underground cabling or wiring. WiMAX establishes wireless connectivity using microwave radio links that communicate with towers connected to a standard, wired connection. As a result, one connection has a service range of up to 30 miles. WiMAX is capable of sharing data at a rate of anywhere from 10 to 70 mbps, which is enough to provide high-speed Internet access to up to a thousand homes and businesses."

"WiMAX, unlike many other wireless technologies, requires no direct line of sight between its source and endpoint. What's more, What’s more, its point-to-multipoint architecture simplifies providing connectivity for large groups and remote populations, making it an ideal solution for enhancing the last mile of service."

WiMAX Resources
WiMAX FAQ? - WiMAX Forum
How WiMAX Works - HowStuffWorks
Get the latest on WiMAX - WiMAX Networking News

1) not leaving on time - my fault,

2) getting off at Paddington Station instead of Lancaster Gate   - also my fault    and 

3) realising that there are, in fact, no less than 3 different Craven Hill Gardens dotted around a 100m radius   - hmm, possibly not my fault that London is a ridiculous maze designed to rob anyone of their navigational ability and/or their will to live...

- but, let's face it, it's probably my fault for not knowing that in advance and planning for it accordingly. 

No matter; I turned up late, frazzled and thinking how on earth I'd be able to write something interesting about a new router, after all, if you have broadband, you probably know all about routers, boring boring boring snore.

But no! Wake up!!  Thank goodness this wasn't a crusty presentation about connecting your laptop up to the "Interweb" and the wonders of wireless networking.  After all, it turns out most of us do that anyway, and we don't need to be told about it - in fact, a recent YouGov poll showed that 54% of UK women who were surveyed were already surfing wirelessly, gaming wirelessly and printer-sharing (oh yeah, baby, we're officially living in the digital age).

Instead, we were told the story of how a new router design was formulated, including making it work better without those big aerials - paralleling the disappearance of mobile phone antennae - and (my favourite part of the presentation) being treated to a sneak peek at concept sketches, the sort of thing consumers never get to see...  asking nicely resulted in being provided with a couple of these pics to show on the blog!

I don't think I realised just how much work is involved in re-designing a device that already exists - and I've been working in the tech and gadget industry for years.

Yes, the electronics business has finally realised that us tech consumers are getting more savvy - we realise that something can look good and work properly at the same time - it's the i-concept we're locking in to and Linksys/Cisco have fully commited to this with their new router.  Here's hoping that the trend for making functional things look good will continue to roll out across the industry - after all, the technology is finally around to back up the aesthetics, and I, for one, will welcome the change.

By the way, there's some new software called LELA that comes with this router - it's also been developed to be more intuitive... I'll get to play with that in a few weeks' time, and report back accordingly. 

Well, I'm off to China soon, hopefully I'll be able to update this blog whilst I'm there - depending on whether I can get a sim card with data, I may even be able to Flickr some pics onto the web using Shozu, recommended by my nokia-picture-blogging pal BlackPhoebe- it's exciting and daunting at the same time - can't wait.

Until I go away, though, there's a completely bonkers schedule to wade through... I've got a packed out telly-heavy weekend, with a selection of choice graveyard shifts ranging from midnight Friday night through to midnight Saturday night (and a few in between to guarantee the desired amount of sleep deprivation).  

Happily, I'll be arriving at QVC in good time for the shows, as

 1) I'll leave in good time,

2) I'll get off at the correct station, and not somewhere miles away, and

3) I've been to QVC UK about a bazillion times before, so it would be really, really dense to end up at the wrong QVC even though there are a few different studios (like the one in Philadelphia, USA, for example),

- but,let's face it, anyone could mix up "flight BA169" with "district line", after all, they almost rhyme...

Types of LAN, WAN and other area network

Introductions: There is one-way to categories these network mechanism; they can be sorted by range or level. For historical – facts, the networking industry refers to nearly every type of designs as some sort of area network and communications.

Here are some examples of area network:

Notices: LAN and WAN were the original categories of area networks, but the others were developed from technology evolutions and research.

-----------------------------------------------
LAN - Local Area Network: based on WiFi wireless network technology.
A computer networks system that travels through a rather small area. But, most LANs are restricted to a single building or group of buildings. However, one LAN can be connected to other LANs over any distance via telephone lines and radio waves.

Here is a breakdown of LAN’s – connection systems:

+ Topology : The geometric arrangement of devices on the network. For example, devices can be arranged in a ring, bus or in a straight line. 
+ Protocols : The rules and programming - specifications for sending data and in formations. The protocol also decides whether the network uses peer-2-peer or client / server architecture.
+ Media : Devices can be connected by twisted-pair wire, coaxial cables, or fibre - optic cables. But, some networks work without connecting media - altogether, communicating instead via radio waves.

Bad points: when you’re using LAN, the distances are limited, and there is also a limit on the number of computers that can be attached to a single LAN.
-----------------------------------------------
WLAN - Wireless Local Area Network: a type of local-area network that uses high-frequency radio waves instead of wires to communicate between nodes.
-----------------------------------------------
WAN - Wide Area Network: a wide area network that
dispersed – telecommunications (collection of LANs), which consists of two or more local-area networks.

Notes: Computers that are connected to a wide-area network are often connected through public networks, such as the telephone system. But, they can also be connected through “leased lines or satellites.” The largest WAN in existence is the Internet.
-----------------------------------------------
MAN - Metropolitan Area Network: this network is larger than local-area networks (LANs), but smaller than wide-area networks (WANs). But, it’s usually characterized by very high-speed connections using fibre - optical cable or other digital media.
-----------------------------------------------
SAN - Storage Area Network, System Area Network, Server Area Network, or sometimes Small Area Network.
A high-speed sub - network of shared storage devices. A storage device is a machine that contains nothing but a disk or disks for storing valuable data.
-----------------------------------------------
CAN - Campus Area Network, Controller Area Network, or sometimes Cluster Area Network.
An interconnection of local-area networks within a limited environmental space, such as a school campus or a military base.
-----------------------------------------------
PAN - Personal Area Network: this network connection is based on the electric-field transmission. This technology also allows individuals to exchange data with a simple touch or grasp - such as a car braking system.
-----------------------------------------------
DAN - Desk Area Network: This network - architecture is a small local system in which devices, such as multimedia devices, are taken out of the workplace and linked directly to the network. Workstations admission these devices over the network and direct the movements of information’s streams among the different parts of the system.

These features are from DAN – Network.

+ Permits direct contact with two or more devices, as well as CPU-device communications,
+ Is open to implementation as a space division switch fabric,
+ Provides frequent pre-emption points,
+ Allows a simple and efficient high bandwidth connections.

Notes: The cache controller on the DAN CPU node currently only supports dissection of the cache into fixed size regions.
-----------------------------------------------

Copyrighted By Lair360

The research also highlighted a similar lack of security awareness among home users. Forty-eight per cent use the WEP protocol, while 10 per cent use no protection. It is widely acknowledged in the security industry that the WEP protocol is being depreciated as it can protect only against hackers with the most basic programming knowledge. WEP encryption can be hacked in minutes by a determined blackhat with the requisite skills and software.

All home users and businesses are urged to check their configurations and switch to the wi-fi protected access (WPA) protocol. WPA affords home users and businesses a far higher level of security, as it uses a sophisticated key structure that creates new encryption keys as the system is used. This, along with other enhancements provides improved protection and is able to counter successfully the established key recovery attacks on WEP.

As a researcher in the field of wireless security it is known that: “WEP is no obstacle for a shrewd hacker and can be sidestepped in minutes. By configuring wireless networks to WPA, businesses and home users immediately make any hacking attempt significantly more difficult. And the good news is that switching from WEP to WPA typically involves only the flicking of a switch.”

This morning, I couldn't get a wireless connection. Everything worked just fine last night. Luckily this issue is easily fixed by resetting the modem and router. So I do this and restart everything. Still no wireless connection. I try to refresh the list of available wireless networks. It couldn't detect any wireless networks. Fantastic!

So, I do what any highly skilled PC user would do...all of the above all over again.

Denied.

I deduce that either my router has died or my wireless network card has fried. I check to see if I can access the internet from my desktop PC, and I could...so that means the router works.

I took the laptop to work, and when I fired it up there, still "not able to detect a wireless network."

First, I called The Geek Squad and was offered help for the low, low price of $299! Then, I tried logging onto Gateway Support's live chat and was offered help for only $199! I should start a tech support business and rake in the dough.

Convinced that my poor, beloved laptop has blown out its wireless network card, I give up in despair and continue with my work.

At the end of the day, I thought, "Ron's a genius, he'll know what to do!" and he came up with some great suggestions, such as reinstalling the driver on the network card, because it may have gotten corrupted, and directed me on how to locate the hardware and drivers.

I did that, and still no luck.

But something that continued to baffle me was the error said, "Be sure your wireless radio is enabled."

Huh? When I think of wireless radio, I think about my little AM transistor from when I was 6.

By this time, I'm ready to hurl the laptop off the top of the Batman Building.

Then...Eureka!

Hey, did you know that if you accidentally hit FN+F2 on a Gateway laptop, it turns off your wireless radio?

...neither did I until I realized maybe the "switch" is turned off...then I thought, "hey, where IS the wireless switch on this thing?" then I Googled it. Then I found it.

Life is good.

Oh, and I was wondering how on Earth those 2 keys possibly got depressed at the same moment in the middle of the night...

Perkembangan jaringan dan Internet yang spektakuler memberikan dampak yang sangat besar terhadap perusahaan dalam berbagai jenis dan ukuran. Teknologi wireless yang baru semakin memudahkan perkembangan kemampuan jaringan, Internet, dan intranet bagi para pekerja mobile, lokasi-lokasi terpencil dan berbagai fasilitas temporer.

Wireless Networking semakin memperluas jangkauan dan kemampuan jaringan komputer. Teknologi-teknologi baru menjadikan

wireless networking sebagai suatu cara yang memungkinkan pelayanan akses berkecepatan tinggi dan handal bagi jaringanjaringan komputer dan Internet.

Terdapat dua metode dasar wireless networking yaitu cahaya (laser dan infra merah) dan radio. Keduanya memiliki spesifikasi dan kegunaan yang berbeda.

Cahaya

Laser dan Infra merah

Laser dan infra merah adalah medium yang digunakan terutama untuk hubungan pendek, seperti gedung ke gedung, biasanya kurang dari satu mil. Inframerah berbiaya murah dan lambat sementara laser lebih mahal dan dapat mentransmisi lebih cepat. Kelemahan utama sistem ini adalah bahwa mereka sangat rentan terhadap penghentian. Hujan lebat akan mempengaruhi laju data dan kabut tebal akan menghalangi koneksi.

Radio

Spread Spectrum

Spread Spectrum menggunakan daerah bebas 902-920 MHz. Ia digunakan untuk menghubungkan koneksi hingga 30 mil, namun lebih sering digunakan pada jarak yang lebih pendek, dalam jarak 2-5 mil. Sebuah antena berdaya tinggi dan jalur jernih diperlukan bagi perluasan jarak. Spread spectrum menggunakan serangkaian saluran dalam range-nya untuk mentransmisi data. Oleh karena jalur tersebut merupakan frekuensi bebas, mungkin sibuk. Telpon tanpa kabel, pembuka pintu garasi, dan mainan yang dikendalikan radio, semuanya menggunakan range frekuensi ini dan mungkin akan mengganggu data. Teknologi dapat melewati saluran-saluran dan memilih jalur terbaik. Terdapat teknik lain yang mengirim data yang sama melalui beberapa saluran di waktu yang sama. Penerima mendengarkan seluruh saluran dan memilih yang terjernih.

Terdapat fasilitas keamanan dalam spread spectrum karena data dibagi pada saat masuk saluran. Akan tetapi, saluran berikutnya IS dikodekan pada paket sebelumnya. Untuk menanggulanginya dapat digunakan teknik-teknik enkripsi.

Oleh karena daerah frekuensi bebas, tidak ada hambatan untuk menggunakannya. Namun, ini berakibat pada keterbatasan kemampuan yang akhirnya membatasi daerah frekuensi, dengan semakin luas jangkauan, semakin besar hilangnya sinyal.

The research also highlighted a similar lack of security awareness among home users. Forty-eight per cent use the WEP protocol, while 10 per cent use no protection. It is widely acknowledged in the security industry that the WEP protocol is being depreciated as it can protect only against hackers with the most basic programming knowledge. WEP encryption can be hacked in minutes by a determined blackhat with the requisite skills and software.

All home users and businesses are urged to check their configurations and switch to the wi-fi protected access (WPA) protocol. WPA affords home users and businesses a far higher level of security, as it uses a sophisticated key structure that creates new encryption keys as the system is used. This, along with other enhancements provides improved protection and is able to counter successfully the established key recovery attacks on WEP.

As a researcher in the field of wireless security it is known that: “WEP is no obstacle for a shrewd hacker and can be sidestepped in minutes. By configuring wireless networks to WPA, businesses and home users immediately make any hacking attempt significantly more difficult. And the good news is that switching from WEP to WPA typically involves only the flicking of a switch.”

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