A Drink of Technology for the Thirsty Mind
With the rising popularity of telecommuting and the increasing need to protect their electronic assets, companies large and small have been turning to Virtual Private Networking (VPN). The good news is that many savvy IT departments realize that many of their telecommuting employees share their broadband connections with consumer-grade routers. Those folks have made their lives easier by using “NAT […]
Read moreThe inability to open a website by name usually indicates a DNS (Domain Name System) problem. DNS is the service that converts the website URL, i.e. www.yahoo.com into the IP address that is needed for actual communication. A quick way to test this is to try to access the problem website via its IP address instead of its name. You […]
Read moreThis is one of the most frustrating problems that a broadband user faces. The ISP will probably blame the router. The router vendor will probably blame the ISP. The solution usually lies somewhere in between, but no one seems to want to help. Random disconnect problems are generally hard to pin down because there are so many variables to consider […]
Read moreReview of the Basics We’re often asked at SmallNetBuilder what the advantages are of using a “high-end” or “enterprise” grade firewall, such as a Cisco PIX, Juniper Netscreen, etc., over a consumer-grade router. To get a good start on the subject, let’s review a few basics, the first being NAT. I’m sure many of you know what NAT (Network Address […]
Read moreI often see questions in the forums from people struggling with one of the most basic tasks in creating a home network: what to do when you run out of ports in your router. The answer is to just connect a switch, as shown in the diagram below. But since that makes for a very short article, I’ll answer some […]
Read moreKnowing how fast your network can move data is a question for more than just tweakers and speed demons. It’s a key skill to have when testing out wireless, powerline, MoCA and other “alternative” (to Ethernet) networking technologies. Fortunately, it’s pretty easy to see how fast the bits fly and it even the pay-for options are easy on anyone’s wallet. […]
Read moreOur Essential Wireless FAQ gets a lot of regular use. So we figured why not try the same thing for powerline networking? If you don’t see your question here, let me know. I can put it in the next FAQ article or in an update to this one. 1. Are all powerline adapters the same? No. Powerline networking suffered through […]
Read moreIntroduction We often hear from people who have two (or more!) routers in their LAN and are trying to get Microsoft File and Printer sharing running among all their computers. This ProblemSolver will explain why this doesn’t work by default and provide some suggestions for working around the problem. Setting Up Figure 1 shows a two-router LAN configuration that I’ll […]
Read moreIntroduction What is a VLAN? Is it some sort of highly expensive technology or virtual reality? Not at all. VLANs are relatively simple, yet they offer a wide variety of options and capabilities to improve your network. VLAN, or Virtual LAN, is a technology that enables dividing a physical network into logical segments at Layer 2. Functionally, VLANs enable a […]
Read moreUpgrade Paths Existing OS Upgrade to Windows 2000? Upgrade to Windows XP? Windows 95 Yes No Windows 98 Yes Yes Windows ME No Yes Windows NT 4.0 Workstation Yes Yes Windows 2000 N/A Yes System Requirements: Windows 2000 Professional Hardware Minimum Recommended Processor Pentium 133 Pentium II or better Memory 64 MB 128 MB or more Disk Space Free 650 […]
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