You no longer have to go to Starbucks to enjoy wireless Internet connections. That’s right, you can enjoy your coffee from the privacy of your home and access the Internet. Wireless Internet has come home as well, and Internet connections can now be shared among family members without stringing wires through the living room. On the negative side, however, setting this up can be quite a chore.

With a wireless network, not only can you share Internet connectivity, but you can share files. You can put a file on a shared drive, and then anyone on any computer in your house can access it.

Additionally, you can share a printer. You can literally press “print” while working on your laptop in the bedroom, and the printer in your office will start spewing out your latest reports.

To start out with, you need a gateway the Internet. Any computer can serve as your gateway. This system must be directly plugged into the Internet in order for other users to be truly wireless. Thus one computer is stationary, you cannot move it.

To connect your wireless systems to the Internet, set up your gateway. Click on the Start menu and scroll up to the Control Panel. Then double click the Network Connections icon. At this point you can run through the series of steps in the Network Set up Wizard. Make sure to select “set up a home or small office network.”

Continue moving through the wizard until you reach the “select a connection method” page. You’ll need to select the option that states that your computer is directly connected to the Internet. Keep moving through the steps until you arrive on the final page with your reward: the finish button.

At this point you only have one computer hooked up to the Internet, and you can’t move it around the house. To gain mobility, you’ll need to go through the same steps with each of your other computers, only this time, you should select the option that states you’re your computer is connected to the Internet through a network and not directly connected to the Internet.

Unfortunately this sort of network does have a downside: the wireless connection relies on the gateway. When you turn your gateway off, the rest of your systems drop their Internet connection too. You might also want to consider purchasing a wireless router. Check out our article configure a network that always stays on.

Overall a wireless connection offers the freedom that no other Internet service does. You can even sit outside your home within a reasonable distance and access the Internet. Imagine that: shopping online from your deck. You could work from the kitchen, the bedroom, and even the bathroom. And while no one wants to become a workaholic, some people need the variety of setting to stay productive. So take the necessary steps to get hooked up and go wireless today.

Gregg Hall is an author living in Navarre Florida. Find more about this as well as high speed internet at http://www.wirelessandhighspeedinternet.com

Most businesses have laws and regulations for how long specific data must be stored, but still many companies don’t have a tape drive, tape libraries, secondary storage or any plan for archiving data. Even if your industry doesn’t have specific requirements, keeping a well documented business information library is a safe bet. Recently, the residential building company Urban Renaissance Agency realized that it had lost archived building plan data for 555 (31%) of its condos due to “insufficient storage measures.”

The mistake not only made the news, but will cost the company millions to recover. Data storage tends to be one of those problems that many individuals and businesses don’t act on until a loss happens. Most people agree that backing up data is important, but feel the process will be too difficult and the issue stays below the radar until a crisis occurs. On the contrary, it’s surprisingly simple to back up, store, and recover data using a tape backup drive and magnetic tape libraries to build a foolproof information archive system.

A tape drive is a very reliable method of recording and archiving data. Using a magnetic tape cartridge, the tape drive scans all of your computer’s files and copies them onto the tape. Businesses might choose to backup files daily, weekly, or monthly. The process can be set up to be manually run or to automatically update at a certain time of the day.

The most important functionality of a tape library is that you have a record of ’snapshots’ as data appeared at regular intervals throughout history. This means if a customer has a dispute over a contract or a policy from last year, you can pull a tape from your tape library and find the piece of data exactly as it looked one year ago.

Another benefit to storing your data on tape is that cartridges can be stored off site and/or in fire and flood proof containers. More often than not, secondary storage is usually found in the same building as the original data, and often in the same location as the server. With a tape backup drive, once the tape is made the tape cartridge can then be stored anywhere. Because the tapes are there for reference and not part of daily use, they can easily be locked away and stored in disaster and theft resistant safes.

Tape drives come with a variety of options including file cataloging features; a comparison feature that will check the data on the drive against a current document, and are available in a variety of speeds. The tapes you’ll use to build your tape libraries will vary as well. It’s recommended to discuss your options with a data storage specialist who can help you build a system around your budget and your unique business needs.

Author is a writer for Sunstar Company which specializes in tape
libraries for disk storage and back up. For additional information you can visit
http://www.SunstarCo.com.

Running a business from home has its advantages, including no commute, a more accommodating work schedule, fresh coffee and home-cooked meals at any time you want.

But running a business from home using a home wireless local area network (WLAN) with your computer may lead to thievery of confidential information and hacker or virus penetration unless proper actions are taken. As WLANs send information back and forth over radio waves, someone with the right type of receiver in your immediate area could be picking up the transmission, thus acquiring access to your computer.

Here is a list of things that you should consider as a result of implementing a home wireless network setup used your business:

Viruses could be loaded onto your laptop which could be transferred to the company’s network when you go back to work.

Up to 75 per cent of home wireless network WLAN users do not have standard security features installed, and 20 per cent are left completely open as default configurations and are not secured, but are made for the users to have their network up and running ASAP.

It is recommended that home wireless network router/access point system setups be always done though a wired client.

Always change the default administrative password on your home wireless network router/access points to a secured password.

Enable at least 128-bit WEP encryption on both card and access point. Change your WEP keys periodically. If equipment does not support at least 128-bit WEP encryption, consider replacing it. Although there are security issues with WEP, it represents minimum level of security, and it should be enabled.

Change the default SSID on your router/access point to a hard to guess name. Setup your computer device to connect to this SSID by default.

Setup router/access points so as to not broadcast the SSID. The same SSID needs to be setup on the client side manually. This feature may not be available on all equipment.

Setup your home wireless network router to block anonymous internet requests or pings.

On each computer having a wireless network card, network connection properties should be configured to allow connection to Access Point Networks Only. Computer to computer (peer to peer) connections should not be allowed.

Enable MAC filtering. Deny connection to wireless network for unspecified MAC addresses. MAC or physical addresses are accessible through your computer device wireless network connection setup and they are physically written on network cards. When adding new wireless cards / computer to the network, their MAC addresses should be registered with the router /access point.

Your home wireless network router should have firewall features enabled and demilitarized zone (DMZ) feature disabled. Periodically test your hardware and personal firewalls using Shields Up test available at Gibson Research Corp. web site. All computers should have a properly configured personal firewall in addition to a hardware firewall.

Update router/access point firmware when new versions become available.

Locate router/access points away from strangers so they cannot reset the router/access point to default settings. Also, locate router/access points in the middle of the building rather than near windows to limit signal coverage outside the building.

You should know that nothing is 100%. While none of the actions suggested above will provide full 100% protection, countermeasures do exist that will help. The good collection of suggested preventative actions contained herein can help you deter an intruder trying to access your home wireless network. This deterrant then makes other insecure networks easier targets for the intruder to persue.

Greg Lietz is an internet business man and computer enthusiast. His websites provide information on wireless internet networking and personal computer hardware that may be of interest to you.