Home Workers Should Forget the Old Laptop Balancing Act

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When I first started working from home the only problem I had was that my home office resembled a child’s nursery with a battered old laptop in it.

That is probably because that’s exactly what it was. The only place I could find to work from was my little girl’s old room, and my old computer had definitely seen better days long ago. I sat there with the laptop balanced on my knee and surrounded by Barney the dinosaur, a scary looking doll and assorted ducks as I tried to work. Needless to say, I soon found out that spending a bit of time and money on a good home office is worth it.

home office (Photo credit: Sean MacEntee)

Find the Right Place

A nursery is no place to work from, and instead I found a nice corner of the kitchen where I could hook up to the internet and munch on yoghurts at the same time. Somewhere with plenty of light and fresh air is ideal and my kitchen fits the bill nicely as I can leave the patio door open when the sun comes out.

Get the Right Equipment

The laptop I used to use was no good at all for working with. It was slow, it crashed when I tried to do too many things on it once and it had no decent music on it. As I was just starting out as a home worker (do they still say telecommuter or does that make me sound old fashioned?) I was a bit worried about spending a lot of money on new machinery. The final straw came one day when the blooming thing didn’t boot up until 10 in the morning. Admittedly I had only switched it on at 10 to 10 but it was still far too long a wait for me. I got a shiny new desktop PC which promised to lead me down the technological highway (that’s another outdated phrase, is it?) at breakneck speed. I couldn’t believe how fast it was and how many games were pre-installed on it. Now my only problem is that I want to spend a bit of time each day poking around it to see what else it does.

Sort the Furniture

My spanking new PC sat on a wonky old table at first, with the speakers on the floor and the keyboard on my lap. My wife asked me why I didn’t buy a computer table at the same time and I honestly don’t know why I didn’t. I quickly got onto the task and before the week was out my computer was perched on a glass topped table with loads of shelves for my cartons of juice and a nice drawer to keep my biscuits in.

Protect Yourself

I had only ever used the internet for fun before; looking up football results, seeing what on Earth that Facebook malarkey was all about and helping my Mum find out what latest contagious disease she is apparently suffering from. Then one day my sister said to me that I should be wary of rookits, spyware and Trojan horses. When she told me that people could grab control of my computer and steal the money I had been working hard to build up I immediately panicked and started looking for all the protection I could find. Thankfully she told me that all I really needed was a good antivirus and that this would protect me against all of the current risks. As a home worker this is one of the most important things I have done and while it might be a less obvious improvement than some of the other ones it is nevertheless something which I am glad I did.

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Every home worker should be sure to protect their data with a good program like the McAfee antivirus.

Four Ways to Protect Your Home Computer Network

A home network is no longer the high tech curiosity that it was when wireless routers first appeared. Today, the average American family has its own wireless network. These networks make our life extremely convenient, but that convenience comes at a cost. Remember when you were a kid, sleeping over at your friends, and you’d get scolded for sneaking snacks out of the pantry? These days it’s the neighbor boy sucking up your bandwidth (or worse) that you have to watch out for. 

Here are the top four ways to protect your home network from an outside invasion, whether they’re after your bandwidth or your checking account number.

1. Change the default name and passwords on your router’s administrator settings.

This is different than the password for encryption (see below). This is a step many people forget, and not doing so could allow a hacker to gain unrestricted access to your router and essentially all computers on your network.

Image via Wikipedia

2. Always enable network encryption on your wireless security settings. 

It seems silly to even mention this, but there are still people who don’t understand that leaving their networks open is just asking for trouble. Security settings encrypt your data and block bandwidth thieves from taking a free ride on your network. In the olden days, WEP encryption was the industry standard. These days, WEP is easier to crack than a Reidel wine glass. Always set your network to WPA encryption or higher.  

3. Disable the SSID broadcast on your router. 

By doing this, you are essentially making your broadcast signal disappear. A passerby or neighbor scanning for available wireless networks on their cell phone or laptop will not see your router on the list of available networks. You can configure your own computers and devices to automatically connect to your router even if it doesn’t show up on a SSID scan.

Image via Wikipedia

4. Regularly monitor on your network to check that there are no unwanted guests. 

Most routers come with software that provides these monitoring tools. Be sure to install and use them.

As the speed and sheer amount of digital information on the Internet increases at an exponential rate, more and more activities that were once traditionally performed in the real world are now taking place in virtual space. It’s can be hard to remember general safety rules, but if you follow these steps and stay vigilant, you’ll have done much to protect your home computer network. 

Technology happens to be one of John's favorite things to write about. If you'd like to find out more about Home Network, please visit  http://www.netgear.com/(enter categories) happens to be one of John's favorite things to write about. If you'd like to find out more about (category), please visit website.com

Related articles

• Overview of Home Networking (thefamilyhelpdesk.com)
• How do I: Secure my home wi-fi network? (independent.co.uk)
• Secure Your Wireless Router In The Short Term By Assigning It An Aggressive Name (makeuseof.com)
• Setting up a Wireless Network in Your Home - P3 (rydertech.com)
• Wireless Router (computrnetworking.wordpress.com)

Setting up a Wireless Network in Your Home – P3

So far let’s check what we have and where we are in our goal of having or setting up a wireless home network. First we need a suitable Internet broadband connection from the local Internet Service Provider. Once we have taken care of that we need to find a wireless router to make the home internet connection wireless. Remember we are setting up a home internet connection so it should not be so hard in getting a wireless router for our requirements.  For setting it up the easiest way is to get a professional help to setup the wireless router. But I have found some resources in the internet that it is easy to setup a wireless router and every one of them is saying it is easy to setup that device. 

Well that is a yes if you have an intermediate level of technical knowledge in going through all those menus and configuring a wireless router. For one just accessing the configuration page of a router is quite tricky. First you need to know the default IP address of a wireless router to access it via the internet browser. If you know what is an IP address look like and how to use it then I think you can setup the wireless router by yourself. But is you do not know what is an IP address and does not know how to use it then do not setup by yourself. I suggest in contacting a professional help in setting it up for you.

But before you do that we need to know how to connect the big old desktop that we have in our home. Sure we have the entire latest internet enable WIFI device but we still have a computer desktop in our home that everybody uses. So how do we connect this computer? Since our objective is a wireless home network, a cable connection from the desktop to the wireless router is out of the picture. So what do we need for the desktop for a WI-Fi connection? Enter the Wireless Network Adapter, the what?

Wireless network adapters

A network adapter is a device that connects your computer to a network. To connect your laptop or desktop computer to your wireless network, the computer must have a wireless network adapter. Most laptops—and many desktop computers—come with a wireless network adapter already installed But if your desktop is n earlier model then chances are it has no wireless network adapter. What does a wireless network adapter look like? But there are still non USB base wireless adapter and they look different. Also there are at least five different type of a wireless network adapter, each suited for different use and connections. A picture of the wireless network adapter and another type of the same name is display below.

Now we need a device similar to the one display above, it may be different in color and brand but all wireless network adapters will function the same and that is to connect any device whenever it is attach to it. In our case we need to connect a desktop computer to the internet then this is the device that we need for that purpose. Another thing we also need to configure this one we need to give it a password to let it connect safely on the network. This device can be plug-in into the computer in any usb port since this is a USB based device once plug-in we do not need to remove it from the desktop computer.  This is the last piece of wireless device that we need to complete our wireless home network. If you are new to setting up a home wireless network you might want to get a help in setting up the wireless device like the router and wireless network adapters to make them secure and free of unwanted or unauthorized network user.

How about you any tips on how to build a home wireless network?

Setting up a Wireless Network in Your Home – P2

In setting up a wireless network in your home we need the Broadband internet connection from your Internet Service Provider, then another device called a Modem which was discussed in detail on my last post is also needed, this device will be provided by your ISP when they setup and configure the internet connection on your home. Now we go to that third device that we will need to complete the setup of the wireless network in your home. But before we go there added information once your internet connection has been setup and the modem configured properly by the ISP of your choosing you can now test the internet connection by connecting your laptop or desktop to the modem via a cable patch. This means you will need a cable with connector at both ends to connect to the modem, since the modem has no capacity to distribute the internet connection by itself and only one computer can be connected to the modem via the cable patch. This cable patch should be included together with your modem. This will allow you to verify your internet connection via your laptop or desktop.

Now since our objective is to setup a wireless network in your home we will need one more device that will allow us to distribute the internet connection and allowing our entire internet capable device to connect without using a single piece of cable or wire. For these we need a wireless router, the function of these routers is to distribute the internet connection via radio signal or via cable connection. Which can be both achieved via this device called a Wireless Router. Now why do we need to include the word wireless, because there are two kinds of router the wireless one and there is the cable only router. The main difference of the two is that the other one the cable only router has no antenna therefore it cannot send radio signal and therefore cannot distribute internet connection to any computer or internet capable device. This type of router is mainly used in business where the need for wireless connection is not required or necessary. Now what is a wireless router?

Wireless router

A router sends information between your network and the Internet. With a wireless router, you can connect computers to your network using radio signals instead of wires. There are a few different types of wireless network technologies, including 802.11a, 802.11b, and 802.11g. We recommend using a router that supports 802.11g because it is fast and provides a strong wireless signal. The wireless router is the one that is going to distribute the internet connection in your home to all devices within range typically 150 to 300 feet but may vary depending on the structure present in the area of location where the router is located. Now by connecting a wireless router on the modem the wireless router will now be able to distribute the internet connection in your home. 

But wait will my neighbor also get connected as well? The answer to that is a big YES they will be able to get an internet access if they are near you or typically within the range of the wireless router. To solve this problem we need to secure our wireless router. Now wait a minute how to I do that? I do not know anything about wireless router. Some say that is it easy to setup a wireless router in your home, well I say it is not because there are a lot of configuration inside a router and first of all a technical background of accessing the router via the internet protocol address is require before one could access the configuration of a wireless router. It would require a couple more articles to write about setting up a home wireless router because we need a lot of information regarding what is the common configuration used for most type of router available for home used.  For now get a qualified technician to setup your wireless router and to make it secure allowing only you and your household member to have access to the internet connected in your home. Once the wireless router is properly setup and secured not even your neighbor can have access to the router to your internet connection. Because if they try to connect to a secured wireless router they connection will require them to inter a password that will grant them an internet connection. 

Try as they may if they do not know the password for connection they will not be able to connect therefore giving you a piece of mine that you and only the member of your family will be able to have access to the wireless router. Another when setting up all your wireless enabled devices to connect to the router for the first it will require you to input a password for the connection once this is verified to be correct then your device will registered and every time you open your laptop, tablet and Smartphone they will be able to connect immediately to the wireless router automatically. The password verification is only done once; this is on the first time connection only every succeeding connection by the registered device will be dome automatically. Also only new device will be required to register for internet connection to the wireless router. How about for desktop computer, how will it connect to the wireless router? More on my next post.

Continue to Part 3 of this post:


Quick Tips:

Positioning the wireless router

Put your wireless router somewhere where it will receive the strongest signal with the least amount of interference. For the best results, follow these tips:

• Position your wireless router in a central location. Place the router as close to the center of your home as possible to increase the strength of the wireless signal throughout your home.
• Position the wireless router off of the floor and away from walls and metal objects, such as metal file cabinets. The fewer physical obstructions between your computer and the router's signal, the more likely that you'll be using the router's full signal strength.
• Reduce interference. 802.11g networking equipment uses a 2.4 gigahertz (GHz) radio frequency. This is the same frequency as most microwaves and many cordless phones. If you turn on the microwave or get a call on a cordless phone, your wireless signal might be temporarily interrupted. You can avoid most of these issues by using a cordless phone with a higher frequency, such as 5.8 GHz.