Keep the VPN Connection Box from Popping Up

VPN connections (virtual private networks) are wonderful. I use one to connect to work several times per week. I can do all sorts of handy things: surf the network, grab files, print to my office. But one annoyance has been bugging me for a good while now, and I’ve just been putting up with it. Seemingly at random moments, the VPN connection box would just pop up for no reason.

I finally got tired of clicking the cancel button, and decided to figure out just what was causing this problem. Turns, out that Internet Explorer was the culprit, even though I only use Firefox.

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Switch Your Internet Connection To Free DNS Servers

After months of unreliable Internet connection at my office, and after exhausting all other options, I decided to try switching our DNS servers to the servers freely available at OpenDNS.com. Since then we have not had one single Internet outage. There’s no indication that this is a coincidence, and if I’ve noticed anything about the speed of our Internet connection it’s that it has gotten slightly faster.

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Setting Up a Wireless Router as an Access Point

While it’s hard to beat the dependability of a wired network, wireless networking definitely has the edge in convenience. However, this convenience highly depends on the accessibility of your wireless network.

As wireless devices continue to become more prevalent in our way of life, you may find the need to either upgrade your existing wireless router for more speed, add on a new wireless router to extend the coverage area of your network, or simply incorporate wireless connectivity into your existing wired network. Read more

FTP – File Transfer Protocol

Just a few months ago, I was taking a short vacation down in Florida with my wife’s family. It was the first time our little nieces had ever been to the ocean, so I was sure to take lots and lots of pictures. Every evening, after we had gone out to one of the many great places to eat, I would dump all of my pictures from my compact flash card onto my laptop.

A lot of people would stop there, but I like to have several copies of all my important files. So, before turning in for the night, I would open up my favorite FTP program, connect to the FTP server running on my computer at home (600 miles away!), and transfer all of the precious photos I had taken that day. Indeed, FTP is a great tool that anyone with a broadband connection should use.
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Network Connection Devices

Its easy to forget about all the small pieces of hardware that sit and hum along 24-7 just so that we can check our email or catch the latest stats for our fantasy team. Just what are those little boxes and why do they have so many little blinking lights?

Network connections are made possible by two main types of hardware: network media and network connectivity devices. This article is going to cover the later in enough detail to have you picking up the network-speak in no time. Read more