HomePlug networks to the rescue
Between my own home and the homes and businesses I have worked on with my repair and service business, I am getting pretty handy at setting up wireless networks.
However, I have run into several issues where the distance was too great for wireless and it would be too expensive to tear into the walls to run a cable. In such cases, I’ve resorted to Linksys 802.11G repeaters, which essentially relay the wireless signals. But that technology isn’t foolproof and it works with only certain routers.
I then discovered a new product from Actiontec that uses the power lines in your house to transmit Internet data from one point to another. The company has released two “HomePlug” kits that are aimed at solving connection issues involving distance.
The HomePlug Ethernet Adapter Kit was simple to use. Plug one adapter into the wall near your router and run one of the included Ethernet cables from the adapter to the router. Then go to the other room and plug the second adapter into the wall. Run a cable from the adapter to the computer and voila, you’re connected to the network. If you have more PCs, just add more adapters; they all work off the original one plugged into the wall. (Gaming consoles also can use the connection.)
Setup was pretty simple and well within the grasp of a consumer.
Speed is more than acceptable; it’s rated at 14Mbps and I observed at least 10 during my residential tests. That’s about the same as the older 802.11B standard and plenty for Internet use.
List price is $129.
The second product, the HomePlug Wireless Kit, basically gives you a remote access point in a distant area for use by wireless equipment. Like the other unit, you plug in an adapter into the wall near your router and run an included cable from the router to the wall.
In the distant room, you place the access point and also plug it into the wall. There your wireless devices now can connect to that access point and, to the distant router, via the power lines.
This unit costs $169.
The company also has released a nifty wireless adapter for your Xbox, Playstation, Tivo or other device.
Details for all are at www.actiontec.com
WEEKLY WEB WONDER: I remember when TVs were 12 inches wide, black and white and had three channels. We had a remote control, which was me. Anyway, check out the history of TV at http://www.ev1.pair.com/colorTV/
James Derk is co-owner of a computer repair company and computer columnist for Scripps Howard News Service. His email is jim@cyberdads.com
Letters from the mailbag
Letters, we get letters, we get stacks and stacks of letters…
Q. I am thinking about getting a wireless router so I can connect my laptop but I don’t understand if I also can use my other computers with wired connections or if I have to get wireless cards for them, too?
A. Yes, you can. Most consumer-level routers come with four wired ports that you also can use along with the wireless. Wired connections are more reliable, more secure and often faster so if you can run a wire without too much hassle it’s worth it. If you need more than four, you can add on a hub.
Q. I am ordering a new PC and I have to choose between Windows XP Home and Windows XP Professional. There’s about $90 difference. I heard Pro is more secure, is it worth it for a home system?
A. I don’t think so. I would spend the extra money on RAM if you need it. Most home users don’t need the networking options that Pro brings to the table and if you do, you already know the answer to this question.
Q. I heard you can run Windows program on the new Apple PCs. Is that true and if so how does that work? Does it run just as fast as a Windows PC?
A. Yes. Microsoft has released version 7 of Virtual PC for the Mac, which allows most Windows programs to run on the Apple platform. Just set the expectation that you won’t have the same speed but many applications will run just fine. You can get more info on the Microsoft web site.
Q. I have a Gateway PC running Windows Me that is about three years old. It has an AMD processor and 256 megs of RAM. The hard drive has crashed and I need to decide if it is worth paying to fix it. I suspect it is not.
A. I would upgrade the whole box unless you know how to replace the hard drive yourself and install the operating system. Paying someone else to do it when basic PC systems are running $450 isn’t a good use of money given that your video system, USB and other systems also are behind the times.
Q. Will an external hard drive work on any brand of PC?
A. Yes, assuming you have the right plug. Most external drives now come with USB 2.0 and Firewire. The latter is more common with Apples but also is found on some PCs. If your PC only has the original USB (not version 2.0) you may consider adding a USB card to your PC to take advantage of USB 2.0, which can be about 40 times faster than the original USB in terms of transferring files. That is the key metric in an external hard drive…how fast the data can go from the drive back to the PC.
Q. When is the next version of Windows coming out?
A. Bill Gates says 2006, so consider it late 2007.
Q. Do I absolutely need to enable security on my wireless connection? My connection slows down when I do.
A. No, not if you do not mind other people being able to use your connection. In some places leaving it turned off is a matter of courtesy; the goal is to let other people share. I have heard of entire neighborhoods who all turned off their security so everyone could share a few connections. I would assure you change your router user name and password if you take this route, as well as assure you have computer security turned on.
WEEKLY WEB WONDER: Check out Lance Armstrong’s foundation at www.laf.org. A little bit can go a long way.
James Derk is co-owner of a computer-repair firm and is computer columnist for Scripps Howard News Service. His e-mail address is jim@cyberdads.com
AIM has lost its mind (revised)
I am not sure about you but I don’t spend a lot of time reading EULAs.
The EULA, or “End-User License Agreement,” is the yadda yadda yadda that you agree to when you install software on your computer. It’s usually pages and pages of stuff that no one reads.
If you click you agree, then the software installs. If you click that you do not, the installation terminates. (So it’s not like you get to negotiate the terms.)
It just came to light that America Online’s lawyers, in what had to be a loss of sanity, amended the terms of service for AIM, its instant messenger service. It now says, (get this) that America Online now has the rights to any content that flows through the service.
"You waive any right to privacy. You waive any right to inspect or approve uses of the content or to be compensated for any such uses," according to the AIM terms of service (seen here http://www.aim.com/tos/tos.adp)
If that wasn’t quite bad enough, if you downloaded the software after Feb. 5, 2004, AOL now has the right to "reproduce, display, perform, distribute, adapt and promote" all content distributed across the chat network.
Considering AIM is now the Esperanto of the teen world, this is a large change. But when you toss in that AIM is trying to elbow into the corporate world (with its “AIM at Work” initiative), it is potentially huge. On one hand you can’t urge companies to use your tool to collaborate and then hide in the fine print that AOL has rights to anything created using the tool.
How many messages are we talking about? Try 2.5 billion messages DAILY just on AIM; an estimated 15 to 20 billion messages a day across all of the services. (Of course, about 90 percent of those are like “D000z! Wazzzzup!” but you have to consider how many serious users of instant messaging are going to move to some other product. And what else is there?
There’s Yahoo, which is pretty flaky in my experience; ICQ, which is also owned by AOL and MSN Messenger, which is included in every version of Windows. On the open source side, there’s a cool tool called Jabber (http://www.jabber.org/) that everyone ought to look at. On the corporate side there are tools like Lotus Sametime, which are designed for enterprise use, too.
I think in the weeks ahead you’ll see outrage against AOL and either the company will change its terms or companies will quit using the tool. Teens, on the other hand, won’t care.
THIS JUST IN: As of 3/15, AOL is changing its policy and promises not to read your AIM messages.. See:
http://news.com.com/AOL+clarifies+IM+privacy+guarantee/2100-1030_3-5616543.html
WEEEKLY WEB WONDER: For the latest news about IM and the trends involving it, head to www.instantmessagingplanet.com/.
James Derk is co-owner of CyberDads, a computer repair firm, and is computer columnist for Scripps Howard News Service. His email address is jim@cyberdads.com
Birth of a Blog (03.06.05)
I’ve never written about Weblogs, also known as “blogs,” before. It’s not like I missed the trend; I just found the whole thing so horrifying.
I guess I remain a journalism snob; after making it through journalism school using manual typewriters and counting headlines by hand to see if they would fit (a capital W counts as 2), the idea of self-publishing remains creepy.
Before the Web we had “barriers to entry” to journalism; if you wanted to print a newspaper you had to have a press, a team of editors and a distribution method. And there was a comfort in knowing that before anything could hit print that a couple other professional editors had to look at it, too.
The Web changed all that.
Matt Drudge really was the first one to take advantage of this new medium in a large way, breaking the story of the Clinton-Lewinski mess before Newsweek could. He proved a one-man band could nudge the world a little. Now other sites like The Smoking Gun are bypassing reporters completely and just posting original documents and photos and letting readers make up their own news.
Today there are thousands of “blogs” about thousands of topics out there; some have millions of readers; others have none. But I guess it’s a good thing that people are out there writing, keeping the written word alive in this era of the cell phone.
I kept getting emails from people wanting archives of my column and because it runs in many different newspapers I had no central repository to point to. And now I do. I went to Blogger.com, a division of Google, and went through the five-minute process to set up my own blog.
(Note: I promise it won’t turn into a self-indulgent blog about my kids and the politics of the day, but rather a focused repository for computer information in an effort to reduce my e-mail volume. As I have time I will continue to add “old” columns until it is a complete archive.)
I was impressed by Blogger in terms of ease of set up. I had looked at other products but this one was easy to use and less hassle as I have no time to maintain much of anything any more. With Blogger you have a choice of having your blog hosted on Blogger’s own servers or hosted on yours, as I have done. (For the latter, all you need is your own web space and know your FTP settings; Blogger pretty much does the rest.)
You can use one of the default templates or, if you know HTML, fiddle with the design to your heart’s content.
Blogger is, at this point, totally free and ad-free. You can keep up with your favorite blogs via RSS (Really Simple Syndication), which I ought to cover in a column soon.
You can see mine at
www.cyberdads.com/blog.htmlJames Derk is co-owner of Cyberdads, a computer repair firm, and computer columnist for Scripps Howard News Service. His e-mail address is
jim@cyberdads.com
