Recently in Networking Category

Michelle writes, "My aunt wants the Internet however she doesn't want a phone line and she doesn't want cable. Do you know of any internet installation with this kind of setup?"

Piggybacking Internet service as DSL over a phone line or high speed cable service are the two easiest ways to have Internet access, although they aren't the only solutions. Depending on where your aunt lives, there may be several ways for her to access the Internet without either of these more traditional Internet access solutions.

If your aunt has a cell phone, one option would be for her to add a data service plan to her existing cell phone plan. You'd need to do some research to make sure the phone she has will work for this, but essentially, in this scenario you simply connect the cell phone to the computer via either USB or Bluetooth and the computer uses the cell phone as a modem to connect to the Internet. For some phone plans, this can be a reasonable way to connect. In other cases, particularly in rural areas, this is a painfully slow way to get Internet access.

A second common option for connecting to the Internet, typically available in major metropolitan areas only, is wireless Internet service. You need a wireless card in your computer for this to work and then you have access wherever you are in the wireless Internet provider's coverage area throughout your city.

Another option would be to get Internet via satellite service. Most of the major satellite providers offer some kind of Internet service. This is likely the most expensive of these options and may not seem attractive if you are avoiding other services like DSL and cable.

"I've been a PC user for years and recently got a new Mac. I know I can map a network drive between two Windows computers, but how do I share files with my Mac?"

Mapping a network drive is frustrating even between two PCs. The drive map occasionally gets disconnected and you can't always get the stuff you need do to permissions issues. I prefer to use a secure sharing method Brandon recommended called FolderShare. It's currently the easiest way I've found to consistently share files between my Mac and Windows machines at home (or from anywhere). Microsoft is the creator of FolderShare, which means it's not likely to go out of business anytime soon. It's also free, making it a highly cost effective way to share files. Here's how to set up FolderShare.

Installing FolderShare Support

Before you can share files with FolderShare, you need to install a small utility on each computer you want to access, which you download from FolderShare. After installing the utility, it will prompt you to setup an account. Repeat this step on both the Mac and PC you want to access files from.

You define which computers get access to FolderShare and which files are shared in your trusted network, meaning that any files you share will be accessible only from your login credentials. After installing the utility on each computer, you can define resources on each computer that stay in sync with each other.

All the connections to FolderShare are encrypted, so there's no risk of anyone else access your data (unless you're stupid and choose an easy password). This increases security if you're connecting over a wireless network, because the encrypted data will not be sniffed the way it could be if you were merely mapping a drive. And the reliability of the sharing is far greater than what you get with mapping a network drive.

Another useful feature is the ability to share files securely with friends. In addition to sharing files with your own computers, you can choose to share specific files with friends, who then get the same encrypted access to the files you specify. This comes in handy if you collaborate with people in other cities, or if you simply want to share files easily with someone else. Four permission levels make sure you only allow the access you want to files, Reading, Adding new Files, Changing and Deleting Files, and Changing Permissions on Files.

"My Xbox 360 is on the 1st floor and my router is upstairs on the 2nd floor of my house. What are my options for connecting my Xbox 360 to my network?"

If your router is wireless, you could simply get the Xbox 360 Wireless Network Adapter and connect (assuming you have a decent wireless network signal between floors). I'm in a similar situation. My Xbox 360 is upstairs and my router is downstairs. For a long time, I've used the Xbox 360 Wireless Network Adapter to play games and stream video to my Xbox. Sometime recently (possibly after my wife got her iPhone), the wireless network seemed to hit a point where too much traffic was causing hiccups in streaming video. I recently switched to using an Ethernet over Powerline solution, which has solved all the problems with my video streaming. Here's a video showing how Ethernet over Powerline works:

I'm currently getting enough interference on the wireless connection in my house that I wanted a better solution for connecting my Xbox 360 to my network. Corinex sent me one of their GameNet units to review and so far I'm reasonably impressed. You basically connect one of them to a wall outlet near your game console, with the other connected to a power outlet near your router. Ethernet cable connects the hardware to your network and you're in business routing network traffic over the power lines in your house. Since connecting the GameNet hardware, video clips that used to occasionally buffer over wireless now consistently play smoothly, even when streaming them from a wirelessly connected computer. If your broadband modem and any of the computers or game consoles you want to network are on separate floors of the house, this is a highly effective way to get your network connection to the places you need it most without any rewiring or fighting wireless signal drop out. At $169.99 for the 2-outlet, 2-cable package, I think you might have better luck buying a competing Ethernet over Powerline solution from ebay. That said, I'm giving a strong recommend to this type of solution for anyone who has several PCs or game consoles spread out throughout their house. Watch the video below to see how it all works:

"Can a generic USB network adapter be used, or is the Xbox 360 Wireless Network Adapter required to connect the Xbox 360 to a wireless network?"

The short answer is you need the Xbox 360 Wireless Network Adapter to connect your Xbox 360 to your wireless network. None of the generic USB network adapters work with the Xbox 360. There are a couple of other options for getting connected without re-wiring your house or buying the official Xbox 360 wireless adapter by using some alternative hardware.

"I'm trying to find out what the IP address my ISP gives me is? I have Comcast but I can't seem to find my IP address? Where do I find my IP address from Comcast?"

There are several ways to find out what your IP address is no matter who your ISP happens to be. If you have a router connected to your Cable or DSL modem (which you should for all kinds of security reasons), you can generally look at an information page in the router's web interface to find out the IP address provided by your ISP. This requires logging into your router from a browser. A faster way to access your local IP address is to pull up one of the many sites that display it for you. There are hundreds of these sites out there. I set one up because I check my home IP address before I travel so that I can access my home computer using Remote Desktop. If you type ipdevilgirl.com (yes, it's a silly name) into your browser, you can very easily answer the question What is my IP address? with the answer displayed at the top of the page.

Download NetSetMan

I'm changing locations often enough I finally decided it was easier to get a BroadbandConnect card than deal with the hassles of various networks failing in the middle of something important. If a dedicated fast connection isn't in your budget, but you still want the convenience of quick configuration, NetSetMan may be the tool you were looking for. Instead of editing network settings at home, at work, and elsewhere, NetSetMan helps you perform on the fly network configuration, saving time in setting up your network connection as you move from place to place. Two awesome features are storage of settings for default printer and configuration of network drives, so you never end up printing to nowhere or slowing down your Windows Explorer as you wait for non-existent resources to timeout. Store up to 6 different locations, including IP address, DNS, subnet mask and default gateway. If you need a corporate solution or more than 6 location settings, there's also a pro version of NetSetMan with additional volume licensing options. [Windows 2k/XP/Vista $0.00]

Matt writes, "I'm trying to connect my Xbox 360 to my computer using the Zune software that Microsoft told me to download. I am having trouble finding out how to physically connect my Xbox 360 to my computer. When I try to use my Ethernet cord directly from my Xbox 360 to my computer without using a router it keeps telling me my IP address has failed. Am I using the wrong cord or do I need absolutely need a router?"

You need a crossover cable to directly connect the Xbox 360 to a PC without a router or hub between the two devices. This isn't an ideal scenario for a variety of reasons, most importantly that you can't connect to the Internet from either your PC or Xbox 360 while connect the two in a wired configuration like this.

Joe writes, I have a Linksys "B" game adapter. Try as I might I can't get it to work on my "G" wireless network. The router is configured correctly, the WEP encryption is configured on both the router and the game adapter correctly. I am at a loss. Do you have any suggestions on how to make the network "see" the game adapter?

I tend to sit in the camp that believes if it is configured correctly, it's already working. ;) Networking is always a tricky proposition, especially when you are trying to get a handful of components using slightly different standards to all play nice. If it's in your budget, the easy solution is to dump the 802.11b game adapter and purchase an 802.11g game adapter. Using 802.11b devices on a network with a bunch of 802.11g devices slows down the network for all the other devices on the network, which doesn't really help network performance for everything else. Gaming is almost always better with higher network speeds, which is why hardcore gamers swear by wired connections over wireless. If upgrading isn't an option, there are a number of configuration options on your router to verify:

1) Most of the Linksys 802.11g routers offer more than one option for wireless networking. A G-only mode prevents 802.11b wireless devices from connecting, while a mixed B & G network mode supports both. If your router is set to G-only, an 802.11b devices will not connect to your network.

2) MAC Address Filtering is another common trouble spot. If you MAC address filtering turned on, only devices listed in the MAC address table on the router will be able to connect, even if you can see the network. If you have this feature turned on, you need to enter the MAC address for the game adapter in the list of approved MAC addresses before a connection will succeed.

3) WEP encryption is a common source of incompatibility. While Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP) is a standard, I have found many networking problems when trying to connect devices to WEP enabled networks. Turn off WEP encryption temporarily to verify whether the encryption is causing a problem on your network. Long term, you really want to use WPA encryption, which provides more security for your data. WEP is better than nothing, but isn't really a secure solution.

4) If you have an 802.11b router in your house, verify whether the gaming adapter will connect to the B router. If it will connect to the B router, consider segmenting your wireless network to have the gaming adapter route through the 802.11b router with all other wireless traffic routing through your G router. This has two advantages: Your problem is solved and any G devices take advantage of the G network without having a legacy B device slowing down the network.