Tag: wireless_networks

Improve Your Windows XP – Speed Access

July 18, 2007 by Jason

Every time your laptop connects to a Wi-Fi hot spot, whether it’s in your home or down at the coffee shop, it logs the name of the access point that you connected to in the Windows Preferred Network settings. If you accidentally (or maybe even deliberately) connect to your neighbor’s access point, and then find yourself reconnecting again despite your efforts not to, you need to bump that listing down in your connection list and move your router to the top.

To do this, click Start and select Connect To, then Wireless Network Connection. On the window that opens, click on the Properties button on the lower left, then the Wireless Networks tab at the top. Read More»

Hide ad-hoc wireless networks in Vista

July 06, 2007 by Jason

wireless networksAt TechEd, as you might imagine, there is a lot of wireless noise. There is the conference wi-fi, but there are also a bunch of ad-hoc or computer to computer networks with remarkably similar names. In the wireless list infrastructure and ad-hoc networks have different icons.

You have to question the motives of people trying to fists for wi-fi users like that. while I know better than to go connecting to ad-hoc networks willy nilly, I wanted to remove the risk of accidentally connecting to one with the same name. Read More»

Beware Wi-Fi HotSpot Scammers

February 15, 2007 by Jason

If you take your Wi-Fi enabled laptop with you on your travels then, like me, you are always on the lookout for a free Hotspot hook-up when hanging around at airports, hotels or cafes. If you do your homework and visit sites like free-hotspot. Before you go you should be able to find one. However, be on your guard if you are casually trawling for a free connection, you could be opening up your PC and its contents to a hacker.

Here’s how it works. A crook with a Wi-Fi laptop sets up shop by hanging around a legitimate hotspot. Their PC is logged on to the web and set up for Internet Connection Sharing. Along comes our weary traveller and the Wi-Fi monitor on their PC flags up the bogus connection as open and available. They think it is Christmas, click on it to log on and bingo, the two PCs are linked by an ‘ad hoc’ or peer-to-peer connection and the data on the victim’s laptop is exposed.
Read More»

Speed Access

January 31, 2007 by Jason

Every time your laptop connects to a Wi-Fi hot spot, whether it’s in your home or down at the coffee shop, it logs the name of the access point that you connected to in the Windows Preferred Network settings. If you accidentally (or maybe even deliberately) connect to your neighbor’s access point, and then find yourself reconnecting again despite your efforts not to, you need to bump that listing down in your connection list and move your router to the top.
Read More»