Respect Thy Neighbor’s…. WiFi
Hey! Did you know that when two wireless routers operate on the same channel they throw interference at each other? Which in turn degrades the quality of both WiFi networks? Also, did you know that most manufacturers ship with their own default channel? So if both you and your neighbor have a Linksys, Netgear, etc. router then you are likely interfering with each other. There's a simple resolution to this problem. Find out what channels the WiFi networks in your area are using, then change yours to a channel that is not being used.
For part one you can use this tool, it runs in a browser via Java and will help you diagnose your WiFi situation. In order to change your router's channel you will have to log into it's administration console, find wireless settings, and change to an unused channel. Typically your routers access can be found by going to http://192.168.1.1 or http://192.168.0.1 . However, if that doesn't do the trick you can always consult your routers manual.
Enjoi less WiFi interference and better WiFi reception!
Soluto; Anti-Frustration Software
What is it?
After you install Soluto on your computer it keeps track of all of the programs that load when you start your computer, keeps track of how long each program takes to load, graphs your boot up length over time, and it shows you whether or not each program can be turned off our delayed in booting. The theory behind it is great! Most people will notice that over time their computer gets slower and slower. One of the leading causes of this is that the longer they have the computer, the more programs they install, and therefore the more programs end up running at boot time. Soluto seems like a good way to keep track of that. I've only used it for a couple of days, so I can't attest to the long-term graphing. Check out the screen shot below to see how boot up programs are organized. The orange boxes on the left represent 'potentially removable' and the gray boxes on the right are keepers. I had another few boxes on the left marked as 'no brainers' for removal but... they've been removed!
Where do I get it?
Head on over to Soluto's web-site.
Buy.com Will Rip You Off
I was recently in the market for an elusive projector lamp. Of course our typical vendors did not have the item stocked. So, I went to buy.com and attempted to purchase the lamp on their site. Well once I got to the finalize order screen the process froze. The web-site buttons became unresponsive and I couldn't move the process along. So, I went and ordered the lamp part else where.
A week later a lamp arrived in a non-marked box. (It wasn't even the right model lamp that I was looking for in the first place) After some digging I found out that they had also billed the debit card, BUT they never sent a confirmation email and there was not an invoice in the box. So I gave them a call. Their support wasn't any help either. They apparently have to contact the reseller that sent us the lamp to 'check on their return policy'. Needless to say, we opened up a case with MasterCard...
Hopefully, you can learn from my mistakes! Stay as far away as possible from Buy.com. Here's why...
- Their web-site breaks
- They don't send order confirmations
- They send out the wrong part
- They can't give you a refund
- They suck
Virtual Clone Drive
Looking for a clean alternative to Daemon Tools for working with .iso files? How about giving Virtual Clone Drive a spin? It's freeware, it doesn't come with bloat-ware, and it allows you to mount and use .iso files. Need I say more? Head on over to their web-site to download.
Auto-IT a Geeks Scripting Language
Interested in deploying an installation package to 100 computers but don't want to select 'next, next, I do not want to install tool bar, install' on each computer? Package the installation up with an Auto-IT script. Using Auto-IT you can write a script that will launch your installation, select options or enter key presses, and finish the installation for you. Learning how to script in Auto-IT can save you a lot of time if you have a large number of computers to support. Also, if you are familiar with scripting or any other programming language you should find Auto IT easy to write in. I was pleasantly surprised at how straight forward the functions are. If this kind of automation sparks your interest, head over to Auto-IT's web-site to check it out.