Book description
The beauty of a home network is that it can make life so easy--what could be better than sharing an Internet connection so that everyone can be online at the same time? With home networking you can move files from one computer to another, share resources, print to a single printer or multiple printers from any computer in the house, and IM the kids when they're holed up in their rooms. And the downside? Anyone who's ever had to troubleshoot a network glitch doesn't need to ask that question. The simple words, "Why can't I print? Why can't I get to the Internet? Why does my computer say 'Access Denied' today, when it worked fine yesterday?" are enough to send the home network administrator running for cover. And the concept of "network security" can keep the soundest sleeper tossing and turning all night.Currently, more than 8 million homes in the US have installed a network of some kind, and within five years, that number is expected to jump to 37 million. This speaks to the availability of easy-to-install home networking products. Unfortunately, there's also a glut of potential headaches that can occur after installation (and during, sometimes) with no warning label on the box saying, "This product sure to cause annoyances."But help is here. Home Networking Annoyances will ease the headaches and annoyances of anyone who runs a home network. This book tackles all the common annoyances associated with running your network--whether it's wired or wireless, or a combination thereof. Its friendly, off-the-cuff approach will put you in a position of power over those home networking glitches, including file sharing, printing, cabling, security, and much more. You'll find dozens of on-target tips, workarounds, and fixes that will help you improve your home networking experience in every way possible.Whether you're a mainstream business user or a home user with newly installed network hardware, you've probably had your patience tested by frustrating network maintenance issues. Take a stand against annoyances now: just as the bestselling PC Annoyances brought peace and happiness to PC users everywhere, Home Networking Annoyances is your ticket to serenity.
Publisher resources
Table of contents
- Introduction
-
1. Hardware Annoyances
- NETWORK ADAPTER ANNOYANCES
-
ETHERNET HARDWARE ANNOYANCES
- CABLING BETWEEN ADJACENT ROOMS
- CABLING BETWEEN NONADJACENT ROOMS
- CABLING BETWEEN FLOORS
- SIGNAL INTERFERENCE
- CABLING OUTSIDE THE WALLS—INSIDE THE ROOM
- MANAGING THE CABLE BETWEEN THE WALL AND THE COMPUTER
- WALL JACKS
- ADDING A HUB TO THE SYSTEM
- DECIDING BETWEEN A HUB AND A SWITCH
- MIXING COMMUNICATION SPEEDS
- MAKING YOUR OWN CABLE
- PATCH VERSUS CROSSOVER CABLE
- CABLE DISTANCE LIMITS
- PHONELINE HARDWARE ANNOYANCES
-
POWERLINE HARDWARE ANNOYANCES
- LOOK FOR THE HOMEPLUG LOGO
- POWER STRIPS AND POWERLINE DEVICES
- POWERLINE NETWORKING FROM THE DECK OR VERANDA
- INSTALLATION SOFTWARE IS A MUST
- WHAT’S THE SECURITY RISK FOR POWERLINE NETWORKS?
- SECURITY PASSWORDS MUST MATCH
- CHANGE THE DEFAULT SECURITY PASSWORD
- MIXING POWERLINE WITH OTHER NETWORK TOPOLOGIES
-
WIRELESS HARDWARE ANNOYANCES
- YOUR ELECTRIC GARAGE DOOR ISN’T A PROBLEM
- AVOIDING STUFF THAT BLOCKS WIRELESS TRANSMISSIONS
- WORKING WITH OMNIDIRECTIONAL ANTENNAS
- DO I NEED A DIRECTIONAL ANTENNA?
- SIGNAL DISTANCE PROBLEMS
- DON’T GET TOO CLOSE TO THE ROUTER
- DISTANCE, BUT NO SPEED
- GIVE YOUR SIGNAL A BOOST
- ROUTERS ARE ALSO ACCESS POINTS
- TROUBLESHOOTING AND TECH-SUPPORT ANNOYANCES
-
2. Software Annoyances
- CONFIGURING NETWORK ADAPTERS
-
CONFIGURING ROUTERS
- ENTERING INFORMATION FROM YOUR ISP
- GETTING TO THE ROUTER
- LOST ROUTER LOGIN NAME OR PASSWORD
- WHY CHANGE THE LOGIN DATA FOR ROUTERS?
- WHAT’S DHCP AND WHERE CAN I GET SOME?
- MAC ADDRESS? I DON’T HAVE A MAC!
- OH NO, MY COMPUTER IS USING APIPA
- SWITCHING LAPTOP IP ADDRESS SETTINGS BETWEEN WORK AND HOME
- CAN’T LOG ON TO DIFFERENT NETWORKS WITH ALTERNATE CONFIGURATION
- NETWORK SWITCHING PROGRAMS
- LAPTOP HAS MULTIPLE LOCAL NETWORK CONNECTIONS
-
CONFIGURING AND MANAGING USERS
- ONLY ONE MY DOCUMENTS FOLDER IN WINDOWS 98SE/ME
- ENABLE USER PROFILES IN WINDOWS 98SE/ME
- AUTOMATIC USER PROFILE FOLDERS CAN FOOL YOU
- CREATE USERS THE RIGHT WAY IN WINDOWS 98SE/ME
- CHANGE USER PROFILE SETTINGS IN WINDOWS 98SE/ME
- MOVE THE MY DOCUMENTS FOLDER
- DOCUMENTS DON’T TRAVEL WITH THE MY DOCUMENTS FOLDER
- SEE A LIST OF USERNAMES WHEN YOU LOG ON TO WINDOWS 98SE/ME
- FAMILY LOGON ISN’T AVAILABLE
- CAN’T ADD NAMES TO THE FAMILY LOGON USER LIST
- EARLIER VERSIONS OF WINDOWS ARE NOT SECURE
- CAN’T BYPASS THE USER LIST IN WINDOWS XP
- ELIMINATING PASSWORDS ISN’T A GOOD IDEA
- ONLY COMPUTER ADMINISTRATORS CAN CREATE USERS IN WINDOWS 2000/XP
- LOGON WINDOW DOESN’T INDICATE ACCOUNT TYPE
- PASSWORD DISKS ARE LIFE SAVERS!
- CONFIGURING THE DESKTOP
-
INSTANT MESSENGER ANNOYANCES
- USE MESSENGER TO CHAT ACROSS THE NETWORK
- SOME MESSENGER FEATURES ARE BLOCKED BY FIREWALLS
- CONFIGURE WINDOWS XP SP2 FIREWALL FOR UPNP
- CONFIGURE SOFTWARE FIREWALLS FOR UPNP
- CONFIGURE ROUTER FIREWALLS FOR UPNP
- STOP MESSENGER FROM OPENING AT STARTUP
- REMOVE WINDOWS MESSENGER FROM WINDOWS XP
- USE BUILT-IN MESSAGING UTILITIES
- CAN’T FIND WINPOPUP.EXE?
- SOFTWARE SUPPORT ANNOYANCES
-
3. Network Access Annoyances
- FINDING COMPUTERS ON YOUR NETWORK
-
TROUBLESHOOTING NETWORK CONNECTIVITY
- NEW COMPUTERS DON’T COME TO THE NEIGHBORHOOD
- TURNED OFF COMPUTERS STILL IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD
- WORKGROUP NAME MUST BE IDENTICAL ON ALL COMPUTERS
- ERROR MESSAGE ISN’T SPECIFIC
- INSTALL FILE AND PRINTER SHARING SERVICES
- NETBIOS OVER TCP/IP MUST BE ENABLED
- OPEN NETWORK PROPERTIES QUICKLY
- PING NETWORK COMPUTERS
- PING FAILURES
- PING AN IP ADDRESS
- FIND A COMPUTER’S IP ADDRESS
-
MY NETWORK PLACES NEEDS HOUSEKEEPING
- CLEAN OUT THE CLUTTER
- LOCAL FOLDERS SHOW UP IN MY NETWORK PLACES
- GET RID OF THE ALPHABET BREAKS IN MY NETWORK PLACES
- STOP SHORTCUTS FROM APPEARING IN MY NETWORK PLACES
- SHARES YOU NEVER ACCESSED APPEAR IN MY NETWORK PLACES
- DISABLE THE SEARCH FOR NEW SHARED RESOURCES
- A NETWORK SHORTCUT STOPS WORKING
- CREATE YOUR OWN SHORTCUTS FOR MY NETWORK PLACES
- NETWORK SHORTCUTS FOR OLDER VERSIONS OF WINDOWS
-
MAPPED DRIVES
- CREATE A MAPPED DRIVE QUICKLY
- CHOOSE A DRIVE LETTER FOR A MAPPED DRIVE
- AUTOMATICALLY RECONNECT A MAPPED DRIVE
- WINDOWS 98SE AUTOMATIC RECONNECTION OPTIONS
- FAILED AUTOMATIC RECONNECTIONS IN WINDOWS XP
- FAILED AUTOMATIC RECONNECTIONS IN WINDOWS 2000
- FAILED AUTOMATIC RECONNECTIONS IN WINDOWS 98SE
- DISCONNECT MEANS DELETE THE MAPPED DRIVE LETTER
- CAN’T MAP A NETWORK SHORTCUT
- MAP SHARED PARENT FOLDERS
- PREVENT THE SHARE FROM OPENING WHEN YOU MAP A DRIVE
- USE THE COMMAND LINE TO MAP A DRIVE
- MAP SUBFOLDERS OF SHARED FOLDERS
- DETERMINE THE AVAILABLE DRIVE LETTERS
- LET THE COMPUTER PICK THE DRIVE LETTER FOR A MAPPED DRIVE
- PERMANENT VERSUS TEMPORARY MAPPED DRIVES
- MANIPULATE FILES BETWEEN LOCAL AND MAPPED DRIVES
- OTHER USERS DON’T HAVE THE MAPPED DRIVES
-
4. File-Sharing Annoyances
- ACCESSING FILES ON REMOTE COMPUTERS
-
MANIPULATING FILES ON THE NETWORK
- DRAG FILES BETWEEN COMPUTERS
- WINDOWS EXPLORER DISPLAY IS ANNOYING
- MOVING VERSUS COPYING
- USE THE SEND TO COMMAND TO COPY FILES AND FOLDERS
- MY SEND TO FOLDER IS MISSING
- THE WEIRDNESS OF THE RECYCLE BIN
- USE REMOTE FILES IN SOFTWARE
- CAN’T SAVE FILES ON THE REMOTE COMPUTER?
- FILE CONTENTS CHANGE MYSTERIOUSLY
- USE SOFTWARE THAT PERMITS SIMULTANEOUS USERS OF THE SAME FILE
- COLLABORATING ON FILES
- CREATE A FILE SERVER
- MAP LOCAL FOLDERS TO DRIVE LETTERS
- SAVING DATABASE DATAFILES
- DATABASE FILE LOCKING
- TEMPORARY FILE LOCKING OF DATABASE DATAFILES
- BACK UP DATABASE FILES TO REMOTE COMPUTERS
- USING SOFTWARE ON A REMOTE COMPUTER
- NETWORK ENTERTAINMENT CENTERS
-
5. Network Printing Annoyances
- SHARED PRINTER ANNOYANCES
- INSTALLING REMOTE (NETWORK) PRINTERS
- MANAGING NETWORK PRINTING
-
TROUBLESHOOTING NETWORK PRINTERS
- WINDOWS 9X CAN SHOW A PRINTER AS READY WHEN IT ISN’T
- WINDOWS 9X PRINTER STATUS MESSAGES CAN CONFUSE YOU
- WINDOWS XP PRINTER STATUS MESSAGE CAN DISAPPEAR
- CHECK THE PRINT SERVER’S STATUS
- PRINT SERVER LOGON STATUS DOESN’T MATTER
- WHAT HAPPENED TO MY DEFAULT PRINTER?
- NOTEPAD CAN’T CHANGE PRINTERS
- MOVE PRINT JOBS TO ANOTHER PRINTER
- TOO MANY USERS CONNECTED TO THE PRINT SERVER
- NEW CONNECTION NOT AVAILABLE WHEN ONE USER STOPS PRINTING
- USING PRINT FILES
- NETWORK PRINTING AND MS-DOS
-
6. Shared Internet Connection Annoyances
- ISP RULES: CUTTING THROUGH THE CONFUSION
-
DIAL-UP CONNECTION-SHARING ANNOYANCES
- DIAL-UP CONNECTION DOESN’T REMEMBER LOGIN INFORMATION
- DIAL-UP CONNECTION DOESN’T OPEN AUTOMATICALLY
- WINDOWS XP FIREWALL AND DIAL-UP CONNECTIONS
- DIAL-UP CONNECTION FIREWALL PROTECTS THE ENTIRE NETWORK
- PUT A DIAL-UP CONNECTION ICON ON THE TASK BAR
- CLOSE THE CONNECTION FROM CLIENT COMPUTERS
- CONNECTION TERMINATES UNEXPECTEDLY
- TERMINATE AN IDLE CONNECTION
- NETWORK TCP/IP SETTINGS CHANGED AFTER ENABLING ICS
-
SHARED BROADBAND ANNOYANCES
- OUTGROWING YOUR ROUTER?
- WIRELESS ROUTER IN A WIRED NETWORK?
- CABLE MODEM SPEED VARIATIONS
- CABLE ACCESS UPLOAD AND DOWNLOAD SPEED DIFFERENCES
- UNCAP CABLE MODEM SPEED
- BUY YOUR OWN CABLE MODEM AND SAVE MONEY
- ENHANCE YOUR DSL SPEED
- DSL UPLOAD AND DOWNLOAD SPEED DIFFERENCES
- DSL LINE FILTERS
- DSL AND HOME SECURITY SYSTEMS
- BUYING DSL SERVICE FROM THIRD-PARTY PROVIDERS
- ROUTERS ARE NOT SPECIFIC TO MODEM TYPES
- ROUTERS AND FIREWALLS
- WIRELESS ACCESS TO A WIRED ROUTER
- CONNECT PHONELINE AND POWERLINE DEVICES TO A ROUTER
- BROADBAND TECHNICAL SUPPORT ANNOYANCES
- EMAIL ANNOYANCES
- AOL ANNOYANCES
-
7. Security Annoyances
-
FIREWALL
- FIREWALL? WHERE’S THE FIRE?
- WINDOWS XP FIREWALL HALTS NETWORK TRAFFIC
- WINDOWS XP SERVICE PACK 2 OFFERS IMPROVED FIREWALL
- SHARED TELEPHONE MODEMS NEED FIREWALLS
- WINDOWS XP FIREWALL FOR BROADBAND-BASED ICS
- SAFEGUARDING OLDER COMPUTERS
- ROUTERS CAN PROTECT YOUR NETWORK
- STATEFUL INSPECTION CAN TELL WHO’S LYING
- SOFTWARE FIREWALLS GO BOTH WAYS
- STOP FIREWALL POP-UP NOTIFICATIONS
- DON’T BLOCK OUTGOING FIREWALL POP-UP NOTIFICATIONS
- APPROVED OUTGOING PROGRAMS ASK FOR PERMISSION AGAIN
- CHECK THE PROGRAM BEFORE YOU GIVE PERMISSION
- WHICH COMPUTERS SHOULD HAVE A SOFTWARE FIREWALL?
- TEST THE FIREWALL
-
VIRUSES, WORMS, AND OTHER SLIMY CREATURES
- ANTIVIRUS SOFTWARE SLOWS ME DOWN
- YOU DON’T NEED EMAIL TO GET A VIRUS
- A VIRUS DISGUISED AS A DOCUMENT
- VIRUS SCAN TAKES FOREVER
- SELECT MAPPED DRIVES FOR A VIRUS SCAN
- SCAN TWO DRIVES
- SCAN THE ENTIRE NETWORK
- WHAT’S HEURISTIC SCANNING?
- SCHEDULE SCANS FOR THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT
- WHAT’S WITH THIS CONSTANT UPDATING?
- ANTIVIRUS PROGRAM UPDATE REQUIRES A REBOOT
- TURN OFF AUTOMATIC UPDATING
- MY ISP SCANS FOR VIRUSES, WHY SHOULD I?
- ANTIVIRUS SOFTWARE WON’T INSTALL
- DON’T GET FOOLED BY VIRUS HOAXES
- WIRELESS SECURITY ISSUES
-
FILE AND FOLDER SECURITY
- USER-LEVEL CONTROLS IN WINDOWS 98SE/ME
- DEFAULT PERMISSION OPTIONS FOR SHARE-LEVEL CONTROLS
- LOCAL USERS DON’T NEED A PASSWORD TO ACCESS A PROTECTED FOLDER
- DEFAULT PERMISSION OPTIONS FOR SHARED FOLDERS IN WINDOWS XP
- SHARE THE WINDOWS XP SHARED DOCUMENTS FOLDER OVER THE NETWORK
- FIND THE SHARED DOCUMENTS FOLDER ON THE NETWORK
- PRIVATE FOLDER FEATURE IN WINDOWS XP REQUIRES NTFS
- SOME FOLDERS CAN’T BE MARKED PRIVATE
- TURN SIMPLE FILE SHARING OFF IN WINDOWS XP PROFESSIONAL
- INSTALL SOFTWARE AND MAKE IT PRIVATE IN WINDOWS XP HOME EDITION
- MAKE SOFTWARE DATAFILES PRIVATE IN WINDOWS XP HOME EDITION
- SHARE SOME, BUT NOT ALL, OF YOUR DOCUMENTS
- WORK ON PRIVATE DOCUMENTS FROM A REMOTE COMPUTER
- HIDE SHARED FOLDERS
- HIDDEN SHARES WITH SHARED PARENT FOLDERS AREN’T REALLY HIDDEN
- WHO’S VISITING MY COMPUTER?
- INSTALL NET WATCHER
- DISCONNECT REMOTE USERS
-
FIREWALL
-
8. Network Maintenance Annoyances
- DOCUMENTATION AND RECORD KEEPING
-
BACKING UP INFORMATION
- BACKING UP ENTIRE DRIVES ISN’T NECESSARY
- INSTALL BACKUP EQUIPMENT ON ONE COMPUTER
- CHOOSING A BACKUP DEVICE
- ROTATE BACKUP DISKS
- USING BACKUP SOFTWARE
- AUTOMATE BACKUP SOFTWARE
- CAN’T FIND WINDOWS BACKUP SOFTWARE IN WINDOWS XP HOME EDITION
- MY COMPUTER DIDN’T COME WITH A WINDOWS CD
- USE THE SEND TO COMMAND FOR COPYING USER DATA
- MY DOCUMENTS HAS NO SEND TO COMMAND ON THE SHORTCUT MENU
- BACKUP DATA NOT KEPT IN MY DOCUMENTS
- BACK UP FAVORITES AND COOKIES
- USE A BATCH FILE TO BACK UP DATA
- CREATE BATCH FILES THAT COPY FILES FOR MULTIPLE USERS
- EXIT COMMAND DOESN’T WORK IN OLDER WINDOWS VERSIONS
- AUTOMATE BACKUP BATCH FILES
- TOP-DOWN BACKUPS ARE EASIER
- CLEAN OUT THE BACKED-UP DATA FOLDERS
- BACKING UP TO CDS
- ENFORCE THE “BACK UP YOUR FILES” RULE
- UPGRADING THE NETWORK
- A. Expanding the Network
- Index
- About the Author
- Colophon
- Copyright
Product information
- Title: Home Networking Annoyances
- Author(s):
- Release date: January 2005
- Publisher(s): O'Reilly Media, Inc.
- ISBN: 9780596008086
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