If the box that came from the telephone company or cable company has more than one plug that looks like a wide telephone jack, chances are that you have a built in router.

This is what a DSL Modem/Router looks like from the back.

To check your computer’s security, go to Hacker Watch for a free security check.

To secure your computer, the first thing you need is a router. Every router has a hardware firewall. A router is the only device to appear on the Internet, and the router is a dumb device with no important data. Without a router, your computer is on the Internet, and there is important data on it. There are software firewalls but they are not nearly as effective as a routers hardware firewall. The built in firewall in Windows XP is particularly ineffective.

A router is not expensive, and it’s easy to connect. There are two basic types of routers: wired and wireless. A wired router may be purchased for as little as $10, while a wireless router for as little as $30. Every wireless router also has wired connections – usually 4 wired connections. For current prices, check your local office supply store.

A router connects with standard Ethernet connectors, sometimes called Category 5 Patch Cables. It simply connects between your cable or DSL modem and the computer. Some early modems connected with a USB connector instead of Ethernet. If you have one of these, call your DSL or cable provider and they will replace it. Many DSL modems have both USB and Ethernet connections. If yours is connected with USB but the modem has both USB and Ethernet connectors, you just need to find the original box – there will be an Ethernet cable in it, or you can buy one at any office supply store for about $5.

If you have a cable connection and a wired router, you’re done. If you have DSL, there is one more step.

Since DSL uses your telephone line, there are more than one ISP’s on the line. A DSL connection has to connect to the right ISP. You will have to uninstall the connection software that came with the DSL package and tell the router how to connect. To uninstall the connection software, click on “Start”, click on “Settings”, click on “Control Panel”, click on “Add/Remove Programs”. Find the software that came with DSL modem and remove it. To tell your router how to connect, bring up your web browser (usually Internet Explorer) and go to 192.168.1.1. That is the standard router address. If that address does not work, find the address of your router in the router manual. Also find the router password. You now need to define the connection type. It will be called DSL or PPPoE. Select that type of connection and enter your DSL account name and password from the paperwork that came with your DSL package. You’re done for a wired router.

If you have a wireless router, there is another step.

Since a wireless router broadcasts a signal over the air, it should be secured through encryption. The signal can travel about 300 feet under ideal conditions. Also, the router password should be changed to prevent a hacker from taking over your router. Standard passwords are well known. If you choose not to secure the signal, someone could park in front of your house, and hack into your system or download hours of illegal music and you would be liable.

To secure your wireless router, you need to activate WEP, WPA, WPA2 or encryption. Every router is a bit different, so check the router manual for instructions. You can also turn off wireless operation and use the router as a wired router.

The name for it is data transfer cap, they are almost the norm now, which means that high speed cable Internet isn’t as high speed as it used to be.

When cable Internet was new, it was not uncommon to realize download speeds of over 2 or 3mbs. In fact, I remember one user who was downloading at over 10mbs! Of course, in those early exciting days, the cable subscribers were few and shared bandwidth wasn’t a problem.

So many people access the internet every day, it is no wonder all these pages are slow since you and the rest of the world are zooming around downloading, uploading, and sucking up all the speed that is limited.

Many ISPs engineered their facilities in the 1990s to use dynamic capacity allocation to serve multiple bursty users. Each user is expected to use high speed transmission for only a short time, for example to download a megabyte web page in less than a second. When use is continuous, as for file sharing or Internet radio or streaming video, a few users who use the connection at high rates for hours at a time may seriously impair the service of others.

One type of bandwidth cap, administered by an Internet service provider simply limits the bitrate or speed of data transfer on a broadband Internet connection. The purpose of bandwidth capping is to prevent individual users from consuming the entire transmission capacity of the cable, a shared resource. Critics have charged that it is a method to charge consumers more by introducing tiered bandwidth caps.

Cable is a shared service which works like a LAN—a local area network. Your cable performance varies depending on how many people, in your neighborhood, are using the cable service at the same time.

If your whole neighborhood is using the cable service, then your Internet speed drops. However, if you are the only one using the cable service, your Internet speed could increase dramatically.

So your bandwidth could vary widely throughout the day. At least, with this shared bandwidth model, you have the chance to realize higher Internet speeds. Typically, early in the morning or late in the evening, you would notice better performance. However, this is changing. And the reason is due to capping.

As the broadband market increased, many cable providers began imposing data transfer caps. This goes back a few years, but many subscribers weren’t even aware of it—not aware why their download speeds seemed slower than originally advertised. Data transfer caps prevent you from exceeding a certain speed limit. Depending on your provider, the download caps could be under 256kbs or over 1.5mps.

What this means is that the shared bandwidth system no longer gives you any potential, at all, to achieve faster speeds. Even if you are the only person on the Internet, your bandwidth will never increase.

Again, consider yourself lucky if you have or can find a cable service provider that does not impose capping and that guarantees a minimum data transfer rate, not just a maximum one.

By the way, at the present time, my maximum cable download speed is 64kbs, but averages more often at 10kbs. I’ve been capped for the month by going over the transfer limit quota.

Dial-up Internet access

Dial-up Internet access is basically an analog access method using the standard telephone system with a maximum speed of 64,000 bits per second (bps). Typically the fastest actual access speed is closer to 52,000 bps.

If all you do is email and the occasional web site, a dial-up Internet access is sufficient. In the early days of the public Internet (1970-1990) most users accessed through this method with Internet Service Providers(ISP’s) like Compuserve, Prodigy, WebTV, AOL and Mindspring (now EarthLink).

With today’s media rich Internet dial-up is not able to provide sufficient access speed.

Broadband Internet access

To provide faster access Broadband became popular in the early 1990′s with ISDN service from the local telephone company.

ISDN provided speeds of about 144,000 bps and was soon replaced by more efficient methods providing even greater speeds.

Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) Internet Service

The Digital Subscriber Line or DSL replaced ISDN in the mid 1990′s and is now one of the most popular Internet Access Methods. DSL typically provides Internet access of 1,500,000 bps to 4,000,000 bps.

DSL is available from AT&T, which can be found on the Internet at att.com.

The speed you achieve with a DSL Internet connection is dependent on distance from the closest DSLAM. Generally if you are within 60,000 feet with copper wire service will get excellent results. AT&T is actively laying fiber optic cable around the country to improve DSL service even more. Those big orange cables being laid all over are fiber optic cables.

Cable Internet Service

Not to be out done local cable companies began offering Internet service in order to entice customers into the lucrative cable based telephone service. Cable Internet Access uses the existing broadband CATV cable and adds Internet access using a cable modem attached between a cable jack and your computer or or router.

In the Atlanta area cable Internet service is provided by:

• Comcast Cable
• Charter Cable
• Cox High Speed Internet

If you are not in the Atlanta area, you can locate your local U.S. cable Internet provider here.

Cable Internet service provides speeds up to 32,000,000 bps.

T-1 and T-3 Internet Service

T-1 Internet Service is a formerly popular service with businesses. It provided Internet service at only 1,500,000 bps at a high price. Cable and DSL now provide faster service at a lower price. T-1 is rapidly becoming obsolete.

T-3 service provide Internet access at speeds up to 44,736,000 bps, slightly faster than cable and it is still used by large companies.

VoIP Telephone Service

If you opt for DSL or other broadband Internet without telephone service, there are services available on the Internet to provide you with a telephone number. The telephone companies have been charging you to place long distance calls for years using the Internet.

It has an interesting history, and it involves one of our favorite web browsers of old: Netscape! the “Scape” will not go away, even if the three top web browsers combined tried to eliminate it from use. Yes, it is true that no one uses Netscape anymore, but we all have to respect the name and what it brought us in terms on internet and invention.

The first version of the RSS feed was called Resource Discription Framework(RDF), developed by a man named Ramanathan Guha at Netscape in 1999. The aim was to be the first to provide instant access to updated information say for a news site, to get the latest headlines instantly was huge back then. Now it is a thing of the past, funny how technology works, it is so fast that it leaves behind major inventions in the past like they were cavemen who made them, and it has only been a couple years!

After AOL bought Netscape and made some changes, the RSS was abandoned, but it would return through other developers. RSS feeds have become a popular way to stay informed on the internet. As if it was not easy to do that, with computer science at a very high level of innovation and user-accessibility the RSS is an add-on to an already booming information business.

What this add-on brings is knowledge of what is going on at a site that you do not have to be visiting. All you need to do is subscribe to the feed, usually by seeing this icon and clicking on it.

This little icon was used first as a symbol for Mozilla  Firefox’s web browser, and was brought back by Microsoft Internet Explorer an Outlook team in 2005.

Whenever the source of the feed, whether it be ESPN or a news station or even YouTube, has a new headline, video, or update, you will know by seeing the number of updates on the icon.

The new browser Rockmelt uses RSS feeds as one of its features connected to the browser. On the right hand side are feeds that you can subscribe to. The feeds are there for real easy access. I use it for email, if I am doing some business on another website, if an email comes into my Gmail account, how would I know? With the RSS feed for Gmail, I can see if anyone sent me an email. The icon even pops out so you can preview the message before you go to the site.

You can even subscribe to this blog, the Geek Choice Guy!

If we look at the router, it is really an amazing machine that is capable of fascinating feats for which we should be grateful for, I mean this little network tool makes our lives SO much easier. If we did not have the router, where would we be? Think about it, while you walk across the office to deliver something that could have been handled on a wireless network.

It all started back in Stanford with Bill Yeager who created the first router, which allowed for the wireless internet to blossom, as well as open many doors for the future. Yeager was asked originally to connect various departments at the school, he did much more than that. Back then they were only running on 56kb of memory, look how far it has have come!

Now that you know a little bit more about where router’s come from, let’s talk on improving that sometimes weak signal which is everyone’s enemy if you use wireless.

1. Place the router away from the wall. The signal that is being given off the router is too high to go through walls very good, and until we start using the television white space which is a much lower signal but can travel through walls, it is best that you position your device to a more accessible spot. Try placing the router in the middle of the room, house or office. It will be able to reach all the computers trying to access it better.
2. Keep it off the floor. If you put the router on the floor, the signal being sent to other networks will surely be slow because it is not able to receive the data packets being sent back to the router from your computer.
3. Do not put the router near metal objects. This is self-explanatory, metal objects can deflect signals and interrupt them, causing that annoying warning sign to piss you off.
4. Use a hi-gain antenna. The router comes with a regular antenna that sends a signal in all directions, if it is placed in your office then half of the signal is going out the window! A hi-gain antenna focuses on a certain direction, a better choice if you have a desktop computer.
5. Still weak? Try another type of router. This is called a wireless repeater, you still need your router, but the repeater will take the strong signal it gets in the office, and transmits it to the living room to supply the same strong signal to your laptop while enjoying the news.

If all else fails, just turn the router on and then wait for a couple minutes, then turn it on again. Resetting the router will boot it up again, it usually works to get a good signal after reset.

I don’t know about you, but I am sick of that stupid yellow sign that blocks my internet and keeps me from accessing work, finishing emails, and all the basic tasks the internet allows me to do with ease. Thanks to these tips though, I will never have that problem again. After all, ignorance is the only real problem, everything else is just details.

According to the Federal Communications Commission(FCC) definition of broadband, the average speed of all US internet connections is 4 megabits per second. Wow that is low, compared to other countries that you would never think have the fastest connection. South Korea is number one with 34.1 mbps, followed by Sweden with 22.2 mbps and Romania 20.3 mbps.

Barely any computers in the United States reach the standard the FCC set as a goal to reach 50 mbps connection speed by 2015.

This is disturbing to someone who thinks the connection speed is fine where it is and is really fast. Wrong, we could be number one with very fast connection speeds that could help advance communications, medical, and science fields. Since the United States is running on internet, if it is slow, then progress and advancement is slow as well. With slow connection speeds and low bandwidth, new and innovative networks cannot operate, thus leaving many jobs and opportunities unavailable.

Want to determine how fast your internet speed is? Check out this site here, click on the city that is nearest you and watch the speedometer go up as it clocks how fast you connection is. Sometimes it is fast, sometimes it is slow, but overall in America 4 mbps is molasses.

FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski repeated his call to redirect funds subsidizing traditional telephone service, in the Universal Service Fund, to broadband deployment, during a speech accompanying the release of the report. He also echoed CWA support for new net neutrality rules prohibiting broadband providers from selectively blocking or slowing Web traffic.

The solution is not yet defined, as there are so many different computers that might still be running on dial-up, it is uncertain how America will speed up its connection and join the race for the fastest, and by fastest I mean the leader of future technology.

“Broadband enables businesses to start and grow, and jobs to be created, anywhere in America, from the biggest urban city to the smallest rural town,” Genachowski said. “Broadband opens new markets, allowing businesses — small and large — to reach customers in the next neighborhood, the next city, the next state, and even overseas. And broadband allows the smallest business to have cutting-edge products and services that increase productivity and efficiency, reduce costs, and boost revenue.”

What this means is the ‘limited access’ connection you have outside Starbucks or any other source of public WiFi? No more, the “white space” would be opened up for wireless broadband connections that would create the Super WiFi hero. This hero has super powers that penetrate through walls, have a large capacity to cover more areas, and can take on a lot more networks.

Brian Connors, president of the oldest electromagnetic compatibility consulting firm in New England, called Connors Company, said in an interview:

“Think of the frequency of a whale, it’s sound can travel incredibly long distances across the ocean because it is a low frequency. In the EM spectrum high frequency and low frequency are in the millions and billions of cycles per second. So if you put WiFi on a low frequency, the information can travel like a whale’s call through walls!”

The Commission announced it’s big National Broadband Plan in hopes to entice investor’s to jump on board. The future is uncertain, but WiFi is already the most used connection to access the internet, so it is easy to see the great potential for this new technology to grow and become as common as T.V.’s are in every household.

Even rural areas will be covered. A test system was recently built in a town where they still used dial-up and had to pay big bucks for satellite broadband. They were in the dark ages until Super WiFi came and brought fast as light!

Regular WiFi uses 2.4GHz radio frequency .With the use of lower frequency white spaces between television channel frequencies, the signal can travel much further than the regular.

This solves the major problem regular WiFi has: short range. I cannot tell you how many times I have wanted to access a certain WiFi hot spot, times when I am in a hurry and need to check a site, and was unable due to a weak connection. The possibilities of a WiFi on steroids are endless.

One major possibility is a link to disaster zones. Suppose those of us who live on the East Coast get washed away after global warming melts the ice caps. Those of us floating all with out smartphones or iPads still intact will be able to communicate with rescue efforts to be saved! Another possibility is a home wireless network, where video can be sent between the television and computer. A North Carolina company that is testing out the Super WiFi is using the white space to send live feeds from traffic and surveillance cameras.

The future of wireless communications is getting better and better. With this National Broadband Plan we will be seeing new technologies come out that use the capability of Super WiFi to reach more people, connect more devices, and make life seem like a wireless world of wonder!

That is exactly what Geek Choice Blogs is here for: to answer any of those perplexing questions that you might have concerning your personal computer, laptop, or hand-held device. Right now there are a lot of new and exciting innovations coming out for web browsers, so we do not want you to miss out on the opportunity to learn about some of them.

Google actually hired several Firefox developers and built the first version of Chrome, impressing even the founder, Eric Schmidt, who was hesitant to enter the ongoing “browser wars” between Firefox, Internet Explorer, Safari and Opera. Google seems to be the one who jumps in front of the others in the action line, coming out with ideas from browsers like Firefox first. For instance, the graphical user interface which created the name “Chrome”, integrates the search and the address bar together to form a very easy to use interface.

The aim of every browser is to be fast, simple, and secure. Which does it the best? Let’s look at the record.

Chrome went through all the acid tests, 100 or so tests that are measured almost like the colors of a real acid test with litmus paper. Google passed all three with good colors, this is important to see as it gives us the truth about a browser that will not fail us.

Chrome certainly does not fail us on speed. Using a V8 engine, it revs up very fast power to surf the net, with the V8 JavaScript engine. In a speed test in 2008, Google flew by Firefox 3.0, two times faster with the V8 engine. Google did not stop there, they went even farther with SquirrelFish Extreme, marking a 36% improvement in speed over the V8 JavaScript Engine. Wow.

Enough jargon for today.

Basically, Google Chrome seems to be the one coming out with all the new toys and trinkets for web browsing. They started the “pages” idea, if you use Chrome then you notice how on the start page it is not just one page, it is all the ones you have visited most in the past. A pretty cool feature, making life using email and other jobs simple.

Now, for the headliner: Chrome 8. Right now it is in the experimental stages, so do not go searching the world wide web for the full version, as it does not exist yet. But guaranteed you will be impressed at the new features.

A search-as-you-type feature is something that goes along with the address bar as a search tool. What else? The searches are scanned by AVG! Talk about secure and safe, as well as useful. Typing a single letter will turn up a bunch of sites that are most related to it. It is like Java on steroids! No more having to wait 10 seconds for a search page to load, those days are in the past, welcome to the super-information highway.

Also in the new Chrome 8 there is the Cloud Printing feature, which allows you to print to your home printer from anywhere. Chrome just makes like easy.

So we have covered the aims that browsers need to meet the standards: fast, simple, and secure. What about better? Yes, we will see how Google Chrome battles it’s way to the top becoming “King of the Browser Mountain”.

How safe is your computer? If you use the internet you take the risk of catching a virus, like the cold it can be prevented if you take certain steps. No I am not talking about downloading the latest anti-virus software or the cool new tool that can fly around your computer like superman saving your files from the evil file corrupter.

I am talking about what is already on your computer, like your web browser whether that be Internet Explorer, Firefox, or Chrome, that have the tools you need to protect yourself. You can find these tools in the ‘Tools’ menu bar located at the top of your browser. Look at ‘options’ on Firefox or ‘security zones’ on Internet Explorer. By telling your browser exactly what type of sites it is allowed to visit and the level of restriction, you are ensuring that you will be protected from spyware, unwanted advertisements, and those “drive-by” downloads.

You may have heard recently that there was a big “drive-by” attack that hackers did on IE6. What happened was that hackers were able to get into a certain website and make links using the sites name to another website, which people visited, and got screwed because just by being on the site malicious software and viruses were downloaded to people’s computers.They are still doing it on IE8, so be careful.

That is just one example of how easy it is for hackers to get into your system, simply by taking over a website and waiting for a user to walk aimlessly into the site, unaware that they will be regretting not listening to this blog and taking the necessary steps to prevent such a thing!

One of these steps involves securing your email, particularly in Outlook. A common pitfall that is easily overlooked is the text. You have two choices: HTML-Text, or Plain Text, which is better? It is not a question of better, but safer. HTML might look good, but in the long run it is dangerous because this is where all those phishing scams thrive on. By using Plain Text it disables the Active Content that opens email attachments automatically, and allows safer emailing.

Instant Messaging worms have become more and more vicious and prevalent in today’s internet world. Be careful when talking with your friends online, be wary of ‘Away’ messages, because if you are chatting with someone who sent you a malicious worm or virus masquerading as a link somewhere infected you could be in for a bad time. You can usually tell when a message like in email that is suspicious.

Hackers are always looking for new ways to get into your computer and screw things up. Do not allow them to, especially during the holidays when you should be out gallivanting around with your family enjoying the holiday spirit.

The future is here. Rockmelt is here to reinvent the web. The primary purpose of Rockmelt is making the browser able to keep up with your friends, consume information, and search faster. It works on Windows and Mac’s right now for desktops and laptops. A Beta version is being released today, you can download it at rockmelt.com. If you go to the site, you will see an icon asking if you would like to be ‘Invited’ to use Rockmelt. Wow, it looks like this new browser is V.I.P. status, and you get on the list until they are  ready to let you in.

What is cool is that the CEO of Netscape, Marc Andreeson who helped start the Netscape Communications Corp., is fighting back against the same web browsers that put him out of business. He is doing that by funding these two men who founded Rockmelt, Eric Vishria and Tim Howes, and they are looking to change the way we use the internet.

In an interview with them on YouTube, they gave a sneak peak at the features of Rockmelt and what the catalyst is for the change. Instead of just an ordinary web browser like Chrome or Firefox where you click on a search link, wait for it to load, and then go back to the search page, Rockmelt turns the internet into a magazine enabling you to ‘turn the page’ so to speak. This sounds like a new era in the Internet age. Everything is on the internet, and it seems like everyone is on Facebook, so by integrating these two into one browser, Rockmelt can open the door to new ways to game, commerce, or just socialize.

The test of the browser was actually performed through Google’s web browser Chromium, but it can be used through Firefox or Internet Explorer. One requirement to be able to use the features of Rockmelt is having a Facebook account. If you have an account, and you get invited, then you are able to look at your friends to see who is doing what on a side-panel. On the other side-panel to the right is your favorite sites that you visit the most, and in between is the ‘magazine’ style search engine and a faster way to surf.

Netscape is back in action by sneaking in the back door with a whole new way to browse the web. Do not be surprised to see this type of browser become the main stream of using the internet.  Be sure to check out YouTube’s video of Rockmelt, as well as sign up to get into this new and exciting way to use the internet.