Yep I pull the plug out regularly too.

Look out for a seller on eBay called Puzbie. He sells a variety of new and refurbished modems and routers, particularly from the BT range and some of them are unlocked and can be used immediately with other ISPs. Puzbie is extremely service oriented and I would very much like to recommend him to you, having used him myself.

He has an excellent web site at http://www.puzbie.co.uk/php/home.php with lots of really good information. There is also a Forum on the site.

Sometimes, the prices his stuff goes for on eBay are a little less than they are from those asked on the web site. Do take Delivery Costs in to account though.

I did a search on eBay seller 'Puzbie' and came up with the following:

http://search.ebay.co.uk/_W0QQsassZpuzbieQQfrppZ50QQfsopZ1QQfsooZ1QQrdZ0

There is usually a way of saving the router configuration to disk, at least I can with my Netgear router. On one occasion that I had to reset the router (power cycle) it did actually lose the configuration. Logged into it and restored from the PC and off we went.

Hil, I'm surprised that you broke the router by pulling the DC jack. I suspect that the router died before you pulled the jack . . . power cycling it was probably just the coup de grace.

I'm surprised that pulling the plug kills a router, but some that I have known appear to have some sort of battery backup. If that fails then all settings are lost on power down.

It may have broke because I was standing on it when I pulled the plug out.

:o)

Here's how you find your username and password which is pre-configured into Sky Netgear routers.

1. log into the Netgear router by typing this into your browser address bar: 192.168.0.1

2. Enter the username 'admin' and password 'sky'.

3. Enter the following url into your browser (without the spaces I've inserted to stop a 'click here' hyperlink forming) http:// 192.168.0.1setup.cgi?todo=ping_test&c4_IPAddr=%26/bin/grep+ppoa_+/tmp/nvram+%3E+/www/netgear.cfg

4. Press enter, and then type: http:// 192.168.0.1/netgear.cfg

5. Press enter and save the file to your desktop. Open the file in notpead and you will see your Sky Username and Password listed.

Thanks everyone for the advice.

Turns out that was a great tip, Kayak - I have now stood the stupid thing upright (and yes I had noticed it was a bit warm, only because I had to switch it off and on so much, otherwise I wouldn't normally have touched it). And the connectivity has now vastly improved.

I have the same mindset as Jeffie, and said as much to BT with regard to not renewing the contract (which would have been in May) and the ensuing problems, and they didn't deny it!

But all in all, what with the flurry of increasingly persistant Windows updates and apparent conflicts with McAfee, and McAfee also bombarding me with pop-ups invoking me to renew my subscription which falls due in a few weeks' time (which made me wonder as well) - and the fact that their spamkiller doesn't work - I am for now a contented ex-McAfee-user.

As for buying a new router - too right I was fed up with the time wasting, I just couldn't figure out why! Might as well bite the bullet with BT again then, just that I don't take to being held over a barrel ;)

Edit: Actually, after what several of you have said, I'll find out first if BT have anything superior to this home hub thingie before I submit :)

chocolat

Check out Demon but consider buying your own router.

They don't have problems.

Thanks Optimist.
We've been using them at work for years for email and our company website. Unfortunately, when we networked our machines a couple of years ago via BT, the job of migrating was never quite finished, so we're still on dial-up with Demon through a stand-alone jobbie :S
I've been working from home for the best part of a year now, and the first thing I did was register some 'normal' email addresses for Mr Grumpy and our manager, and this at least made work less complicated. We've been talking forever about rationalising home and work to one network, which is another reason I have stalled with BT. Trouble is, on any one day there are always too many other problems to attack.

Anyway - a very nice man at ODL has told me this morning that Mt4 connects out on port 443 so I should put in an exception to allow unfettered outbound connections on tcp port 443. Could someone please tell me how to add a port in the firewall, before I go and bugger something else up? (Everything's relatively tickety-boo at the moment, thank you Kayak :)
He also said (and this might be of interest to you, Hil) that he has always had issues with Netgear firewalls so I should avoid those - he recommends Belkin and BT branded ones.

Oh yes - any advice on MoneyAM ports/my internet settings?

443 is the standard https port, it will already be open.

Glad to hear the router overheating was the problem, you might like to replace the router before it goes totally belly up.

I'm running out of space on my photo studio PC.

I have an assortment of external Maxtor drives and use one attached to the PC permanently and two for removeable backups. I'm happy with them and see no reason to change brands

I've been Googling to see what is now on offer and see this Maxtor.

What appeals is the Safety Drill element as, if it works, it's a neat way of adding a system restore facility. Yes, I know I should have been using Acronis for ages - but if the Maxtor software works it would get me safer in one step.

Has anyone come across it around here?

TP

TP

I've not seen it before, but it looks very nice. Especially useful is the encryption, although I couldn't see where it stated what the level of encryption is.

If you are running out of disk space, your best bet is to buy a big hard drive for around 60, get hold of a free version of Paragon Partition Manager and use it to clone your entire disk to the new one.

Once you have swapped them over, put the old one in a fireproof data safe. You will then have a system with loads of space on it and a secure system backup.

Opt,

Yes, your's is a better solution. Reading about the Safety Drill it seems it only works if the new hard drive is the same size as the one that failed - and I can see problems in this.

I am not sure that I'd trust myself to swop in a new hard drive and clone the old one - but I am sure I ought to be able to find someone who does it almost daily.

TP

Choccie - download free Zonealarm firewall and use instead of McCaffee , isn't that what you use too Kayak ?

No I don't use a firewall. You really don't need one if you have a router since you do not broadcast your IP address to the outside world.

Try FREE Avast 4 Home Edition from

http://www.avast.com/index.html

Should you ever need it, there's Technical support and also a Discussion Forum

I'd also recommend CCleaner for cleaning out the crap and SuperAntiSpyware Free Edition to get rid of Spyware and Malware.

Actually, I find that after a sweep with CCleaner, there's not a lot left to be found by SAS Free Edition. Also, SAS Free Edition is tons better, I feel, than Ad-Aware and Spybot Search & Destroy.

For some reason, CCleaner (Crap Cleaner) is my most used program. ;-)

When I'm shopping on the Internet, first I use the Shopping search facility at Google.co.uk It absolutely wipes the floor, when compared with anything else.

Next I investigate if there are any cashback facilities available to me from the cashback introduction sites, like Quidco for example, and see if my target Internet shopping web site offers any cashback for the Quidco introduction.

Here's an example of some shrewd Internet shopping utilising the facilities of CCleaner:

Having visited VirginMedia to investigate Virgin Broadband as an ISP, I then go to the Quidco cashback web site and find out that Quidco account holders get a 100 cashback from Virgin Media for shopping with Virgin Media via the Quidco route. 100 eh? WOW!

HOWEVER, you wouldn't get the 100 if there is a Virgin Media cookie already on your machine when you go to the Virgin Media web site to sign on. So....

I would use CCleaner to housekeep any unwanted cookies out of my machine, such as any and all Virgin cookies. Next I would go to Quidco and sign on. Then I would click on the Quidco link to Virgin Media and thus ensure the introduction shows as being originated at Quidco and thus ensuring I do actually get the 100 cashback paid out. You can be sure it would not be paid out otherwise because it could be proved by Virgin Media that Quidco introduced the shopper when Virgin and Quidco run their mutual shopper introduction link software checks.

Obviously, I'm selectively deleting cookies. CCleaner makes this extremely easy for me to do.

TP

Cloning the disk is not difficult.

You connect the new disk (easiest way is with a USB adapter if you have one) and Paragon will do the rest. There is no risk because your original disk is not altered.

Opt,

That makes it sound easier.

In fact I have two drives in the machine. A smaller drive C which contains the operating system and the programs. A larger drive D that contains some of my photos.

I can live with that drive D as long as I have some external hard disk space and that was why I was looking at the Maxtor.

I suppose one solution is to let Paragon clone me a copy of drive C and to put that somewhere safe for the day when (not if I know) my drive C dies. And then I assume it is simply a matter of swopping the ribbon cable in from the old C to the new one.

I have yet to look but I assume you can get temporary external housings so that the C that I've just bought can plug in to the USB.

And I expand my on line storeage with a big Maxtor.

TP

When i start my laptop, i always get my wifes hotmail window pop up, which i then have to close, how do i stop it popping up automatically?
Thanks.
d.

Dailos

Easiest way is for you and your wife to use different usernames to log into the computer.