You dont really need a firewall on your PC if your router has a firewall and if its switched on.

Don't fall for the Flash Drive Scam

Some Chinese 'hackers' are selling flash drives with less memory than they advertise. eBay traders have apparently sold thousands of 'hacked' flash drives from China. The problem is that the hackers change a log file that makes the flash drive think it has more memory than it does. When you receive the drive, if you right click and go to properties it will display a larger amount of memory than it really has- so when you put data on it that exceeds it's actual memory, old data will be deleted. This problem is nearly impossibly for the average person to detect because the flash drive looks and works normally- until it's memory is filled.

The drives seen were supposedly 250Gb and cost just 25.00.

"If it looks too good to be true, it probably is," definitely applies in this case.

Re my earlier post - 9349

It;s improved a bit, bit I've still had one occasion when I had a warning about the "boot configuration data" has had been the case before deleting the Dell Utility.

Initial boot is a bit faster than it had been, as is the case with Firefox and Thunderbird. I still get a (shorter) delay in getting in to my homepage on MoneyAm etc.

Hmmm? An 'i5 computer processor' or an 'i7 computer processor'?

What's the difference?

Now there's a question.

Here's an answer and a great explanation on why the i7 is better than the i5

:-) :-)

One of my external hard drives did a wobbly yesterday - so it's WPB time before it ends in tears.

I like ExecLine's Computer Doctors choice of gear. They are suggesting this at a price very similar to the one linked at Amazon. I did this link as it showed some highly positive reviews. And I could not get the CD link to work!

TP

TP,

Given your dependence on reliable large storage devices, is it worth considering RAID devices such as this?

MM

Yes, MM.

I thought about RAID when I woke up this morning. I need to do a bit of reading.

At 193 I assume it comes with a 1Tb drive and I'd need to buy a second one like the Seagate at 47. My limited understanding of RAID is that then give me 1tb of protected data. Snag is that I already need more space so I'd need to get something larger.

Another factor to consider is that I always back up my photos to portable drives as I have to be covered against any damage (water, fire, theft) to my studio and these portables live in my apartment.

So I'm not like an operation that cannot survive a disk crash (yes I lose a day's work but that's all) as my photos are always in two places. So I could live with an array of those 1tg Samsungs as long as they are always backed up.

But I am happy to go down the RAID route - just need some more research I guess.

TP

I'm having a headache with wireless devices dropping their WiFi connection, and Sky are of the opinion it's probably the router (white Netgear D834GT) which is playing up. I've read elsewhere that a high noise attenuation (is that right???) can cause the connection to drop.

How do I check what the noise attenuation is please, and how do I know whether it's too high?

Hi everyone.

I've started using a new PC today. However I can't get Level 2 to open.

I'd guess this has been covered before but, to save me looking back over 9000 posts, can anyone give me a pointer?

Thanks.

If the cornflakes jump out of your bowlyou are obviously playing agadoo too loud!

Ref. 9358, I've got it sorted.

Pop-up blocker was preventing Level 2 window opening.

Hils

To help you get your statistics, have a look at this site:

http://www.kitz.co.uk/adsl/frogstats.php

I had the BT man round just before Christmas. He plugged my router into the main socket to make a connection and then disconnected the other phone extensions from the back of it to show me that it was other telephone extension lines in the house that were causing me a problem.

We then fitted a BT ADSL Adaptor Front Plate to the main socket and fed the router direct from that.

See http://www.clarity.it/telecoms/adsl_faceplate.htm

Ta Doc,

They've already had us replace the micro-filters, plus we've taken the socket apart and plugged straight into the back of it, and they've also updated the router firmware remotely. My attenuation is currently 18.5/10.6 db which seems OK from what I've read.

Presumably I need to check the attenuation again the next time that it drops connection?

I've carried on reading ....

My Noise Margin is 9.6/8.0 db which is described as "fair but does not leave much room for variances in conditions". I wonder if this might be causing the problem.

Would this low value be as a result of a poor line? Would a new router improve this figure?

And did you get any improvements from the doing of all that?

The faceplate thingummy is a neater way of permanently doing the equivalent of "plus we've taken the socket apart and plugged straight into the back of it".

If everything checks out OK, I am wondering if you might have got a contention issue?

I often wonder too, if some exchange engineer is 'switching everyone off' to 'switch a new customer on', sorta kinda.....?

Plugging into the back of the socket made no difference whatsoever, Doc. It was simply one of the tests that the Sky chappie in Bangalore insisted that we do before he'd transfer me to his supervisor.

For the moment, I've downloaded this gizmo so that we've got a log of performance over the next couple of days. I'll then speak to Sky again.

It would be interesting though to find out what others think about the noise margin, and whether they feel it's too low and if they feel a new router might improve it, or whether I need to be badgering Sky into doing something about the line quality.

Hils If you interrogate yr router. the statistics page will give you line attenuation and noise margins. The most important are noise margins. My router has noise margins of 10.5 upstream and downstream and I have no wifi problems.

192.168.0.1 for access and default Sky user name is admin and password is sky

Hope this helps

Bob

Hil,

For the life of me, I can't see what the broadband line noise margin has to do with WiFi connections dropping.

The broadband connection may be eractic, but the WiFi should remain connected - i.e., the device to router connection should not be affected, even if the broadband (Internet) connection drops.

There *may* be a router problem - although I use a Netgear DG834g ADSL modem and have no trouble with wireless.

Have you checked which channel you/your immediate neighbours are using?

With 802.11 G, there are actually only three non-overlapping chunks of spectrum - channels 1, 6, and 11.

At the extremities of coverage, it helps if you're not using the same channel as your neighbour.

There's more - lots more - but let me see if I'm on the right track first.

Delboy

Thanks, Bob, but I managed to find the stats link on the router homepage earlier today after Doc posted. I hadn't been able to see it for looking previously.

The problem with using the router homepage though is that it polls a refresh at regular intervals, but doesn't save the results. The utility I posted in 9365 not only saves the results, but also calculates an average value and also plots graphs to show when spikes occur. From that I should be able to check back and monitor the noise margins at the precise times that my kids call out to say that their netbook or iPad or Blackberry or whatever mobile device has lost its internet connection.

I'd still like to know from one of the resident experts though if they think changing the router will improve the noise margins (which are currently averaging 9.4/7.7 db) or if I need to badger Sky into getting an engineer out to check the line.

I agree with MM. My broadband connection has been varying of late, but the WiFi connection remain pretty solid. That is except in certain places where it has always been erratic. This seems to be more to do with various solid walls and 'dead' reception areas. I know that microwaves cooker, cordless phones and even mobile phones can interfere with WiFi.

There is quite a bit of evidence that the new energy saving light bulbs can kill WiFi connection quality.

If you really get desperate then try this!

http://www.j-walk.com/other/wifispray/index.htm