Another Computer Question

[MossRoad]

Here's a link to a humorous article regarding wireless zero.

Windows Wireless Zero Configuration: Five Steps to Sanity

 

[SnowRidge]

I never heard of the term "Wireless Zero" before, so I had to look it up. Neato! I guess I've been fortunate enough to never have had that many wireless networking problems.

The first time I tried wireless, I bought a little SMC wireless access point and a 16 bit PCMCIA card for my laptop, also by SMC. The wireless card came with its own driver, which turned off Wireless Zero and did its own thing instead. When I got a new laptop, it came with a built in wireless card. It would not work with the manufacturer's driver, but worked fine with the M$ driver and Wireless Zero. Go figure.

Anyway, we use fixed IPs on the LAN with Linuxes and a Mac OSX. Winders is for when we are desperate, or in the mood for some self flagellation.

 

[MossRoad]

Everything in our building is hard wired. We have one wireless access point in a conference room for visiting folks that need internet access on laptops without the foot trip hazards of wires.

At home, for a long time, I had a Net Modem from Net Gear. It was a modem that sat on the network and anytime a PC wanted internet access, it automatically dialed up my ISP. After no activity for 15 minutes, it hung up. I put a Net Gear wireless router on my home network. Then I had wireless access to my 28.8 dial up with my laptop.

I take my laptop with me when I travel and have run into some pretty weird configurations. However, the trip I took last week was uneventful. Everywhere I went, it just seemed to work perfectly. Things are looking better.

 

[SnowRidge]

When we build a new house, it will be hard wired to the max. Wireless is a PITA, even if you know what you are doing, and it is marginally secure at best.

Most wireless installations are wide open. The nightmare scenario is when the cops serve you with a warrant for all your computers and computer media at 5:00 am, while the press and neighbors take pictures and look on -- all because one of those same neighbors was using your wireless Internet connection to download the wrong kind of kiddie pictures.

There is an interesting article on The Legal Reader web site regarding such a theft. I don't think I can put the link in this post without violating TBN's term of service, but the most interesting thing about the incident is how the police found out about it. It happened in Toronto, and the criminal was driving and downloading at the time.

 

[milkman]

As was mentioned earlier, if your AVG is updating, your network connection is fine.

As also was mentioned earlier, you should launch Internet Explorer and go to the TOOLS pull down menu and select INTERNET OPTIONS.

From the INTERNET OPTIONS box, select the CONNECTIONS TAB.

At the bottom of the CONNECTIONS TAB select LAN SETTINGS.

In the LAN SETTINGS window uncheck everything and hit O.K.

O.K. the INTERNET OPTIONS box.

Test I.E. and see if it now works and report back.

Well I thought that fixed it, I followed the directions and plugged in the adapter and typed in TBN.com and the home page popped up, but that is as far as it would go, if I tried to navigate anywhere, no internet connection detected. I think that my AVG is not updating either with this adapter.

I am able to get to the config for the adapter, but haven't a clue as to what I need to set or change, I will check the settings on the netgear and see if they can be of any help.

 

[SnowRidge]

Well I thought that fixed it, I followed the directions and plugged in the adapter and typed in TBN.com and the home page popped up, but that is as far as it would go, if I tried to navigate anywhere, no internet connection detected. I think that my AVG is not updating either with this adapter.

I am able to get to the config for the adapter, but haven't a clue as to what I need to set or change, I will check the settings on the netgear and see if they can be of any help.

Sounds like you got TBN's home page from the browser's cache.

 

[MossRoad]

When we build a new house, it will be hard wired to the max. Wireless is a PITA, even if you know what you are doing, and it is marginally secure at best.

Most wireless installations are wide open. The nightmare scenario is when the cops serve you with a warrant for all your computers and computer media at 5:00 am, while the press and neighbors take pictures and look on -- all because one of those same neighbors was using your wireless Internet connection to download the wrong kind of kiddie pictures.

There is an interesting article on The Legal Reader web site regarding such a theft. I don't think I can put the link in this post without violating TBN's term of service, but the most interesting thing about the incident is how the police found out about it. It happened in Toronto, and the criminal was driving and downloading at the time.

Yeah, two CAT5 network cables and two RG8 coax cables to each location from a head end closet is a pretty safe bet. Still, wireless is nice for laptops and old houses. You can get routers with adjustable signal strength that make it hard to get the signal outside of the house.

 

[SnowRidge]

Yeah, two CAT5 network cables and two RG8 coax cables to each location from a head end closet is a pretty safe bet. Still, wireless is nice for laptops and old houses. You can get routers with adjustable signal strength that make it hard to get the signal outside of the house.

Right. We will still have a wireless node for times when it is appropriate, but most of the time it will be turned off. Besides, there will be almost no one within range, without a Pringles can antenna anyway.

My wife went to a security conference at which the presenter advocated putting wireless access points in the basement. He claimed it would foil the war drivers. He probably has a good point.

 

[MossRoad]

Right. We will still have a wireless node for times when it is appropriate, but most of the time it will be turned off. Besides, there will be almost no one within range, without a Pringles can antenna anyway.

My wife went to a security conference at which the presenter advocated putting wireless access points in the basement. He claimed it would foil the war drivers. He probably has a good point.

That's where mine is. My dsl box, my wireless router, my net modem (turned off for now) and my A/V head end are all right next to each other on a wall in the basement. I should take my laptop out in the yard and see how far the signal reaches.

 

[SnowRidge]

Yeah, two CAT5 network cables and two RG8 coax cables to each location from a head end closet is a pretty safe bet. Still, wireless is nice for laptops and old houses. You can get routers with adjustable signal strength that make it hard to get the signal outside of the house.

OK, I know what the Cat5 is for. What is the RG8 for?

 

[jdbower]

OK, I know what the Cat5 is for. What is the RG8 for?

My guess is satellite/cable signals. I'm still working through my RG6 spools, I didn't know they had RG8 since most are RG58/RG59/RG6. I've been toying with the idea of a centralized video system, but that gets more complicated since I'd have to run HDMI cables and hope there isn't a better standard anytime soon... I'd also love to run fiber for GbE/10GbE in the future, but all the "fiber" solutions for audio/video are less fiber and more thin tubes of plastic. Running real fiber is also not an easy task for most, but not many of you have access to a fusion splicer like I do If I have to pull more cable, I may splurge and get this stuff.

I'm not overly concerned about security so I'll probably be installing WiFi to cover most of my property (properly secured, of course, but it's not like I'm guarding national secrets on my PC), but if you're interested there is wallpaper and paint solutions that can help. The good variants are tuned Faraday cages that block WiFi signals but not mobile phone signals - pretty cool!

 

[MossRoad]

OK, I know what the Cat5 is for. What is the RG8 for?

Yikes! I meant RG6. I think RG8 was back from my CB days.
Anyhow, two coax cables for video distribution and/or satellite. If you run two coaxes you have an inny and an outy at any location. With the use of channel modulators you can watch or broadcast from any location in your house to any location in your house.

For instance, I can watch my sat, DVD, VCR or security cameras on any TV in the house or garage by selecting channel 3 or 4 using the internal modulators that come with the units. If I would spend a little money, I could by a four or more channel modulator and run more things simultaneously. But we usually watch TV as a family so no need. And if a big game is on, I can tune it in somewhere and feed it out to all TVs. Pretty nice.

I also mounted my sat dish on an unattached garage and a TV antenna, too. By using a diplexer I was able to combine the TV signal onto one of the sat cables and feed it all to the house in underground conduit to my video distribution center in the basement. I just made it myself with diplexers and splitters and combiners. By locating it centrally in the basement, all of the coax runs are about the same length so the signal is about the same strength in any room. I was fortunate that I didn't need to amplify the signal, but if I had to, by making all the coax runs the same length, I could get away with one amp.

 

[MossRoad]

Erk! I'm going to have to step up to HD soon.

 

[WVBill]

Question about networking to an out-building.

I just built a sewing studio building for my wife. It's 40 feet away from the house. It has electric power from a sub-panel through a buried conduit. Trench is still open and I'm about to put a second conduit in for a phone line.
Can I run CAT 5 or CAT 6 cable through the same conduit I use for the phone line? Would I use the same cable through the conduit as I use through the walls/suspended ceiling inside the house?

I have a Linksys wireless router that I use for internet access (via my HughesNet) for my work laptop when I take it home. It's in my basement office and it gets OK signal strength throughout the house but I'm not sure it will "make it" out to the sewing studio (maybe I should check - DUH).

WVBill

 

[MossRoad]

Question about networking to an out-building.

I just built a sewing studio building for my wife. It's 40 feet away from the house. It has electric power from a sub-panel through a buried conduit. Trench is still open and I'm about to put a second conduit in for a phone line.
Can I run CAT 5 or CAT 6 cable through the same conduit I use for the phone line? Would I use the same cable through the conduit as I use through the walls/suspended ceiling inside the house?

I have a Linksys wireless router that I use for internet access (via my HughesNet) for my work laptop when I take it home. It's in my basement office and it gets OK signal strength throughout the house but I'm not sure it will "make it" out to the sewing studio (maybe I should check - DUH).

WVBill

Yes, the CAT5 and phone cable are completely happy in the same conduit. Back in the old days when we were cheap, we would run one CAT5 cable to a desktop and split out the ends. CAT5 only requires two of the pairs. There are 4 pairs in a CAT5 cable, so we would use the other two pairs for a two line phone.

Now, when we wire a new location, our standard practice is to run two CAT5s and one 4 pair phone cable.

 

[SnowRidge]

Yikes! I meant RG6. I think RG8 was back from my CB days.

Yep, RG-8 is 50-52 ohms. That impedance is generally not used in video/TV applications, so I was confused.

 

[WVBill]

Never ever put anything else in a power trench. It is extremely dangerous to do so.

Eeek! I didn't know that.

How far apart should the power trench and the telco/data trench be to be safe?


WVBill

 

[Soundguy]

Another option is protocol incompatibility. My laptop will handle 'B' or 'G'... My old wireless access point only handled 'B'.. my new router only handles 'G' or 'N'

When we got DSL, I had to take down my old 'B' network, and essentially dump the WAP, and 2 B usb cards cards were linksys and had easy to configure software.. WAP was netgear and was brutal to setup.

New gear ( router and 1 usb adapter ) is 2wire provided by embarq.. ran right out of the box. My laptop picked it up immediatly, and y wifes laptop with belkin usb adapter grabbed it immediatly as well.. just had to add the WEP to all non-2wire devices involved.

Soundguy

Moss, he said it works if he takes his laptop's Netgear usb wireless adapter and tries it on the Win2000 machine, but not with the generic usb adapter he bought for it.

Also, it's not clear to me that AVG is really updating. That particular anti-virus tries to update as soon as you boot, and it puts a message up saying so, but is it really getting the update? I don't know and can't tell for sure from the posts so far, but he says that if he manually tells it to update, it says there is no Internet connection.

Nowhere do I see any indication that any wireless configuration has been done.

 

[SnowRidge]

Eeek! I didn't know that.

How far apart should the power trench and the telco/data trench be to be safe?


WVBill

OK, just to be clear. Not putting the stuff in the same trench is my opinion based on what I have experienced. I know others who feel the same way, and just as strongly.

However, if you go by the various authorities, you will see everything from no separation whatsoever up to 12 inches apart, but in the same trench. Often, the electric service and the phone lines must be separate conduits. In some cases, they can be in the same trench, but must be separated by so many inches of concrete.

Oddly, it is common to find that gas, water, and sewer must all be in a separate trench three to five feet away. You would think they would require similar separation for the phone lines, but they don't.

My suggestion, a separate trench at least two to three feet away. That will minimize lightning induced coupling between the power line and the telephone/data lines.