Any posts that pertain to specific hardware, but aren’t being reviewed, can be found under this category.
Two of the most popular posts on Technically Easy has to do with securing two different wireless routers: the Linksys WRT54G Wireless-G router and the D-link DI-524 Wireless router. At this time I only have those two guides available on securing wireless routers.
For those with other wireless routers, I decided to outline some of the security settings you can enable, if available, on your wireless router to make it secure.
I recently wrote a post that outlined how to connect to a network printer. The post, however, didn’t talk about how to setup a network printer at home so that any computer connected to your network can use the printer.
In this post I will explain the steps involved to setup a network printer so you can then connect, and use it from any computer that is connected to the network.
For many people with multiple computers, printing from a printer involves disconnecting the printer from one computer, and then reconnecting it to another. For those connected to a wireless network, you would literally have to go to the printer, and then connect the printer directly to the laptop.
Print sharing allows a printer to connect to a computer, such as a desktop, and then allows any computers that are on the same network to print to that printer. This means that if you are wireless, you can just connect to the printer and print, without having to physically connect to the printer.
Sharing a printer in Windows XP is easy to do and involves the following steps:
To connect to the printer from another computer, use the steps outlined in how to connect to a network printer. When you need to print to the printer, ensure the computer that is sharing the printer is turned on.
For most home users it is very easy to connect to a printer. Older printers are usually connected to the parallel port, while the new printers are connected to the USB port. Once the printer is connected and drivers loaded you can easily select the printer from the list and begin printing.
For those on a network that have printers you can use, you have to take different steps to connect to the printers. While the steps to connect to a network printer are different than connecting to a local print, they aren’t complex and can be performed very easily.
I have written several posts in the past about connecting multiple computers to the Internet. In those posts I usually talk about connecting a router to your modem, and then your computers to the router. Since many routers also include a hardware firewall, this has the added benefit of securing your local network, while allowing multiple computers to use one Internet connection.
What if you have more computers than the number of ports on your router? You could just connect a second router, but the easier method is to simply connect either a hub or switch to the router. In this post I’ll talk about hubs and switches and how they are used in a network.
I have decided to start writing more posts geared towards talking about computer components, what they are and how they work. For many, it can be confusing to buy a computer and trying to understand what is in the computer.
Since I recently wrote a post about recovering data from a hard drive with bad sectors, I decided to begin my computer component discussion by talking about hard drives.
In my last post titled Recovering Data from a Hard Drive with Bad Sectors, I mentioned that I had recently recovered data from a hard drive that had bad sectors. In that post I also talked about what bad sectors are and what happens when they appear.
One thing I didn’t talk about was detecting bad sectors. In this post I will touch on some tools you can use that can help identify if your computer has bad sectors.
I have dealt with many hard drive failures in the past, and most of the time it was the result of bad sectors. Other times it was a complete failure where the hard drive wouldn’t even power up. In the latter instance there isn’t much you can do to retrieve your data.
As for bad sectors, you may still be able to retrieve your data, if you have the right tool. It is difficult to copy data from a damaged hard drive, especially in Windows since it would usually stop the copy when it encounters a bad sector. Recently, I managed to retrieve over 5GB of data from a hard drive with many bad sectors, and in this post I’ll tell you how I did it.
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Through my years of working with computers I have encountered many issues. Some related to hardware, but most seem to be associated with software. When I do encounter an error, I like to find the root of the problem, so I can add it to my knowledgebase.
Recently, I ran into a problem where my computer would just shut off by itself. At first it was rather annoying, but then it got to the point where I couldn’t turn my computer back on. After some time, I did manage to get my computer up and running again.