Global Public Articles

Because it meets the basic needs of connectivity in close range, Bluetooth has a very bright future ahead of it. Bluetooth is actually the result of initiatives from nine leading communications and computer industry giants, including IBM, Microsoft, 3-COM, Sony, Lucent, and Nokia.

Since the forming of the original group, more than 1,800 manufacturers around the world have joined the initiative. According to reports, the Bluetooth technology is expected to be built into more than 100 million devices, with over 670 million enabled Bluetooth devices.

Resulting from the amazing success of WAP (Wireless Application Protocol), the adoption of smart phones and hand held devices, Bluetooth can easily have an amazing impact on your day to day life. Bluetooth is one of the key technologies that can help to make the mobile information society happen, by blurring the possibilities between home, the office, and the outside world.

The seamless integration and connectivity that Bluetooth promises will make it possible to explore a wide range of interactive and highly transparent personalized services which were actually quite difficult to dream of simply because of the complexity involved with making such devices communicate with each other.

Many Bluetooth pilot products have already been rolled into the market and backed by big vendors, which is a healthy sign for the overall acceptance of the technology. The support for Bluetooth isn’t limited to companies that develop only Bluetooth enabled products.

The applications for Bluetooth can have great impacts on other industries as well. The adoption of Bluetooth technology is expected to spread throughout the industry of computers.

Unlike infrared technology, Bluetooth is used by many different wireless devices. Bluetooth offers exceptional quality for short range wireless, even going through walls and obstructions. While infrared is the biggest competitor at this time, Bluetooth far surpasses it, proving to millions that it is the wireless communication technology of the present day and age.

In the beginning, Bluetooth started with version 1.0, then gradually moved from there. The current version is 2.0+EDR, with another version currently in development. The technology behind the Bluetooth specification always getting better and better, which is why it’s so popular.

In the future, you can expect the technology behind Bluetooth to get better. Bluetooth has proven to be the wireless standard of the future, offering you wireless connectability for hundreds of different devices. For cell phones or other forms of wireless connections, Bluetooth is the one technology that you don’t want to find yourself without.

David Roberts is the author of many articles on Bluetooth, including
Bluetooth DUN and Wireless Mouse.

When you use a wireless network at home, range and performance can be influenced by a lot of factors. The location of your wireless router as well as the location of your PC and/or laptop can make a lot of difference. Concrete walls also have a strong influence on Wi-Fi signals, so too many concrete walls in between the communication devices will reduce the signal strength, and as a result, the performance.

But range and obstacles are not the only possible problems with wireless networks. What about your neighbors? If they are using a wireless network, chances are, you are both using the same frequency, which would cause interference and again loss of signal quality. Since wireless internet access is so common these days, it’s better to check that too.

Here’s How You Can Improve Your Wi-Fi Network!

Depending on the location of your equipment, you can try to change the direction of your antennas. If your router has a built-in antenna, consider hanging it on a wall instead of placing it horizontally on a cabinet to change antenna direction. Most routers will come with instructions on best positioning for maximum range.

If you want to further optimize the range and performance of your wireless network, you might need to change the frequency of your WiFi communication.

There is a dedicated bandwidth for WiFi networks, in which multiple channels are defined. The problem is that many vendors configure their hardware to use a default channel. Typically this is channel 6, since it is the middle of the range (1 to 11 in the US, up to 13 for Europe).

To find out if you need to change your wireless network frequency, you need to know what channel you are using and if the other channels are better. There are many tools available for this, and one of them is called NetStumbler. The current version is 0.4.

The program can be installed with the default options. Once you start the application, it will automatically start a scan of the wireless networks in your surroundings.

In the results pane, you can see all detected networks grouped by MAC address, SSID or channel. The colored icon in front of the MAC address indicates the signal strength. Using these details, you can first check how many networks are using the same channel as you are.

You will need to know your SSID of course (either printed at the bottom of your wireless router, if it came from your ISP, or check the network settings on your computer’s wireless card).

Ideally, there should not be (too) many wireless networks on the same channel, but if there are, you want to make sure they have low signal strength.

If there are too many wireless networks on the same channel, try changing the channel to improve your wireless network range and performance. This needs to be done in the wireless router or access point.

The hardware will come with instructions on how to change the WiFi channel. Your laptop or PC’s wireless card will automatically switch to the new channel.

If you are using a laptop, you can also use the program to see where your signal strength is best. Move around with the laptop and see which location in your house has the best signal strength.

You can use the colored icon as well as the ’signal’ columns to assess the network quality. Make sure the network scanning is active to ensure the values are updated while you move around.

Using these Wi-Fi tips, you can easily improve your wireless internet access speed, or solve problems with your wireless internet connection.

Good luck!

PCauthorities.com is a tech-related site dedicated to providing solutions to your every day computing problems. For more free Internet Optimization tips n’ tweaks, check out what the professional IT bloggers have in store for you at www.PCauthorities.com

How many computers do you have at home? How many of those are in use? Do you have a number of computer users as well? One in the study, couple in the kid’s room, one for the kitchen, if you have more than two computers and computer users in your home then you may try networking all the computers.

What are the benefits of home networking?

If connected to a network, files can be sent back and forth by each computer.

You can play music and video files from another computer.

You can access the printer and the scanner that is connected to one computer from any other computer that is within the network.

You can avail of the best features of the computer with highest configuration.

If one computer in the network serves as a server, then you can store important files as back up in the server.

You can share one Internet account to reap its benefits from different computers at the same time.

Imagine playing Age of Empires or racing cars with real opponents at different computers in the house!

Yes, networking allows you to have multi-player games.

So how do you get home networking?

Networking can be done by using a wireless networking connection or by an Ethernet cable. All you need for Ethernet networking are:

- Number of networking cables
- Networking cards
- A router

Once you have these, follow the following steps.

- Select the computers that you want to be in the network
- Install a networking card in each
- Connect a cable to each which will in turn be connected to the router
- The router will then be connected to the server
- The router will then be connected to the modem machine in order to enable internet access to all the machines
- Once the hardware connections are in place, set up internet in each computer by configuring the Local Area Network (LAN) settings
- Finally use the router manual to access the password and set up internet connection on each computer through the router

So what are the precautions that you need to take while connecting your home computers in a network?

First and foremost you need to realize that whatever data you have in each computer will be accessible by everybody.

So start by defining the rights to each drive and folder of your respective computers. Since people other than family members who sit on someone’s computer can also access the information in other computers, ideally only “read” right should be given to folders and drives with sensitive information, so that someone else cannot copy, edit or delete such information.

You can even deny “read” rights to folders if need be. Since you are connecting to the internet through your network, you must install a firewall for maximum security. Install anti-virus software on each computer.

Connecting home computers in a network is a good idea, helps in staying connected and also make full utilization of the facilities available in each computer. With a little bit of precaution, networking can only be fun!

Gregg Hall is an author living on the Emerald Coast of Florida. Now that you know a little more about computer networking be sure that you get quality computer accessories by going to http://www.nsearch.com

A proxy server is specifically used by individuals surfing the Internet to wish to retain a degree of privacy. It is basically something that sits between a user computer and the Internet. When the user makes a request to access a website, all requests are first of all passed to the proxy server who makes the request on behalf of the user. The same applies for incoming data. When data is fed back to the requesting computer it is passed via the proxy surf server. There are several reasons as to why somebody would want to or may consider using a one. The first is because they want to remain anonymous. If you browse the websites via a proxy then your personal details are not recorded by the website you are visiting. The only details that are recorded are those of the proxy, thus retaining a good degree of anonymity for the Internet user.

Websites often record several pieces of information about you like your IP address, MAC address, browser type, and much more. What they do with this information and how they use it is out of your control and the amount of information websites are able to pick up these days are greater as than previous years. Using a proxy eliminates this problem and ensures that your personal information is kept safe.

Although proxies have lots of advantages, they also have lots of disadvantages that need to be discussed. The first of credibility. There is no fail safe way of knowing that the site you are using is safe and that the owner does not have malicious intent in mind. If this were the case the proxy could launch a virus attack on you and steal your credit card information etc while you shop online. Another disadvantage is the location. Ideally, you want somewhere that respects data privacy laws. Places like the US and EU countries are not ideal. Panama would be the ideal country. Another disadvantage is functionality. If your Internet traffic is travelling to you via a middle man then there is going to be a slight time delay. Also, there is no guarantee that the proxy will be compatible with certain types of websites that play videos and music etc.

So, to find a reliable proxy surf server you have to do your research and take into consideration factors like, location, compatibility, country it is hosted in, age, and many more factors. The bottom line is that you are never going to be able to find one that is one hundred percent perfect for everybody. You just have to do your homework and find a trusted one that is most compatible for your individual needs. You can easily find a proxy by going to one of the search engines like Google or Yahoo and selecting one of the many thousands available to you online. There will never be a shortage of proxies and you can easily find one. Locating a reliable one that meets your needs is the tough part.

The author resides in England. He owns a proxy that you can use for free anonymous browsing by clicking here .It provides some good reviews of products available on the market that you should find useful.

Well of course there IS an “I” in Monitoring! Actually there are two of them. However this very simple concept is often forgotten and quite difficult to accomplish while effectively running IT Operations. I was reminded of this while attending the Gartner Symposium ITxpo in Orlando last October.

Gartner analysts talked about the maturity model for running IT Operations as a Business, and they concluded that very few IT organizations had built the framework of People, Process and Technology to achieve a high level automation by welding the right set of tools together for internal IT departments to be able to deliver IT solutions like a service provider.

What’s Happening Now
Typically, larger IT organizations run in silo-based organizational structures because of the very nature of technology subject matter expertise. The network engineering group, the database management team, the systems management teams with Unix and Windows, the IT security teams, the back-office application management teams and the e-mail/blackberry service delivery teams often run in separate subgroups.

Most often, these teams use their own independent tools (often from the manufacturer of the technologies they support) or a single narrow/deep tool to assist with performance and event management for databases, e-mail systems, servers or the network. This typical structure leads to 5-10 independent monitoring/management systems that often don’t share information with each other.
More important, the lack of or oftentimes extreme expense and ongoing management associated with integrating multiple heterogeneous technologies and applications into a unified monitoring/management system leads to communication breakdowns and knowledge transfer gaps that prevent rapid issue resolution.

The Team Solution
So back to the title of this blog post: “There is no I in Monitoring.” The idea is a play on the well-known saying “there is no I in Team.” I could not find this commonly used phrase attributed to a specific person, but I have heard it in sports and business coaching as a consistent mantra for amazing results.

By definition, a “team” is collection of people working together towards a universal goal. Partly based on the mnemonic - Together Each Achieves More - which values the togetherness of individuals; this well-meaning adage emphasizes the need to leverage the strengths of individual subject matter experts to maximize the efficiency and success of the team.

So the crescendo moment you have all been waiting for. Valuing the individual strengths, skills and experiences of every one of these silo technology teams, and channeling them through a single tool and a single pane of glass will generate exceptional results in IT Operations Management.

We welcome you to our monitoring world and hope that you’ll enjoy learning about our philosophies and the idea of a collaborative team effort in managing IT operations.

David Link is president and CEO of ScienceLogic (http://www.sciencelogic.com). He and his partners built a thriving company from the ground up by focusing on delivering “products that just work” to the underserved IT management marketplace.