The Computer Club Newsletter

November 2004

The Tellico Village Computer Users Club is growing and moving. With new sign ups this month we have 419 members on the books. The November meeting was full with 127 in attendance. I don’t know what we would do if all members showed up at one meeting. That said, the end of the year is nearing. It is membership renewal time. I am certain we will lose some members who have not found what they were looking for with the club. We are striving to meet the needs of the user community. If you have different ideas on what we might do, please let one of the club officers or directors know just what you might like to see.

We will soon be circulating a questionnaire to the membership which will try to form a picture of what our members do with their computers, what they would like to do, what programs they are using, and what they would like to be doing with their computer that they are not now doing for lack of knowledge or skill. Members, look for the survey, fill it out and return it. And those of you, who are not members, go to the club Website when the survey is available and let us know what it would take to make you a member.

There is a membership Application (renewal) form on the club Website (www.tvcuc.org)  under Library/Forms. Help us save some time at the start of the computer club meeting by downloading this form and filling it out ahead of time. Either bring it to the next meeting or send it with your $10 check to the address on the form. This is an opportunity to keep your membership up to date if you know you will be out of town for the next few months.

The next TVCUC meeting will see some changes to the format. We are dispensing with the "Beginner Basics" session. Instead, the meeting will begin at 7:00 PM. A short business session will be followed by a tutorial on some computer basic topic. This month the short subject will again be Windows XP Service Pack 2. Hopefully some question you had using the installation disk will be answered. That will be followed by the feature presentation describing how to burn (record) CD ROMs. Several burning programs will be covered, each program presented by a different member. If you have had trouble burning CDs, this is for you.

A hot topic lately has been wireless computing. Of course, this refers to networking, either at home or on the road at "hot spots". I was in a restaurant the other day that was touting their "wireless computer connectivity". That means that if you have your laptop with you (I doubt you have your desktop) and it has a wireless card, then you can connect to the Internet right there. That is interesting, but a little beyond the scope of my expertise. In fact, I am not a wireless expert. But I do have a wireless network in my home. I would like to give you the benefit of my limited knowledge. If you are interested in sharing your cable or DSL internet connection with an old or new computer, or even if you just want to connect two computers together, this should get you started. We do have experts in the club who can help if you get into trouble.

In a traditional network (hard wired), computers are connected together through a router using Category 5 cable. Your home may have been built with this kind of wiring in place. You can use this cable to connect your computers together if the cable goes where you want to put your computers. If a cable isn’t there, it will be quite a job and/or an expensive job to run the cable any distance now that the walls are up. Therefore, it is time to look at a wireless network. A wireless network allows you to operate your laptop or second desktop anywhere within in the house or out, up to a distance of 100 feet, assuming there are no thick or metal walls in the way. Even longer distances are possible with a centrally located router or a device known as a "repeater". The repeater boosts the signal of the wireless router.

A wireless network requires at least two pieces of equipment: a router with a wireless access point connected to your cable or DSL modem - and a wireless adapter for one or both of the computers. The purchase of your wireless equipment requires a little thought. There are several popular companies that market the devices. Netgear, D-Link, Linksys, and Belkin are a few of the names sold locally through electronic stores and office supply chains. The cost is between $60 and $120, after discounts and rebates, for a wireless router and an adapter. Shop the Sunday advertisements or the Internet for a deal.

The most popular devices today are referred to as 802.11g compliant. These devices boast transmission speeds of 54mbs (megabits per second). That is 25 to 50 times faster than your broadband cable transmission speed. That speed is also best case. A weak signal due to distance or intervening walls will cause that speed to diminish somewhat. Older devices are designated 802.11b. Their speed is up to 11mbs which is still faster than your Internet connection. The slower speed is quite adequate unless you intend to frequently transfer very large files between your networked computers. If you find the slower speed devices, they are probably cheaper. For best results, do not mix devices from different manufactures or devices of different speed. Devices from different manufacturers may not speak well together and mixed speed devices will default to the slower supported speed.

With your new purchases in front of you, the most important next step is to read all instructions carefully. It will be much easier to do it right the first time, than to try to troubleshoot your mistakes.

The requirements are: (1) get both computers connected to the Internet and (2) set up a home network so that both or all of the computers talk to one another. After reading the instructions carefully, you should have the router connected to the cable modem. Assuming you will hardwire the primary computer, it should be connected to the router with the supplied cable. Your modem and router should have been turned off for the hookup. Plug in the modem, and after all the lights are lit as they are normally, plug in the wireless router. If your computer has been communicating over your modem, it will be able to connect to the modem.

Your router should have come with an installation disk. Follow the directions or open your browser and in the address bar, type the address of the router: htpp://192.168.0.1. See your instructions for the ID and Password that the router expects to see. These are default characteristics and should be changed per your instructions. This is to prevent someone intercepting your signal and using your Internet connection and possibly changing the password to something else. You won’t be able to use your router if that happens. Once you type in the password, you are connected to the router. There will be a setup procedure and/or a setup Wizard. Follow the directions. Basic setup will want you to select how you connect to your ISP. Charter Pipeline does not require a login and the Internet IP Address and the DNS Server Address should be set to "Get Automatically" or "Dynamically".

With your router, you will have features such as "hardware firewall" and "communication security". The firewall is one-way, that is, it will prevent unauthorized entry to your home network, but like the Windows XP firewall, will not prevent unauthorized entry onto the Internet by "spyware" or viruses from your computer. Norton Internet Security, ZoneAlarm, or some other firewall is still needed to prevent that kind of exit from your computer. Communication security for the wireless system is by means of one of two systems, WEP, Wired Equivalent Privacy encryption, or WPA, Wi-Fi Protected Access. In either case you will probably be asked to set the encryption strength and generate an encryption key. Be certain that you write down the values you select, along with the ID and password. The same encryption key will be needed on each computer that you connect with wireless adapters if you intend that those computers communicate with one another over the wireless network.

When you finish the set up you will probably be asked to test the connection. At this time, you should be able to access the Internet as you did using only your cable modem. Your next task will be to install the wireless adapter in your remote computer. If it is a desktop, you will need to open the case and insert the card into an empty PCI slot unless you have a USB adapter, in which case you only need to plug the adapter into an empty USB slot. Your adapter probably has a setup disk. Run it and follow the instructions. Be very careful that you follow the directions. If there are terms you do not understand, look in your instruction manual or go on the Internet at the Website of you adapter/router manufacturer and look up their support page.

If one of your computers has the Windows XP operating system, set up the network parameters in that computer first. The setup wizard then allows you to make a setup wizard disk that you can use on the other computer(s). You also have to establish the "Shares" for folders and printers, that the system will use to move data between machines.   I could go on and try to explain how to do it, but that are many tutorials written that do a better job than I could ever do. For example, last month I introduced you to the Beginners Guides on www.pcstats.com.  Go there! Remember, on the right side of the home page is a list headed by Beginners Guides. Click on it and down the resulting page is a line – Beginners Guides: Home Networking and File Sharing. The article gives a good rundown on how to set up your network on all versions of Windows. After reading the entire article, set up your home network. While you are there, check out another article: Internet Connection Sharing – more good info on what we are discussing.

Good Luck! One more item: If you have a firewall installed on either or both computers, it will block your network. You must instruct the firewall to allow access to your other computer. Somewhere in your firewall set up window is an entry called Zones. Enter the name of your network, the IP address range which is 192.168.0.0 to 192.168.0.5. It should be a "Trusted Zone" as opposed to an "Internet Zone". For example, if you use ZoneAlarm, double click the icon in the system tray to open the ZoneAlarm window. Click on Firewall in the left hand panel. At the top of the panel, click Zones. At the bottom of the Zones panel, click Add>>. One of the choices will be IP Range. Click on it and enter the required information.

As I told you in the beginning, I am not an expert. However, I hope this discussion has helped get you started. A home network can be a very useful device for sharing information, printers, and storage for backups. It is somewhat more involved than some things we have talked about, but if you read your instructions carefully, go to some help websites, such as "pcstats", and take your time, you will be successful.