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Ways to improve WiFI connectivity

Everyone knows how frustrating a sketchy Wi-Fi signal can be. You’re about to send an important file. You’re about to Skype with your sister who lives in Australia. And then the signal goes dead, and your wireless internet goes down without warning. You may even work from home, and the sketchy Wi-Fi means a consistently frustrating day with constant interruptions and less productivity.

Here are nine things that you need to check and fix to make your Wi-Fi work for and not against you.

1. Reduce your wireless interference

Microwave ovens, garage door openers, and baby monitors work at the same frequency as wireless technology such as routers. If all of these wireless devices are at work, your router may not work through all of the wavelengths. You can help your wireless device to work by not using the other devices. If you have an Android, you can get an app that will analyze the Wi-Fi interference around you.

2. Change your channel

Wireless routers work similarly to radio station channels. Just as you might get interference from radio station channels, you could get interference from other Wi-Fi. Try changing the station for your wireless router to see if your signal strength improves. Your computer will detect the new channel and possibly work better.

RR: You can access the wireless channel settings from your router’s Wireless settings page (usually at http://192.168.1.1/)

3. Move your router to a central location in the house

If your router is against the wall in your house, the signal will be weaker on the opposite side of the house. If your router is on the first floor and the computer getting wireless internet is on the second floor, the router should be placed on a high shelf on the first floor. You can also see where the signal is the strongest in your house by using software such as HeatMapper, which will show you where the ‘cold spots’ are in your house. The software is free although you will need to enter your email address.

4. Upgrade to 802.11n

Wireless-G, or 802.11g, is the most common kind of wireless network, but wireless-N can be twice as fast and has better efficacy. If you’re going to buy a new router, definitely look for wireless-N equipment.

5. Get the most recent drivers

Often, the original versions of Wi-Fi equipment have problems including slow connections and challenged features. If you get a new network device, you have to immediately make sure that there are no updates that you haven’t downloaded.

6. Add a home-made reflector behind your router

Routers have omni-directional antennas that emit signals in every direction. If your router needs to be near a wall, you can build your own reflector out of nothing more than Aluminium foil. Tear the foil into the shape of a rectangle, curl it a bit, and place it behind your router.

7. Add a wireless adaptor

If your desktop or laptop is older, you may benefit from adding an external wireless adaptor or internal network card that will improve wireless reception and internet reception.

8. Replace the router’s antenna

Another way of improving the antenna’s signal that broadcasts in all directions and is therefore weakened in general, you can upgrade to a high-gain antenna, which will allow the wireless signal to broadcast in one specific direction thereby direct the signal to desired location.

9. Buy a Wi-Fi Range Extender

Wi-Fi Range Extenders, true to its name, extend the range of a wireless signal. Most extenders have a number of LAN ports so that you can connect a desktop or laptop PC to the extender while it also works to connect your wireless network. The extender also allows you to set up security not only through the router, but also through the extender.

If your wireless is acting up, there’s no need to throw out the proverbial baby with the bath water. It’s probably not an issue with your computer; it’s more likely an issue with your wireless signal. From turning off your baby monitor to building a tin-foil reflector, try several free and easy solutions and you may find that your Wi-Fi works twice as fast as it has been working.

Amy Nielson is an avid blogger who writes often for tech sites. You can follow her on Twitter

http://mintywhite.com/more/hardware-more/9-ways-improve-wireless-connectivity-computer/

Improve YouTube Buffering

 

Some ISP’s buffer you tuber steaming to download to a cache file on their server

If you set the relevant IP range in the Windows Firewall, to block that it could improve the performance as it then streams the video from the YouTube server directly

as administrator open the CMD window and paste

netsh advfirewall firewall add rule name=”TWCYouTubeFIX” dir=in action=block remoteip=173.194.55.0/24,206.111.0.0/16 enable=yes

Now reboot the system and try to access YouTube and see if it works better.

It might take time to start because of IP blocking. But once it does it might be faster.

To remove this rule, just type the following and hit Enter:

netsh advfirewall firewall delete rule name=”TWCYouTubeFIX”

source

http://greenarrow.pcpitstopmail.com/ss/link.php?N=4895&L=1714&S=1IWO&E=wRvJHZv5mLX92bkBUb5NHalJ3Yv5mLj9Wb&H=7R1EK54w

10-free-windows-programs-everyone-needs

 

 

source

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/09/10-free-windows-programs-everyone-needs_n_1659856.html#slide=1206893

Find Function Combined with Mid & Left in Excel

In this example I have a list of names in a spread sheet where the first and last name were entered in a single cell.

I want to separate the names into first & last names For this I used the excel string search functions At the top of each column you can see my approach 

Here is the procedure I followed to populate the 3 columns next to the original list of names 

First

I used the FIND function to locate the position of the space in the name string. This information is for reference when crating the sting filters to split the name into Col D & Col E

Using =FIND(" ",B2,2) in Col C  it told retunes the let to right character position of the space in each name listed in Col B.

 

Next

In Col D the =Left function gets the Colum B name characters up to the space

(=LEFT(B5,C5)  on row(5) where B holds the Name and C holds the Space Position

 

Last

In Col E I =Mid function returns Colum B name characters after the space '

(=LEFT(B5,C5)

The 5 Most Important Backup Files

Important Backup Files

We all know how important it is to backup your files from your computer, however why don’t we ever do it? Or if we do have a backup and recovery planit is incomplete and we have missed the most important backup files. Therefore when disaster strikes, we are still stressed from losing our main files.

 

Who can really say what the most important backup files are for you? If you could make only five backup files, which five would you choose? This will depend on your personal needs but I will highly recommend that you start with these five essential backup files:

Registry.DAT—Home Of Your License Keys

You’ve probably bought a bunch of software for your computer—you may even have paid more for software than you paid for your computer.
But, if you’re like most people, you didn’t bother to keep track of your license keys or other information necessary to unlock your computer programs. That’s ok—Windows kept track of it for you in REGISTRY.DAT (also known as the Windows Registry file).
You can copy registry.dat to a new computer and then use a registry editor to merge your old product registration keys into your new computer, saving you the hassle of re-entering them or the expense of having to buy new keys.
Of course, you’ll also need the programs, which we’ll discuss next.

Make Backup Files Of Your Program Files

Programs are most easily stored in their installer state—the .exe file you used to install them. If you have advanced presence of mind, create a directory on your desktop named “Installers” and put all of your installers in there when you’re done with them. Then make backup files of that directory.
But if you don’t do that—or it’s already too late for you to start doing that—you can get a copy of most programs by making backup files of the “Program Files” directory on the C drive.
On your new or repaired computer, just copy those backup files into the new computer’s Program Files directory. Of course, most programs are useless without their documents.

Make Backup Files Of Your Documents

These are usually the first thing I backup onto my external hard drive because I’ve put so much of my time into them. Programs and registry keys I can simply repurchase, but lost documents are irreplaceable.
Making backup files of your documents is easy—simply copy the Documents folder on your disk drive to a safe place.
If there are multiple users on your computer, you probably want to make backup files of all the documents at once. You need an administrator account to do this:
Go to the C drive and make backup files of the Documents and Settings directory. But be careful—this step might miss the most irreplaceable type of document—pictures.

Make Backup Files Of Your Pictures

Documents are irreplaceable, but you can usually recreate a rough copy of them if you work hard enough. It might even be better than the original.
But pictures, once gone, can never be replaced. So making good backup files of your pictures is essential.
Unfortunately, people tend to put pictures all over their computer—a lot depends on what application they use to manage their photos. So to make sure you have all of your photos, open the Windows find tool and search for images (there’s a built in image search—use it unless you know what you’re doing). Make sure your backup files include all of your photos.

Make Backup Files For Online Data

Whether you keep your email on your desktop or online, you absolutely want to make good backup files of your saved messages. Your computer might fail and take all of your email with it, or somebody could hack your GMail account and delete all your long-saved messages.
Microsoft Outlook and Mozilla Thunderbird and most other desktop email programs all have export options—use them or sign up with a service like Mozy that will automatically backup your email as you read it.
Not all online services have backup options. My suggestion: change your email account to an online service that does provide backups and download fresh backup files to your desktop or removable disk drive every week. I know it’s a chore—but when it comes toimportant backup files, it’s always better safe than sorry.
source http://tips4pc.com/computer_tips_and_tricks/the-5-most-important-backup-files.htm