• Microsoft Vista Home Networking Setup and Options
The most daunting part of upgrading to Windows Vista may be trying to figure out where in the layers of menus the networking and file-sharing options are hidden.
• Tips for Securing Your Home Router
Seemingly minor and easily overlooked settings can still have profound security implications. Here are some steps you can take to make sure your wired or wireless home router — and by extension, your network — is as secure as possible.
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If you have a home network, you'll welcome the easy file sharing, remote access and the image-based backup features of Windows Home Server.
• Iomega StorCenter Network Hard Drive
Iomega's fourth generation StorCenter Network Hard Drive brings many of the features found in higher-end storage devices down to an attractive price.
• MikroTik's The Dude
This free tool delivers many of the same capabilities that you'd find in pricey network monitoring tools. As long as you don't mind tinkering, The Dude is a decent network utility that should be worth the download.
We've come across so many handy tools over the years that we've been having trouble keeping track of them! So we've decided to pull them together into one spot for easy access.
If you've been using any sort of personal firewall
or router that reports firewall activity, you may need help
with interpreting what you see in the reports. Written
by Robert Graham (CTO of Network ICE), he knows whereof he speaks!
If you've been wanting to check out Linux based
security apps, but didn't want to install Linux on a machine,
trinux is for you.
Trinux is a portable Linux distribution that boots
from a single floppy disk, loads its packages from a FAT/Ext2
partition, floppy disks, or HTTP/FTP servers, and runs entirely
in RAM. Trinux contains precompiled versions of popular Open
Source network security/monitoring tools such as nmap, tcpdump,
iptraf, and ntop. Trinux default configuration provides DHCP
for easy network configuration.
Another Steve Gibson (of ShieldsUp! fame) creation.
Free, small (27K) Windows application that will check whether
your personal firewall program (such as ZoneAlarm, BlackIce,
etc.) is preventing unauthorized outbound Internet traffic.
[NOTE: This program
is not for use with Hardware NAT routers because they're
not intended to prevent outbound Internet traffic.]
Mark Russinovich and Bryce Cogswell run the Sysinternals
web site which provides advanced utilities, technical information,
and source code related to Windows 9x, Windows Me, and Windows
NT/2000 internals that you won't find anywhere else. Our
favorites are:
TDImon - See TCP and UDP activity in
real-time with this advanced network API monitoring tool.
Filemon - This monitoring tool lets you
see all file system activity in real-time. It works on all
versions of WinNT/2K as well as Windows 9x/Me and full source
is included.
Ethereal is a free network protocol analyzer
for Unix and Windows. It allows you to examine data from a live
network or from a capture file on disk. You can interactively
browse the capture data, viewing summary and detail information
for each packet. Ethereal has several powerful features, including
a rich display filter language and the ability to view the reconstructed
stream of a TCP session.
I'm InTouch allows you to remotely control your PC from any computer or wireless device with Internet access. Control your PC to run any program, transfer files, and respond to Outlook e-mail. You can also troubleshoot PCs, invite remote guests to your PC to show presentations or online demos, and monitor your child's computer and
Internet activities.
GoToMyPC allows you to remotely access your computer
from any other Internet-connected computer in the world through
a secure, private connection. Requires installing an application
on the PC to be accessed. That PC can then be accessed via
a web browser from anywhere, even behind NAT firewalls.
Priced from $10 to $30 per month for individual plans.
VNC stands for Virtual Network Computing. It's a
FREE remote display system which allows you to view a computing
'desktop' environment not only on the machine where it is running,
but from anywhere on the Internet and from a wide variety of machine
architectures. (No file transfer capability, however.)
RA (Remote-Anything) allows you to use or supervise
any distant PC via a network
access, dial-up, cable, or the Internet -as if you were there-
and without disturbing
distant users. Run and use any DOS and Windows program, transfer
files (drag & drop),
get passwords of the distant PC, reboot, lock it up, and much
more!
Much cheaper than pcAnywhere or Timbuktu at $49
for one Master and one Slave license.
IEEE 802 series standards
