Then there are the problems associated with getting, and staying, online.  Once you’re there and connected there are inevitable breaks in your connection.  These are commonly unrelated to your own hardware and operating system but it doesn’t make them any less irritating.

Finally you have have issues with accessing other computers, devices and network shares on your home or office network, and anybody who has tried to get Windows 7′s HomeGroup feature to work reliably will know what I mean.  You might be pleased to hear then I’m running a completely free live webcast next Thursday November 3rd on the subject of Troubleshooting Network Issues in Windows 7.  It’s almost too big a subject to squeeze into an hour, but I’ll cover the most common problems and how to get and keep yourself online for both the Internet and your network.  You can pre-register for the webcast here.

The webcast will be followed by a Q&A and starts at 10 PT, San Francisco | 5pm – London* | 1pm – New York | Fri, Nov  4th at 5am – Sydney | Fri, Nov  4th at 3am – Tokyo | Fri, Nov  4th at 2am – Beijing | 11:30pm – Mumbai.  *IMPORTANT NOTE British Summer Time is ending this weekend and the clocks don’t go back in the USA for another week.  I’m not sure when the clocks go back in other countries but the times listed here (except for the UK time which is now correct) are summer times.  Check back on the day but I’ll make sure the website is updated in the next few days.

Anyway it really is a lot to squeeze into an hour so I wanted to share with you here some of my top networking tips, the first one of which you might find a bit odd.

Tip #1 – When Windows Won’t Start

This is by far one of my favourites as it involves PCs that just won’t start.  If you find that your PC hangs at the loading Windows screen and simply refuses to go any further unplug your network cable.  This problem can occur if your BIOS is set to allow network booting.  Simply unplugging the network cable will immediately allow Windows to continue booting.

Tip #2 – Turn it Off and on Again

You’d be surprised how many networking problems can be fixed by simply switching off your router and turning it on again.  This is especially true if you encounter the all-too common problem when networking and Internet works fine for all computers connected via a physical network cable but WiFi goes down completely.

Tip #3 – Change Your USB Socket

This is a very common one when a PC is moved from one place to another, such as when you move house.  You put the computer back together, plug your Wi-Fi USB dongle back in and suddenly discover that you can’t get online.  This is caused by a driver problem and can be simply fixed by unplugging the USB dongle and plugging it into the socket it was plugged into before.

Tip #4 – Delete Your WiFi Network

If your WiFi network is causing problems that include showing up as an unidentified network that you suddenly now can’t connect to, your settings for that WiFi network have become corrupt.  Go into the Network and Sharing Centre (accessed from the network icon on the Windows 7 Taskbar, or through the Control Panel) and click on Manage Wireless Networks.  Find the network that’s causing problems and delete it from your computer.  Now you can reconnect to it and build a new network profile that should work fine.

Tip #5 – Change the Channel

There are multiple channels that WiFi routers can be set to but some are set to either a specific channel or to fully automatic.  If you really arehaving trouble with your WiFi try loggin into your router’s administration settings and changing the channel.  Problems can commonly be caused if you have a neighbour also using the same network channel as you are.

What are your top networking tips?

Many Windows users do not know that it is possible to display additional information in the Windows Task Manager. The following guide gives an overview on how to enable the display of additional information in the Windows Task Manager.

Loading the Windows Task Manager

The keyboard shortcut to load the Windows Task Manager is [Ctrl][Shift][Esc]. The task manager can also be loaded by right-clicking the Windows Taskbar and selecting Start Task Manager from the menu.

Windows Processes

Although it is not the left-most tab, the Processes tab is the default tab activated when opening the Task Manager. The Processes tab provides detailed information on running processes, such as CPU and memory usage, PID and user rights, and in newer Windows versions includes a short human-readable description of the process. By default the display is filtered, a click on the button labelled “Show processes from all users” will display all running processes.

A click on View > Select Columns opens a configuration menu to add columns to the display. Most of the additional information that can be enabled in this menu is intended for developers and administrators, but end users may find it helpful as well. For instance, it is possible to display the path of running processes, which can be very helpful to identify the program that has started the process.

The Memory Peak Working Set column is another interesting column that can be enabled. It displays the maximum amount of computer memory of each process in the task manager. The configuration menu can also be used to remove columns from the display in case they are not needed or used. A recommended setting is to keep all columns that are activated by default and add the Image Path Name and Memory – Peak Working Set columns.

Networking

The Networking tab displays information about each network adapter. Most Windows users will not see much information, if any at all, when they open the tab in the Windows Task Manager. Like the Processes tab, the Networking tab can be configured to display additional information by clicking on View > Select Columns.

In addition to the total amount of data transfer, separate graphs representing Bytes Sent and Bytes Received can be enabled. The network traffic will be monitored and displayed once the selections have been made.

These just two examples of Windows Task Manager tabs that can be configured to display additional information. The rest of the Task Manager can be similarly configured as well. End users will especially benefit from the additional information in the Processes tab. What other Task Manager configuration tips do you have? Let us know in the comments.

1. Comment moderation and spam

Comment moderation and spam are two of the most time consuming aspects of a webmaster’s workday. A high profile blog can get thousands of spam comments a day which are then queued up in a spam folder somewhere. Even the best antispam tools do not offer a 100% protection against spam. Another trade-off is that false positives tend to increase with every new antispam plugin and script installed which can frustrate visitors so that they either stop posting comments or leave the site to never come back.

2. Email Support

Most websites have a contact form or other means of contacting the webmaster or a person responsible by email. These emails can contain tech support topics, requests (either for new articles, help, guest blogging or advertising), comments, spam or rude remarks. Tech support questions are usually the most time consuming to answer especially if it is not possible to test the problem locally. Webmasters obviously do not have to answer emails but it is good behavior if they do in a timely manner (except for spam and the rude remark emails). It is still a time consuming process especially on high traffic websites.

3. Updates and Security

It is of uttermost importance to run the latest version of scripts and software on a website. Old versions can contain security or memory holes, incompatibilities or missing features. Many hackers wait for security releases and start searching for websites that still run an older version on the day the new releases get announced. Updates on the other hand are only one part of the security concept. Scripts on the server side can improve security by preventing brute force attacks or notifying tech support. Webmasters do not necessarily have access to these features especially on shared hosting but some security add-ons and features can be installed by them as well. This includes setting the right access rights for directories, making sure to use non-standard usernames, directories and database prefixes or installing scripts and plugins that increase a website’s security.

4. Features and Plugins

Webmasters have to keep an eye on the development of new plugins and features. WordPress webmasters for example have thousands of plugins at their disposal that get constantly updated. Additions are posted in the dozens daily and it can be quite hard to keep up with them. There is however always the possibility to find a plugin or script that adds a new interesting feature to a website or is able to replace an existing script by providing an increase in performance or functionality. One of the main reasons why many webmasters stick with one content management system is that it is easier to keep an overview of the advancements (and other things including security) that are made.

5. Design

Not all webmasters have to be design-aces. It is perfectly possible to download templates and themes for many different types of content management systems or websites and use these with little modification. Another option is to order a custom theme from a designer. Small changes on the other hand are usually performed by the webmaster. This includes changing a logo, adding a graphic or other elements.

6. Performance

A slow loading website does not necessarily mean that the server the website is hosted is not capable of delivering the performance the website needs. Other things can play a role here including scripts and plugins installed. External scripts, like advertisement or third party widgets, can slow down a website tremendously. Even more so if the domain the data is loaded from is experiencing technical problems as well. A webmaster needs to make sure that the website can be loaded as fast as possible. While third party scripts are usually in the top list of elements that slow down a website the problems can also be caused by large multimedia contents like unoptimized images, broken scripts, not optimized loading sequences or not making use of compression techniques or image concatenation.

Many tools can help in the analysis including the XHTML Validator over at W3C, Firebug or YSLOW.

7. Testing and Compatibility

A website has to be tested with various web browsers to ensure that the user experience is similar in all cases and that it is possible to connect to the website with all popular web browsers. Webmasters also do a lot of testing that include testing advertisement, plugins, scripts or element positions on their website. A classical example is to test various advertisement positions on a website to find the one that is yielding the highest earnings for the webmaster. Other possibilities include testing various positions for content to increase pageviews or decrease the number of visitors who leave a website on the first page without visiting a second one.

8. Advertising

Not all websites and blogs run advertisements. Webmasters who do place ads on their websites open a new can of worms. Statistics have to be checked regularly to make sure that the ads perform well. Ads need to be tested (if possible) in various ways including different positions, color schemes and even different advertisers. Monitoring various webmaster forums and blogs for new advertising opportunities and tips is a must do.

9. Hosting, Domain and Billing

Webmasters using free webhosts do not have to worry about these. But webmasters with their own domain name and web hosting account need to keep an eye on a few things including expiration dates and paying subscriptions in time. This is usually not a big issue and not that time consuming unless hundreds or thousands of domains are hosted at dozens of different web hosters or web servers.

10. Networking

Networking is probably the most important aspect of being a webmaster. You tend to get the best tips from a network of webmasters who work in the same niche. I consider the day I met Everton from Connected Internet one of my luckiest days in my life. Not only have we exchanged information that helped us get rich (haha) and improve our websites; No, we also decided to run a joint project which turned out to be very profitable.

Not everything is about being profitable of course. Some tips are only passed around in close circles because many webmasters do not post their findings and experiences on forums or websites. This can be a better way of placing ads on a blog, a new plugin or script that a website benefits from or general tips.

Verdict:

I’m not sure if this article covered all the aspects. There are probably more including tax reports, law suites and the like. Please post a comment if you have something to add or would like to voice your opinion on the subject. Being a webmaster is more than meets the eye.

FON allows people to buy a wireless router from them for €30. They then share their WiFi with other Fon users and gain access to other Fon users’ connections.

Whilst many FON users are in residential areas, a few exist in public and commercial ones; there are dozens in Central London. This may rise as BT now integrates FON in their ‘Home Hub’ routers. Neuf Cegetel made a similar move.

They run a scheme which allows their users to profit. They can charge non-FON users a nominal fee to use their WiFi, so it could be extremely profitable in a central location!

La Fonera, the name of their router, transmits two SSIDs. One is encrypted, for your own private use, and one is open, for others to connect to.

If you’re interested, leave a comment to that effect and I can send you a promocode to get a €10 discount on the router.

Internet Maniac combines a set of networking tools in its interface. The portable software provides access to functions like traceroutes, pings, host lookups, whois information, lookup IPs or domain names and more. Every option is directly accessible from the main interface.

A click on an option will usually display a second window that can be used to enter data, say a domain name for Whois. The same window will also display the results of the function directly in its window.

The tool is completely portable and requires less than 5 Megabytes of computer memory. The homepage of the developer has been deleted a long time ago. You can download the latest available version of Internet Maniac right here at Ghacks (internet maniac).

Thankfully the Linux operating system contains its own system for mapping IP addresses to names. So instead of having to type (or remember) an IP address for that file server at 192.168.1.10 you can map it to a name like “files”.

The hosts file is actually a smaller part to a larger system that includes a deny and an allow file. But this article will focus on the /etc/hosts file. This file most be edited by the root user and can be edited in a standard text editor like Nano.

Once you have the file open you will instantly understand the format. The default entry for /etc/hosts looks like this:

127.0.0.1               localhost

This is the loopback entry and must be left alone. This is a special entry responsible for software local addressing. Do not delete or change this entry. But this entry illustrates how this file works. The “official” structure of an /etc/hosts entry looks like this:

IP Address          FQDN     NAME

From our loopback entry you can see that the FDQN is not required. If the machine does have a fully qualified domain name use it, if not – don’t. Let’s use the example we started early on. We’ll create an entry for the file server.

192.168.1.10          files

Now instead of typing ssh -l -v jlwallen 192.168.1.10 -X you can enter ssh -v -l jlwallen files -X and you’re on your way. See how simple mapping addresses can be in Linux? And don’t hesitate to fill this file up. If you have a network with hundreds of servers, add an entry for each machine to make your network much easier to navigate.

How easy you ask? Let me show you.

Locating the applet

The first thing you need to do is find the applet which will be in your system tray either in the top or the bottom panel on your GNOME desktop.

Network Manager Applet

How many bars do you have? As you can see I am already connected to a network. But what if I am not? Simple if you right click the applet a menu will appear which contains the “Edit Connections” entry.

Right Click Menu

Select the Edit Connections entry to open the Network Connections menu.

Network Connections

Click on the Add button to create a new network. This will bring up a simple window where you will enter basic wireless information.

Add Network

The first bit of information you should enter is the network SSID (the name of the network). Once you have that done you can click over to the Wireles Security tab, select the type of security (WEP, LEAP, WPA, etc), enter the Password, and click Apply.

Once you have created the network you can select the network by left clicking the applet to reveal the network listing.

Select Network

Of course the system will scan the surrounding networks and any network found will be listed in the Wireless Network listing.

If you select an already discovered network you will be prompted to enter the networks password.

Connecting

Final Thoughts

Connecting to a wireless network has become as simple as it is in any operating system. With the GNOME, as long as your card is supported, you should have your wireless connected in no time.

Some IM networks can easily be adapted to run on a LAN. One example is Jabber, where numerous clients and servers exist. This article provides simple instructions on how to set a Jabber server – for LAN use – under Linux.

Using Bonjour, Apple’s auto-discovering networking tool, is another option. The beauty of using Bonjour is that no server is required and, to my knowledge, all communication is peer-to-peer. Bonjour is available on OS X, Linux and Windows (nb Windows users will have to install it). Pidgin provides for instant messaging via Bonjour. iChat can work in a similar fashion on OS X, and Miranda supports Bonjour if a plug-in is installed.

netsend is another method of sending messages between machines with Windows 95, 98, 2000, ME, XP and 2003 installed on them. To use netsend, go into command prompt and simply enter net send recepient_name text_of_the_message. Recepient name is the user’s account on the network or the computer’s name. netsend is not polished and requires a little more effort to actually communicate, as a recepient must be specified every time (making it slightly slower to use than other IM solutions).

Another option is BORGChat, although that looks increasingly aged and is not really developed, not having left beta since it started being developed in 2002.

It is worth noting the above options are all free and will not cost $1000s like some enterprise internal IM tools available!