PC Magazine - 2009 04.pdf - Libertad Zero - Blog

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The Best Network Media Devices Blockbuster 2Wire MediaPoint $99 direct; 25 free rentals, then $1.99 to $3.99 per rental l l l m m This set-top box delivers movies to the home via the Web and is a nice complement to Blockbuster’s DVD and online offerings. It is similar to the Roku Digital Video Player (formerly known as the Netflix Player by Roku) but does not allow you to stream movies to a computer at no additional cost; rentals on MediaPoint run from $1.99 to $3.99 each. Click here for more. chance they won’t. You’re best off running the “Set up a home network” wizard right away for XP, which is available off the Network Neighborhood screen. Just run this wizard on every XP machine individually. The most thinking you’ll have to do is picking a workgroup name for your network. (But that’s an important step: You can’t share files or printers between PCs that don’t have the same workgroup name.) Understanding Your Router The router is the heart of your home network—which is good. That’s because it’s doing several important jobs. First, it’s the outward face of your Internet connection. To the phone, cable, or satellite company, your Internet account is represented by just one Internet address. If you look on your router’s basic setup or status Web page, you’ll see that address at the top, generally labeled something like “WAN IP address” or “Internet IP address.” This is all that the provider or anyone on the Internet can see of your network. The router maintains that external address and simultaneously hands out a bunch of internal addresses to the computers in your house, using a different IP address- 34 PC MAGAZINE DIGITAL EDITION APRIL 2009 Apple TV $229.00 direct for 40GB drive; $329 for 160GB drive l l l l m With an intuitive interface, plenty of iTunes video content (including movie rentals), and a good price, Apple TV is a must-have networking device for the iTunes-addicted. You can wirelessly stream content—music, TV shows, even high-definition movies—from the iTunes libraries of up to six computers or play files directly from the device’s hard drive. It also lets you download or stream audio and video podcasts, watch YouTube videos from the Web, and view photos from online Flickr accounts and .Mac photo albums. Click here for more. ing scheme than the public one used by your provider. The process of translating traffic between the internal and external addresses is called Network Address Translation (NAT), and the process for handing out those internal addresses automatically is called the Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP). NAT is used because the TCP/IP network protocol was never intended to support the millions of users, devices, and Web sites that currently populate the Internet. There simply aren’t enough addresses to go around, so one per customer is all ISPs can manage—and even then they need to play cycling games, so your WAN IP address will probably change every few weeks. On the internal side, you can set up whatever IP addressing scheme you’d like using your router’s DHCP settings. This looks like Sanskrit, but don’t panic: For the most part you can leave the default settings. Most routers default to a 192.168. X.X address scheme. It’s those last two Xs —technically they’re called octets—that concern you. The second-to-last variable determines your subnet. So PCs addressed as 192.168.1.X are all in the same subnet Slingbox PRO-HD $299.00 list l l l l m The Slingbox PRo-hD is one of the best-performing, easiest-to-use media extenders out there. It streams highdefinition video over a home network and near-hD-quality content over the Internet (provided sufficient bandwidth is available). So you can watch hD videos stored on your cable box DVR or DVD player on your computer, wherever you are as long as you have an Internet connection. You can also pause and resume live TV through the box, TiVo-style. Click here for more. and should see and network with each other just fine. One that’s addressed as 192.168.0.X will be left out in the cold. That last octet will be different for every device you plug into the network. The router, for example, might be 192.168.1.1. The first PC might be 192.168.1.2, your laptop might have “.3,” the Xbox might be assigned “.4,” and so on. That last octet can be any number between 1 and 254, so you’ve got plenty of addresses to go around inside your home—so you needn’t worry about running out. The reason to stick with the default 192.168.0.X or 192.168.1.X scheme is because that particular range is not routable on the Internet. This means that anything hacking past the firewall built into your router will have some trouble accessing the PCs behind it. Another non-routable addressing scheme is 10.10.X.X. You can set your scheme to run any way you’d like, but these schemes are the safest. Speaking of safe, your router, as mentioned, is also your firewall, which is critical to a safe network. A good firewall using stateful packet inspection (which ensures that all inbound packets are the result of an outbound request) keeps the bad guys
Sonos Bundle 150 $999 direct l l l l h Although pricey, the Sonos Bundle 150 is the perfect solution for those with several musical tastes—and many rooms—in the same house. Whether you use Rhapsody, iTunes, or Sirius, this deluxe wireless home audio system works seamlessly, streaming music from your PC to as many zones as you choose to set up. Click here for more. off your home network—and believe me, the bad guys are out there. At PCMag .com Labs, we once plugged an open PC into a non-firewalled Internet connection and recorded how long it took the PC to become hacked or infected. The low record was 20 minutes. Watch out. You should also install a software firewall on every Windows PC and make sure it stays updated. Just open the app every few weeks, and it will tell you if you need a software update. That’s as easy as downloading a file and hitting “save.” Vista and Windows 7 have pretty good firewalls included with the operating system; for windows XP our Editors’ Choice is Comodo Firewall Pro 3.0. Setting Up Wireless Probably the last thing your router is doing is providing wireless access using Wi-Fi. The giveaway used to be whether or not it had antennas, but more and more routers today remain stylish by hiding the antenna—even multiple antennas—inside the bezel. Actually, it’s hard to find a router today that isn’t Wi-Fi-capable. PCs with Wi-Fi will see the router almost immediately, but you shouldn’t let it go at that. Roku Digital Video Player $99 direct l l l l m This Roku device, formerly known as the Netflix Player by Roku, has gotten much more than just a name change in recent weeks. Though it used to offer only Netflix movies for ondemand video streaming, it has now added Amazon’s 40,000 video titles to its offering, for à la carte rental ($3.99 for new releases, and $2.99 or $1.99 for newer releases or TV shows). Click here for more. Wireless networking works on RF (radio frequencies), so it’s essentially a radio: Anyone within 300 feet (indoors) or 600 yards (outdoors) can tune in to your signal. Some people are quite open to sharing their Internet connection this way, but doing so can leave your PCs vulnerable. Unless you want anyone parked outside your driveway to know what’s on your network, your PCs, your hard disks, and the like, it’s a good idea to use some security. Your router offers several wireless security options. The two most popular are WEP (Wired Equivalent Privacy) and WPA2 (Wi-Fi Protected Access). Either will give you enough basic protection, though WPA2 is tougher. But many folks still use WEP, because Windows XP has trouble with more advanced forms of wireless security. Also, if you’ve got any older Wi-Fi products around your house using 802.11b technology, WEP is probably all they support. WEP is easy to crack by anyone with the right tools and the time to put in, however, so don’t trust it for important data. Windows Vista handles either with aplomb, so stick with WPA2 there. Setting up wireless is again just a short series of steps. First pick a channel (you Xbox 360 Arcade $199.99 list l l l m m For gamers, this inexpensive yet strippeddown version of the popular game console may not satisfy, as it ships without a headset, network cable, or a hard drive. But for those interested in streaming media, it’s outstanding, once you install Microsoft’s New Xbox Experience (NXE) oS. NXE offers a solution to the Arcade’s lack of storage space: It allows Netflix subscribers the ability to log on and add movies to their “Instant Movie” queue, letting users view them, seamlessly, within minutes. Click here for more. can stick to the default unless there are a lot of other wireless routers around, as there probably are in an apartment building). Stick with channels 1, 6, or 11: They don’t “overlap” and thus have less interference. Set all your wireless devices to the same channel. The router will then ask you to name its wireless network; this is called the SSID in Wi-Fi-speak. Definitely do not to stick with the default here, which is usually “Linksys” or “D-Link” or something similar. Use something personal, like “BobsWireless.” When asked which security option you’d like to use, opt for WPA2 if you know that all the devices on your network support it. After that, simply pick a security key, which boils down to a password-type phrase. Try and go strong here. Use not just “password” but “P4ssW0rd1234”—because a mixture of capitals, numbers, and symbols with letters is much harder to crack, let alone guess. Avoid words found in the dictionary. The balance here is to come up with something easy to remember. Even then, it’s a good idea to change that security key every few months. Save that and all you have to do is go to each of your wireless computers and let APRIL 2009 PC MAGAZINE DIGITAL EDITION 35
Page 2 and 3: To order your space saving iOne- GX
Page 4 and 5: Editor-in-ChiEf, pC magazinE nEtwor
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Page 10 and 11: Best of the Internet yourFoNTs This
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Page 18 and 19: Samsung LN46A850 $2,599.99 list l l
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Page 34 and 35: New Wireless Routers Add Speed, Dro
Page 38 and 39: them scan for the SSID (BobsWireles
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