When shopping for a wireless router, the first detail that you’ll most likely look for is its signal strength. Indeed, you wouldn’t want any dead spot ruining your 50-gigabyte download. The good news is many of today’s routers can easily blanket your house with Wi-Fi. They’re already so powerful and efficient that your next door neighbor could effortlessly pick up signals from your overzealous Wi-Fi distributor.

Unless your neighbors are as trustworthy as your dog, sharing wireless Internet with them may not be exactly a wise move. For one thing, having too many computers sipping through your router may slowdown your surfing speed. Some ISPs are also setting limits on monthly bandwidths, so you might end up hitting your quota in just a week if you continue to be a good Samaritan to them.

But the strongest argument against sharing Wi-Fi with neighbors is the possibility of data theft. The fact that they could access your router or wireless Internet means that they could also very possibly access your computer, too.

This doesn’t mean that you should buy routers that have weak signals. If you want to rival Starbuck’s Wi-Fi strength, then by all means buy the best router that your budget allows. Just make sure that you limit the number of persons who could have access to your personal network. You could easily do this by setting up a password for your router. Another method by which you could restrict or regulate access is by pre-defining the hardware which could access your network.

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I guess it’s safe to say that all of us have already experienced some sort of connection problem. If you still haven’t, then you either have an ISP that’s made in heaven or you don’t have one at all.

In case your browser doesn’t transport you to your homepage, or to any Web site, then you’re most likely having a connection problem. The first thing that you have to check is if all the lights on your modem are turned on. If it isn’t, then the solution lies with your ISP’s customer service hotline. If they’re all lit up, then the answer to your problem might just be a few mouse clicks away.

The most common solution to network or connection dilemmas is by right-clicking on the network icon located in the system tray. Select Repair and wait for a few seconds. Normally this should do the trick. However, in case Windows cannot automatically give you a new IP address so that you could connect to the Internet, you have to do it the old fashioned way. And when I say old, I mean DOS old.

Go to the command prompt and type ipconfig/release. This discards your old IP address. After a few seconds, you should see zeroes in the IP address and subnet mask. Type ipconfic/renew. A new IP address would then be issued to your system. Check if you’re connection is already up and running by trying to access any Web site.

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Before you attribute slow browsing to a virus or spyware, there are a couple of things that you have to consider first. It’s very easy to blame it all on malware. However, you might be wasting your time scanning your entire hard drive for something that may not even be there.

Your ISP may claim that it’s making a 1mbps room for you, but more often than not, their claims are not exactly a hundred percent true or accurate. There are a number of reasons why this is so. First, your ISP may actually be cheating on you. Second, your DSL cable or modem may not be of a good kind. Third, your PC or software may already be obsolete and cannot recognize the new innovations that your ISP is using in providing you with high speed Internet access.

There are many tools or software that you could easily download on the Internet in order to determine the actual bandwidth that you’re receiving from your ISP. Check www.cnet.com for one.

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