Category Archives: Guides

Any guides that GEEK! create will slot into this category.

Guide: A simple way to make a WEP key

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There are too many people around who have their wifi routers unsecured. Why? Well there are horrible people out there who think it’s right to connect to your wifi. Believe it or not, it’s stealing and if you are caught you will get in trouble.

It’s a really good idea to set up a security key for your wifi. It is simple to do and will save you a lot of hassle. OK, if you live in the middle of a field in a rural area, chances are that there won’t be any wifi-jackers (that’s what I call them) anywhere near you, but you never know.

I get questions from quite a few people about making a good, secure wifi key that’ll keep those unwanted wifi-jackers away. Most routers automatically set up a WEP key when you set them up, but they can be hard to remember and annoying when you need them regularly.

I say the same thing to everyone – there is an easy way to create a simple easy to set a key to remember. An important date you you (such as a birthday) and and another important 2 digit number (such as your house number). I suggest you have it like this:

DDMMYYYYHH

KEY: D – Day, M – Month, Y – Year, H – House number.

So, if my birthday was on the 12th of June 1978 (it isn’t, seriously!) and my house number was 9, I’d set it like this: 1206197809.

You won’t forget it, I promise. As long as you remember the structure you’ll be fine. I find it a really simple way to make a good, secure WEP key. As long as you don’t tell anyone else that it’s the structure of your security key, you won’t get any unwanted intruders chewing up all your bandwidth and getting you into trouble with the law.

Guide: Make your own wifi network with any wireless enabled computer/laptop [Windows Vista]

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Do you have an internet connection or broadband supply, but no wireless router to give you wifi around the home. Well have no fear, because there’s no need to spend £50 on a wireless router if you’ve got a computer of laptop with wifi capabilities. It’ll mean that if you have broadband but not a wireless router, you’ll be able to create a wifi network and get things like an iPod Touch on the internet.

I’m going to show you how to create your own little wifi network using a Vista computer and any wireless hardware. As long as it’s capable of picking up wifi signals, it’ll be able to send them too.

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Poor wifi signals? Is it interference? (Quick fix)

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I was recently very bewildered since the wifi singal range on my router was still very poor even after adding a huge 9DBi antenna to it. I couldn’t understand why, but then I did some research and found some rather interesting information.

It would appear that if you use a cordless phone, you may be aware that most common cordless phones run at a frequency band of about 2.4GHz. Sound familiar?

Well, you may also be aware that both 802.11b and 802.11g wifi signals (as well as some 802.11n) both run 2.4GHz.

What a coincidence. Anyway, what that means is that if your router and cordless phone base are close together (ie less than 50cm apart), they can interfere with each other and therefore reduce signal range quite dramatically.

This was the problem I seemed to be having. So I move my router so it was about 100cm (the further the better, ideally) from the phone base, and the signal range increased hugely. It also put an end to the regular connection drops I got while using wifi.

So, a simple thought, but it really does make a difference. It’s not just cordless phones, but anything near a router that runs at a frequency of 2.4GHz or 5GHz. Bare it in mind.

Together with my 9DBi antenna, I now get fantasic wifi signal that I’m really pleased with. It made a huge difference, so definitely consider it before blaming a router or router antenna.

Guide: Convert your MP3 audiobooks into formats that iTunes will recognise as an audiobook!

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Wow, long title! Anyhow, this is the first guide I am making that will be posted on the general blog. And today I’m going to be explaining how to covert your MP3 audiobooks into the format that iTunes will recognise as an Audiobook, and will place in the Audiobooks section on your iPod.

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Mobile Internet on 3 (Three) Mobile – Price Guide & what you get for your money

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I’ve been on Three for quite a while now, and have done a range of posts about them – good and bad. Anyway, I have decided that since Three don’t tell you how much data usage you get for buying Internet Addons on Three, I would ring them up and post it up for the benefit of readers. This is not usage information for the separate USB modem mobile broadband – this is for general Internet addons with Three. I believe this only applies to pay as you go customers, as pay monthly customers have to add an internet bundle to their monthly bill.

Anyway, according to Three’s customer service, the current usage allowances are as follows:

Internet Daily: 120MB allowance to be used in one day.

Internet Weekly: 500MB allowance to be used in one week.

Internet Monthly: 2000MB (2GB) allowance to be used in one month.

At the time of writing, the only way you can find out your current internet usage on an addon is to ring up Three’s customer service on 333 free from a Three mobile (pressing 3 on keypad when you get through, and then 2 to speak to an advisor), and they will quote you if you ask them.

You cannot check your usage on My3 as it will just say ‘Fair Usage’ which really annoys me with companies, as it doesn’t tell you anything.

Anyway, that should solve any queries and save you having to ring them up.