Tag Archives: network

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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3 (Three/Hutchison 3G) UK Mobile Pay as you Go – Full and thorough review!

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I’ve been with 3 (Three) for just under 6 months, so I feel it’s about time I do a full review. There’s much argument on the internet as to whether 3 is really a good company or whether it isn’t to be used. I have summed up most of the features available on 3 and how well they compare to other mobile operators in the UK.

Bare in mind, this review is based on pay as you go usage, but some categories (such as Coverage) apply to both PAYG and Pay Monthly.

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Freecom Network Drive and Linux (Ubuntu to be specific)

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I get a lot of Google searches relating to the Freecom Network Drive and Linux. They seem to relate to not being able to get it work properly, but I haven’t really posted much about the FND on Linux because… I just don’t use Linux. So for the benefit of my readers, I decided I’d take a leap of faith and download an ISO of Ubuntu just to see whether I could get it going.

And, frankly, I’m not totally sure what all the fuss is about. People seem to claim that they can’t access the drive or the config panel for it. But I didn’t have any problem at all – I just got Ubuntu working and connected to my wifi and it almost worked immediately. I could get to my network drive config panel at 192.168.1.2 (in my case, different users have different IPs) – just logged in as normal and it went easy peasy. Then as for getting to files, the Network window detected my drive most of the time and displayed all the folders and if not I could just do a local FTP and that worked just fine.

I’m not sure if people were/are having problems with other versions of Linux… but I mean it shouldn’t really make much difference. If you want to drop me a line or leave a comment with your Network Drive Ubuntu related problem and I’ll happily investigate for you. At the moment, I just don’t see much of a problem, so I need some more details.

If you are having problems, let me know and I’ll look into it for you.

Vista and stupid notification bar not showing common items!

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I have recently been having a problem in Vista, where the three common notification items (battery, network, and volume) don’t show on the notification bar. It’s a pain, and if you try and fix it by right-clicking on the Start bar and clicking Properties, and then clicking the Notification Area tab you just get all of the items greyed out. It’s ridiculous and it never used to happen – it just started happening a couple of weeks ago.

So, when it frustrated me enough to persuade me to Google the issue, I found I’m not the only one with a problem. Apparenly, it’s an issue with the Local Group Policy Editor, and can be fixed either with the Local Group Policy Editor (if you have it enabled) or via the Registry Editor.

If you go to this site, you’ll find some guides that can fix the problem via the Local Group Policy Editor or via the Registry Editor.

However, I still can’t seem to get it working properly. Some of the icons show but I’m usually missing one or two.

Update 24.9.09: I thought rather than linking to another site, I could write a guide on how to fix it myself :P. So, if you’re having the problem, follow these steps to solve it:

1. First, click Start and type in the search box regedit, then press enter.

2. The Registry Editor will open. You now need to use the plus signs next to each category to reach the key below.

Navigate through the following threads:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER, Software, Classes, Local Settings, Software, Microsoft, Windows, CurrentVersion, TrayNotify

3. Delete the following keys by highlighting them and pressing the delete key, confirming by clicking Yes:

IconsStream

PastIconsStream

Now simply log off and log back on and your problem should be solved, or restart the explorer.exe process if you don’t want to log off.

Hopefully, if all that goes smoothly, you should have the icons back (thank god!)

The joys of PAC codes

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In case you have never needed to move to another service provider either for your mobile phone or broadband provider (whilst [mobile] keeping the same number or [broadband] being at the same address), a PAC code, otherwise known as a Porting Authorisation code, is a code you have to obtain from your current service provider to allow your new company to take over service providing.

It may all seem simple. For example, if I want to change from one network to another keeping my mobile number 07712 345678 (for obvious reasons please don’t call it – I have no idea if the number exists!!) I just ring up my current provider, grab the code, hand it over to my new provider, and voila! No issues there.

Sadly, some providers don’t make it so easy. 

In my case, I’m trying to move my mobile from Orange to Three. And before you ask – I’m moving because I’ve discovered Three will hand me a decent phone on PAYG for a decent price and a decent tariff. Anyhow, I use Three’s online customer support to check everything will work, and now it is OK’d, I start the process; unaware it may be more troublesome than springs to mind. 

First thing to do. Ring up Orange. Call 450… ok… [dialing tone], “Hello, welcome to Orange…” – oh crud a call centre. Annoyingly after spending 10 minutes of looking through menus, Orange doesn’t actually have an option for moving to another network. For most people it is quite obvious why, but not me. Why not? People have every right to move network, so why not have an option for it. Instead, I have to go back to the annoying menu, oh wait – “Sorry an error has occured and we are unable to continue processing your call. Please try later.” This is not going well and we’re only at the beginning.

So I call them back. And this time I take the route of “For any other queries, press x”. I roll my eyes when I hear “Please wait while I transfer you to a Customer Service Representative”. Oh joy. How long will it be? 

Surprisingly enough, after 5 minutes of some odd band in terrible music quality, I reach someone. This really bugs me. 

I tell the man on the phone that I need the PAC code so I can transfer network. He needs my name. Not too hard for me to answer. “No, that is not the name on the account.” WHAT? “It is a girls name.” Oh I know who it is. The strange thing is, it was requested several months back that the phone was placed in my name (since I pay all the bills for it now). But Orange obviously wasn’t listening when I spent 2 hours trying to get them to change it to my name. 

“Could I please speak to the registered person on the phone?” Well, no, she’s several miles away. “I cannot give the PAC code out to someone who isn’t registered.” So you are going to tell me that I’ve wasted half an hour (I know some people spend much longer) wasting my time to find some idiot I can’t hear won’t give me the retchard code. 

As you can see, changing numbers is not a five minute job. The mere fact that Orange has some ridiculous policy that they can’t give me the PAC over the phone – it has to be posted – really annoys me. T-Mobile are quite willing to give it over the phone and will also send you a letter to follow it up as well. (For a list of details on obtaining pack codes, see here.)

So the next time you think about changing your number, think about whether it is really worth it or are you just wasting time.