Why you shouldn’t let builders anywhere near your Wi-Fi

Friday, October 14th, 2011

I’ve just had a proper argument. My circle of friends and even a few colleagues at Dennis will tell you, this isn’t unusual of itself, so I won’t do the down the pub routine that relies heavily on the phrase “So then I said…”. I’ll give you the helicopter view.

It was an argument about Wi-Fi. I went to a meeting to go through re-wiring a retail shop to accommodate a CCTV system, the sales PCs, the PDQ card-payment setup, and the email workstation. There was also a couple of new ventures, in the shape of kiosks for customers to look through the website and ask about styles, sizes and colours not visible in the shop.

At this meeting were the proprietors, me, and a jobbing interior decorator. The list of snags, water leaks and bits of paint and the like was long and diverse: then we came to the wiring. Just a small shop, but very quickly we arrived at a total of 15 locations. It’s also an old building, which means that it won’t be falling down any time soon; but conversely, drilling holes is going to be a proper rufty-tufty builder’s job, one I am very glad I won’t be undertaking. Looking at the job in hand, the jobbing builder decided to propose a different approach: Why not just put in wireless?

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What’s really killing your Wi-Fi? Here’s a graphic illustration

Friday, August 19th, 2011

We’ve written many times about how crowded the 2.4GHz frequency band is becoming these days, and how that can affect the reliability and speed of your wireless network.

There are so many devices and routers now using the unlicensed space between 2,400MHz and 2,475MHz that finding a quiet, undisturbed channel for your network to reside on is nigh on impossible. That’s why we recommend anyone upgrading their wireless router chooses a dual-band model — one that gives you the option of connecting in the less congested 5GHz frequency band.

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Why Android owners shouldn’t worry about Metro’s front page splash

Wednesday, May 18th, 2011

Today’s Metro has a spectacularly sensationalist headline (that’s now been changed on the website) screaming from its front page: “Android phones ‘all leak secrets’”. That’s potentially worrying if, like me, you’re an avid Android user – after all, if I wanted my phone to be less private than Jordan’s holiday, I would have bought an iPhone (only joking Apple lawyers).

According to Metro, “almost all” Android phones are vulnerable to a problem that allows “criminals to steal users’ personal information”. That’s done, theoretically, by hackers using unsecured Wi-Fi networks to gain access to the data contained within your phone’s Calendar and Contacts applications, according to researchers at Ulm University, in Germany. (more…)

The big tablet debate: 3G or Wi-Fi-only?

Wednesday, April 20th, 2011

Upon reading my review of the Asus Eee Pad Transformer, our picky editor Barry Collins turned to me with a criticism. “The fact that there’s no 3G version,” he argued, “should surely count against it, shouldn’t it?”

Should it? We tend to review the Wi-Fi-only models of tablets, because that’s what we’re usually sent. We’ll mention the 3G options in the review, but it’s up to manufacturers to decide whether to offer them or not, and up to consumers to buy them.

It started a debate, one which began in the office and spilled over to the PC Pro podcast as well. Then I posed the question – to 3G or not to 3G? – on Twitter, and it generated an unexpected level of response. (more…)

What’s killing your Wi-Fi? Wrapping your house in tin foil

Thursday, April 14th, 2011

On the cover of this month’s magazine (on sale today) we ask: what’s killing your Wi-Fi? Among the many answers – and solutions – you’ll find in our cover feature is one supplied by our Real World wireless expert, Paul Ockenden.

“Modern homes constructed largely of plaster board also use signal-bouncing foil coating in bathrooms and kitchens,” Paul offers as one possible reason for erratic Wi-Fi reception.

Judging by a walk past a local housing development, it’s not only kitchens and bathrooms that are being turned into giant Faraday cages – it’s the whole house.

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The Samsung camera that backs up your photos

Saturday, January 8th, 2011

Samsung has announced a swathe of cameras at CES, but one in particular caught my eye. Not the Samsung NX11, with its intelligent lenses that allow you to adjust settings on the lens itself; not the WB700 with its astounding/ridiculous 18x optical zoom; but the SH100, which can back up photos wirelessly simply by being close to your PC.

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The question Ofcom won’t answer: is it safe to run an open Wi-Fi hotspot?

Thursday, July 15th, 2010

You may remember a few weeks ago, we reported on how Ofcom’s proposed code of conduct for dealing with illegal file-sharing contained a veiled warning to the providers of free or open Wi-Fi connections.

In a nutshell, anyone who provides an open Wi-Fi connection – be that a company with a free hotspot in their reception or a home user who decides to leave their router unprotected – will be held responsible if someone downloads copyrighted material on their connection. (Unless, bizarrely, they are a coffee shop or other business that offers Wi-Fi access in conjunction with other goods or services, in which cased they’re treated as an ISP).

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How to keep freeloaders off your Wi-Fi connection

Monday, August 24th, 2009

Here’s an ever-so-slightly ingenious way of keeping spongers, hackers and the proletariat off your home or office Wi-Fi connection – just rename your router as follows:

(Image via F-Secure’s Mikko Hypponen)

Blik becomes iBlik

Thursday, August 21st, 2008

I played with the Blik RadioStation a while back, and I must admit that I was thoroughly impressed. It was the first combined DAB, FM and Wi-Fi radio I’d seen, and the sound quality was good enough to easily bag it a recommended award.

Not content to rest on its laurels, though, Blik has thrown another audio source in to its new model. Now you get three flavours of radio and an iPod dock. In the time-honoured tradition of iPod accessories, the model name has been preceded with a meaningless “i”, to become the iBlik.

None of us here in the labs have an iPod, so it’s my duty to admit that the above image is a cunning mock-up. We wouldn’t want to deceive you here at Pro. We’ll test it out and get back to you, but if the dock’s sound quality can match that of the radio inputs then it has nothing to worry about.

Grassed up by the Wi-Fi?

Friday, May 16th, 2008

I’ve been testing mobile broadband dongles all this week, so have been spending more time than is otherwise healthy delving around my wireless network settings (I know, the glamorous life I lead)

Yesterday, I came across a box that I had only given a cursory glance to before: the Preferred Networks settings, which can be found by clicking on Change Advanced Settings from your list of available wireless networks in Windows XP.

Stored in here was a list of all the wireless networks I’d hooked on to since I’ve had my laptop. The Wi-Fi hotspot at McCarran airport in Las Vegas used when I covered CES in January (OK, we do get a bit of glamour), the Pro Labs connection, the guest network at Microsoft’s offices. Anyone who rifled through my laptop would have a pretty good idea of where I’ve been for the past year. And what if a suspicious spouse stumbled across it and found a Wi-Fi hotspot at a hotel he/she didn’t remember you mentioning before?

How long before Windows is responsible for the first Wi-Fi divorce? I’ll give it six months.