| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| 1029usr078198 |
Posted - April 02 2011 : 09:24:45
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Question: Donna asks, "I've forgotten my wireless password. Can I get it back?"
Answer: Good question, Donna. In the early days of wireless networking, people didn't often enable security on their networks. It wasn't necessary because it wasn't everywhere. But now, wireless security has gotten stronger and easier to implement, so that the CDs that set up your wireless router will automatically set up security. This makes it easy to forget what the password is. You only have to enter it the first time you connect to a wireless network, and it becomes easy to forget the same way speed dial makes you only able to call some people from that phone. Well, another thing that can happen is that your router can lose its settings and when that happens, it'll revert to its factory defaults. There are two ways to fix it, and both of them require a network wire. One is to just use the CD that came with your router and re-setup everything fresh. This is the best option when only one or two devices use your wireless, because you'll have to set these devices up again. The second option is to go into the router's setup; usually with Internet Explorer or some other browser. You can then usually find that password under Wireless Security somewhere.
Cool Site: Zefty.com: If you have kids, one of the areas you have to teach them about is money management. This week's cool site, Zefty might be able to help. With zefty, you sign up for an account and you sign up your kids also. Zefty works kind of like a bank. You as the parent hold the actual money, but your child's Zefty account works like a checking account and keeps up with the balance. So, when your son or daughter wants to go to the movie or whatever, they can write a ZeftyCheck, print it out and take it to you to cash. You then reconcile the check which updates their Zefty account balance. In the process, they learn how checks work. After deciding how much allowance they should get, you could if you want, set up that amount to be automatically deposited into their Zefty account. This illustrates the concept behind direct deposit. If they want to do something special, they can use the ZeftyCalc tool to find out how many weeks' worth of allowance they'll have to save to get it. This teaches savings rather than using credit to get what you need and want.
Cool Gadget: FaceInfected: Social networks are all the rage these days. What the web was for the Internet, it looks like Facebook is becoming for the web. But that fame comes with a price. Bad guys have begun to infect Facebook pages with viruses so that when you go there, you get the virus. This week's gadget is a website gadget: Faceinfected.com will let you scan your facebook page for malicious links. You have to give it access to everything for it to work, but then in short order it will let you know whether or not your page is infected. It starts by checking your links and presents buttons below that where you can choose to scan messages, private messages, and links. I'm not sure what the difference is between the initial link-check and the one you get when you click "scan links".
It's All "Geek" To Me: Address Bar: This week's term is one that does cause a certain amount of confusion: the Address Bar. The Address Bar is a text box you'll find in your web browser. All of them have one, and it is here that you'll see the address of the website you're visiting. Its contents usually begin with http://, but may begin with something slightly different, depending on which site you're visiting. In the address bar, you can also type where you want to go on the web and press the Enter key to go there. You don't usually have to enter the http:// part because the browser will put it there itself if you omit it. Where folks sometimes get confused is in distinguishing the address bar from search boxes that may also appear in your browser window. Making things worse, some address bars also let you enter search terms and will redirect you to a search engine when you press enter. But the search boxes you have either on the Bing or Google web page, or in some toolbar that was added to your browser are not the same as the address bar. Most of the time nowadays, these search boxes will appear below the address bar, so this should help you differentiate between them.
Links
Tech Tip Friday's Show Notes RSS Feed:
http://www.daconsult.com/downloads/rss.xml
Zefty.com:
http://www.zefty.com/
Faceinfected:
http://www.faceinfected.com
Address Bar at TechTerms:
http://www.techterms.com/definition/address_bar.htm |
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