Visits since Feb 2008

WHAT'S NEW

Dec2011

Skype Video for Android: Skype has long dominated Internet telephony and video chat services for PC, Macintosh, and LINUX users, but users of Android-based phones and tablets haven't been able to use their video cameras with Skype until very recently. We are happy to report that Video Skype is almost ready for prime-time use, and we demonstrate our experience with two different, popular Android tablets. You may be surprised to learn of some of the shocking problems we uncovered....

Nov2011

Remote Access via VPN: This month we reveal how we use the "Point To Point Tunneling Protocol", also known as PPTP, to access our LAN from remote locations all around the world. By exercising great care in the choice of authenticating passwords and PPTP options, we are able to enforce pretty good security, and we really enjoy the powerful access that results: we can access our shared files, print servers, ftp servers, routers, wireless access points, wireless ethernet gateways, and web servers from anywhere in the world.

Sep-Oct 2011

We've been building something REALLY BIG! Have you been thinking about solar power for your home? We've spent the past couple of months building our own system, and it's turned out to be a real asset. However, it was more expensive and more complex than we had expected, and at the rate it replaces the electricity we have been buying, it will take us more than 10 years to get our investment back (disregarding any government or tax incentives for which we may eventually qualify. Our September and October 2011 publications reveal all!

August 2011

Solar-Electric bicycle, anyone? Are you wondering how difficult it is to convert your favorite bicycle to electric power? Would you ride your bicycle more if it had a clean, silent electric motor with a throttle lever that you could activate when you need more speed or when the road gets steep?

July 2011

Let us tell you about a new App we just discovered. We really like it. It's called "HeyTell", and it implements a very effective Internet - "Walkie Talkie" - for Android, iPad, and iPod Touch devices. It's becoming very popular because it's completely free, simple, and effective.

June 2011

P3 "Kill A Watt" Review. Have you ever wanted to measure the exact amount of electrical energy used by the electrical or electronic devices in your home. In this month's review of the "Kill A Watt" electrical energy monitoring device, we show the easy to get answers (and some surprising information about the "unknown" factors adding to your electric bill).

May2011

The anatomy of a "Phishing" Attack. This month, we dissect an email "phishing" attack of the type that has become a commonplace threat to network security. Learn what a phishing email looks like, and how to confirm that it is indeed malicious. It's easy to identify these nasty messages if you know what to look for....

April 2011

Banking and E-Commerce security on the Web. This month's featured video clip shows exactly how your web browser reacts and warns you when the site you want doesn't identify itself properly, or uses an identification technique that can't be trusted without extra steps. Have you ever wondered if you can safely ignore browser error messages about site security or certificate details? Answers are here....

March 2011

WiMax is SUPER LONG-RANGE WiFi. Imagine WiFi that can range for several MILES! Here's a great little video introduction to the "CLEAR" WiMax Internet service from ClearWire Inc., based on their tiny, battery powered, portable "Roverpuck" WiFi-to-WiMax bridge device.

February 2011:

DNS Cache Poisoning Attacks! Can your Internet Domain Name Service be corrupted to lead you to hacked, counterfeit bank or E-commerce pages? Following up on our December issue in which we discussed speeding up your Internet experience by choosing a faster DNS server, this month we pay attention to the SECURITY of your DNS setup. These are things that every active Internet user should know!

January 2011:

Our Flight Simulation section remains among our most popular offerings, and for January 2011, we've enhanced it with a lot of new content. Featuring three flight simulators that can be downloaded free of charge for Windows environments (Aces High, YsFlight, and AirWarrior), we are now announcing three new, free offline "missions" for Aces High. Each of these free missions is accompanied by a "YouTube" movie showing exactly what it looks like. Furthermore, we've located a free download package for the venerable "AirWarrior" simulator, and we've commenced a forum where fans can exchange notes and questions

December 2010:

Is your Internet connection slow and frustrating? A poorly performing Domain Name Server could be the cause! In this month's report, we review the amazing, free "DNS Benchmark" utility by Steve Gibson of grc.com, and we show how you can test the performance of the DNS servers you are now using and compare them with any of thousands of other, free DNS offerings. It's likely that you'll be able to find one or two that perform significantly better than the default servers that your ISP configured for you....

November 2010:

Network Attached Storage, The Easy Way!

As networks proliferate in our homes and small businesses, millions of us are taking advantage of new, Local Network-oriented applications. One of the most powerful of these is the ability to share our files and media with all of the PCs, laptops, netbooks, iPads, TVs, and media players in our modern homes. In this month's installment, we show how we "perverted" a low-cost router for use as a "Network Attached Storage" (NAS) fileserver.

October 2010:

New Home Theater Section! Everybody's building and enjoying Home Theaters nowadays, but there are thorny problems: Old VHS tapes are wearing out and breaking. Priceless, irreplaceable home movies are at risk. DVD collections are difficult to back up. We want to watch our movies on iPods, other media players, and PCs. We tackle all of these thorny problems this month, with the "Neuros OSD" Open Source Device.

September 2010:

Password Management. Do you enjoy choosing and memorizing passwords? Are you confident that you won't forget an important password? Are you worried that you've used your bank or brokerage password on other websites whose managers may not be taking prudent care to keep them secret? We've implemented a simple, inexpensive, practical solution to all of these modern challenges.

SPAM Trap! Have you ever wondered just how spammers operate? When we implemented our "Forums" section, we learned first-hand about the enormous quantity of spam that spammers tried to publish on our site. Eventually, we determined that 99% of forum spammers use mindless "bot" technology that simply tries to get a spam-oriented link published on whichever forum section has had the most traffic. So we thought: "Why not create a fake forum section as a trap. We'll past a whole bunch of silly, mindless, worthless traffic in it just to see if all of the spammers use it instead of our other, valuable sections. It worked beyond our best expectations, even after we included the following text in the forum description: "This forum is a trap, set up to trick stupid spammers. Nobody with any common sense will ever read this drivel, and only a moron would post anything here. It contains hundreds of fake messages just to ensure it will be seen as the "busiest" forum. Since spammers tend to be stupid, mindless dolts that rely on automated processes to choose forums, most of them will try to put their tripe here. Anything advertised here is going to be worthless junk unworthy of consideration by anybody with half a brain." Every day, we get dozens or hundreds of spam postings in this section, but it's very easy for us to delete them all in bulk. It's hilarious! Check it at the bottom of our "Forums" section.

Flight Simulation! Our "Combat Flight Simulation" section has become very popular, and we've published a sophisticated, free combat "mission" for the well-known "Aces High II" combat flight simulator.

August 2010:

Introduction to MagicJack! We explore the well-known "MagicJack" VOIP (Voice over IP) adapter, software, and service, giving it the AskMisterWizard treatment to reveal how it's purchased, installed, configured, and used. Then we dive deeper, answering questions like "will this slow down my computer or my Internet connection?". Our VOIP section is becoming more and more popular with our viewers!

Programmable Keyboards! The lowly keyboard is still the fundamental basis for controlling most computers. You use it a lot. Why not make it work harder for you? In this special exercise, we show how we purchased, programmed, installed, and used a hardware-programmable keyboard to emulate the functions of an airplane's "cockpit" in our Flight Simulation Laboratory.

July 2010:

WiFi Freeloading, Part II! Are your neighbors stealing WiFi access from you? In this second installment of our 2-part series, we get down to the "nitty gritty" details, explaining how you can determine who is accessing your system, how much access they have been using, what they're doing, and how to shut them down.

Featured Articles Section! Now that AskMisterWizard.com has so much content, it's easy to lose track of some of our best publication "gems". We've added a "Featured" link in our header bar, where we will link to some valuable items that might otherwise be difficult to find. We'll change these links from time to time. This month we're featuring "Setting Up a WiFi LAN The Easy Way", Part 1 and Part 2.

June 2010:

New Network Troubleshooting Section! Check out our new "Network Troubleshooting" section, where we take a look at the well-known "Wireshark" tool for monitoring all of the traffic on your network. We also reference prior video clips and articles detailing use of "ping" and "traceroute" tools. If your network is misbehaving or infested by bad guys, these tools will be your best friends.

WiFi Freeloading, Part 1! Are your neighbors stealing WiFi access from you? It happens far more often than you might think!

May 2010:

FORUMS! We now support a rich heirarchy of online, interactive forums where you can ask and answer questions related to technology, and to our online video clips, articles and services.

New VOIP Section! Check out or "Voice over IP" section, where we'll cover Skype, TeamSpeak, and other telephone-like use of the Internet.

YsFlight Online Combat Flight Simulator Server! We love online combat flight simulation so much that we've decided to host our own free service.

LINUX Section! We have merged with our sister publication "HowIGotItWorking.com", so that all of their popular content is now visible within our new LINUX Section. See our detailed instructions for migrating from Windows to LINUX!

April 2010: Advanced Enterprise Network Architectures, Part 3 of 3

Part 3 of our 3-part series on Wireless Enterprise Network Architectures: Wireless Ethernet Bridges. As your network grows, you may want to add additional rooms full of equipment, such as for a small office at the back of a home. Sometimes the best performance comes from using "wired Ethernet" within each new room, and a "Wireless Ethernet Bridge" to connect the entire room to your existing WiFi infrastructure and to share your main Internet connection. This allows rich and powerful new architectures.

March 2010: Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) and the popular "Hamachi" VPN

Until recently, VPNs were complex, cantankerous, and generally confusing to set up. But in late 2005 or early 2006, Internet users began to see references to a new, free set of VPN software for Windows that was remarkably easy to set up. It was code-named "Hamachi", and it could traverse the complexities of NAT routers and manage generation and configuration of complex encryption keys without even involving the user at all. Easy VPNs became available for Windows and LINUX computers. This month we explore Hamachi and show exactly how to obtain, configure, use, and troubleshoot it.

February 2010: Advanced Enterprise Network Architectures, Part 2 of 3

In this second part of our 3-part series on Wireless Enterprise Network Architectures, we look deeper into the popular ways of adding WiFi access. First, on the assumption that you already have a working wired infrastructure as described last month, we consider the simple addition of a "Wireless Access Point". However, we acknowledge that there are less expensive ways to add Wireless functions. We explore those with two more options, both based on the popular "WiFi Routers" that are available from vendors like Linksys, D-Link, Netgear, SnapGear, etc. People often ask us if it's OK to "daisy chain" two routers in series when they want to add WiFi. Here's your answer! (Next time in this series, we'll go even deeper into advanced WiFi architectures, with an examination of "Wireless Ethernet Bridges".)

January 2010: Advanced Enterprise Network Architectures, Part 1 of 3

As the network in your home or business grows to "Enterprise" proportions, you will need to think about the overall architecture that will best serve your needs. You will be expanding your LAN to provide additional Ethernet connectors within your own private subnet, and that expansion will be based on Ethernet Hubs and Ethernet Switches, and it will gradually expand to take on a "tree" structure. Different rooms or departments within your enterprise network will be served with their own Ethernet Switches, each of which can be connected, like the branches of a tree, to "parent" nodes, with Ethernet cables that can be as long as 50 feet. At the "trunk" end of this branching tree structure, your NAT router will create the private subnet that will assign as many as 253 new, private IP addresses to all of your enterprise devices, and you will want to configure that "trunk end" equipment to facilitate network monitoring and troubleshooting. We've published 12 new, brief, highly focused video clips focusing on those details. This is Part 1 of a 3-part series, to be continued next month. Next month's offerings will expand on these January 2010 publications with a deeper treatment of WiFi equipment, multiple routers, multiple subnets, and two different implementations of  "Wireless Access Points".

December 2009: Setting Up a WiFi LAN the Easy Way, Part 2 of 2

Part two of our two-part series. Once your "wired" infrastructure is set up as described in last month's issue, you're ready to turn on the WiFi radios in the Wireless Access Point logic of your Wireless Residential Gateway equipment. You'll need to configure several details to get everything working correctly, at the best compatible speed, with minimal interference from your neighbors, and with enough security to keep out the bad guys. We've published six more video clips focusing on these details.

November 2009: Setting Up a WiFi LAN the Easy Way, Part 1 of 2

Setting up a new WiFi LAN requires installation of at least one new electronic box containing a WiFi Router and several other functions. You'll also need to choose an appropriate Internet Service Provider. In the first of this two-part series, we've published six brief, new, highly focused video clips showing how to build the "wired" infrastructure that you'll need before you can do anything without wires....

October 2009: Wireless Networking Fundamentals

Eight brief, new, highly focused video clips describing the fundamentals of "WiFi" wireless networks and the equipment that you'll need to obtain and configure in order to set up wireless computer networks at home or in your small office.

September 2009: Flight Simulation

A just-for-fun foray into the exciting world of computer-based, online combat flight simulation. We show how to purchase a new computer that will work very well for this popular hobby, and then we go on to show how we configured low-cost, readily available "joystick" and "joypad" hardware for use as virtual aircraft controls. Additional sections show movie clips from classic Windows flight sims, and how we downloaded, installed, configured, and mastered two new, free flight simulators for Windows.

August 2009: Switching from Windows to LINUX

How I converted a desktop PC workstation from Windows XP to PcLinuxOs, one of the most popular new LINUX distributions. 27 brief, highly focused video chapters show the exact steps, commencing with downloading the free PcLinuxOs installation software and burning it to a bootable CDROM, and continuing all the way to creation of a high performance multimedia/gaming LINUX workstation capable of running thousands of LINUX applications and even most graphically-intensive Windows games!

July 2009: Advanced Networking

14 new video clips describe exactly how we have evolved the small-office LAN at the AskMisterWizard.com headquarters, commencing with our very first Internet connection with just one laptop computer, and expanding in 14 video chapters to cover 10 computers, several different subnets, WiFi, a print server, a file server, and more!