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13 useful IT-networking tips for everyday life
In the IT-network very often much potential is wasted: in a homezone as well as in the Web, you can use little tricks and adjustments to significantly improve functionality and comfort. Here are some hints where you can tune:
1. LAN bookmarks in the browser
Some important devices in the local network offer their configuration interface via a web server, which is accessible in the browser: this includes routers, repeaters, NAS, media server or network printer. Put in the browser of your choice its own bookmark folder for this local addresses that you call as "local" or "LAN".
In this bookmark folder you put all important IP addresses by drag and drop from the address bar. In order to achieve the future configuration of all these devices in one click. The prerequisite is that the IP address is constant.
2. High-speed data transmission even far away from the router
Placement of the router is often dictated by the location of the splitter or DSL modem and therefore difficult to optimize even in unfavorable situation. If you are in another room require optimal throughput in apparent distance, wireless, even with repeater becomes only an unsatisfactory compromise. Convincing - and without much effort, two Powerline adapters can solve the problem. Although the throughput in the power grid is well below the theoretical 200 or 500 Mbit / s, but that's not the point: The equipments at the end of the current bridge are connected by cable - either via the integrated switch of the Powerline adapter or via a separate Switch. The transmission rate then reaches at least Fast Ethernet speed (usually well over 100 Mbit / s), and so you also stream Blu-ray data rates with no problem from A to B.
4. Useful NET command on the command line (Windows)
The Net command in the command prompt is a very useful tool for many network tasks. After starting the "Run" dialogue with Win-R you get with cmd / k net use all local network connections, with cmd / k net share all releases of the current computer. The command
net use / delete *
is particularly useful when you need to clean up the existing remote connections because Windows "multiple connections" complained during an access attempt. Popular in corporate networks is the command:
net config server / hidden: yes
Thereafter, the concerned computer in the network environment of the other is no longer displayed, but remains accessible if it is addressed in the Explorer with \ \ computer \ share directly. This does not hide the computer from external network tools.
5. Publish your External IP address in the cloud
DSL users receive a new public IP address on the Internet daily. Using a Dyn-DNS Provider is often the solution for remote access to the own Home- Network. Alternatively, you can publish the external IP to the Internet by using a cloud environment.
For this, a cloud storage at any provider is sufficient - Microsoft Skydrive, Strato Hidrive, Dropbox, Google Drive, Ubuntu One, or whatever. However, these cloud storage must synchronize the local file system. They provide all these cloud storage either by default (Dropbox, Hidrive, Ubuntu One) or by installing an additional tool (Google Drive Sync, SkyDrive client).
Then, for example, using the following command:
cmd.exe / c [path] \ curl.exe
http://ifconfig.me>% user
profile% \ SkyDrive \ ip.txt
will do the work.
The necessary tool for this is curl.exe and it shouldn't be missing on any system. It gets the own external ip-Adress address from calling ttp://ifconfig.me and writing the result to a text file in the Skydrive folder. From the sync folder on the hard disk, the text file is automatically synced to the cloud. This will get you access anywhere on the crucial information where your local network can be reached from outside.
To use services in your Home- Net from outside you have to configure Port- Forwarding in your Router. By routing the standard port 21 forwarded to your home FTP server, you will gain access with ftp: // [External IP] with any FTP client such as FileZilla to your Home- FTP-Server.