You can find us at www.wctechblog.com. Please head over there and save us on your favorite browser. See you there!
.png)
Sunday, January 5, 2014
We Have Moved!
Our website has moved!
You can find us at www.wctechblog.com. Please head over there and save us on your favorite browser. See you there!
You can find us at www.wctechblog.com. Please head over there and save us on your favorite browser. See you there!
Friday, January 3, 2014
Check out SkipLock
My first true tech article of this week and wouldn’t you
know it involves mobile security. I have preached and begged everyone that I
come into contact with to apply security to your smartphones. This is because our
smartphones are now really mobile computing devices and very often they hold
sensitive information that cyber criminals just love to get a hold of.
However setting a PIN or PATTERN code on your smartphone can
be pain in the – you know what. I can understand this because who wants to
constantly have to input these security access codes at home, at work or at other
places where he are reasonably secure that your device is safe, especially if
you “lose” it there.
 |
| It is very easy to add any wireless network to SkipLock where you do not want to be bothered by the security code. |
This is where “SkipLock” can save the day. I found this app
during the holidays and quickly installed it and tested it on my Galaxy Note 3.
With this nifty app you can register wireless networks that are comfortable
with and the app disables the “screen lock” while connected to the network.
Once you leave the area of the network or networks you have registered the
screen lock is enables again. With this app you do not need to constantly input
the PIN or PATTERN when at home or other places you frequent and are
comfortable with.
The app is free for a week and about $4.99 afterward. It is
well worth the cost. I believe this is only available for Android devices and
you can learn more here.
Thursday, January 2, 2014
IP Addressing 101
2013 is history and 2014 is here. Technology news will start to up here again very soon as the new year gets underway. In the meantime did you ever wonder about IP addresses and wanted to learn more about them? Well lets take this slow tech news moment to delve into the basics of IP addressing.
IP Addresses are critical to how our computers and mobile devices communicate.
IP addresses are unique sets of numbers assigned to devices that connect to a network. These sets of numbers are used to send and receive information on the network and to find other devices. An IP address is very much like a home address that others use to send you physical mail and for you to send mail from. Very simply IP addresses are unique identifiers of your location.
While your home or small business router usually handles all IP address assignments via a DHCP (Dynamic Host Control Protocol) server within the router's software, there are organizations that officially manage and allocate blocks of IP addresses for companies and organizations, just like we do at the Borough of West Chester's local area network (LAN). IANA (Internet Assigned Number Authority) handles IP addresses allocated globally, typically to Regional Internet Registries. In the Unites States, IP address allocation is managed by ARIN (American Registry for Internet Numbers).
To see what I am talking about check this out and follow along. Be warned - this is very exciting.
IP addresses are represented as a set of dotted decimal numbers. Check it out for yourself and click on the Start button. In the "Search" or "Run" field type in CMD. At the command prompt (which is the C:\>) Type in ipconfig /all followed by the Enter key.
You will see a screen that looks just like the one below (although you may see different numbers) and the yellow highlighted box is merely for this article:
Look at the area in the yellow box. Look for the line IPv4 address. You will see the numbers 192.168.1.4. This is the IP address that my wireless router is assigning to my computer which is connected wirelessly to the router.
This address is used by every other device I have connected on my home network to communicate with my computer.
Look back at the image above. You will see a line that shows my subnet mask is 255.255.255.0.
What does this mean?
Subnets divide networks into groups. You may want to create different groups within a network for giving different users access to different resources, for performance optimization, or for security reasons. Subnet masks tell other devices if a specific device is on a local or remote network, to efficiently route packets.
Another glance back at the image and you will see my gateway address is 192.168.1.1. In most small business and home networks, the gateway address is typically the IP address assigned to the router. The gateway acts almost like a traffic cop, managing the flow of traffic between the Internet and the LAN.
You can learn more about IP Addressing here.
IP Addresses are critical to how our computers and mobile devices communicate.
IP addresses are unique sets of numbers assigned to devices that connect to a network. These sets of numbers are used to send and receive information on the network and to find other devices. An IP address is very much like a home address that others use to send you physical mail and for you to send mail from. Very simply IP addresses are unique identifiers of your location.
While your home or small business router usually handles all IP address assignments via a DHCP (Dynamic Host Control Protocol) server within the router's software, there are organizations that officially manage and allocate blocks of IP addresses for companies and organizations, just like we do at the Borough of West Chester's local area network (LAN). IANA (Internet Assigned Number Authority) handles IP addresses allocated globally, typically to Regional Internet Registries. In the Unites States, IP address allocation is managed by ARIN (American Registry for Internet Numbers).
To see what I am talking about check this out and follow along. Be warned - this is very exciting.
IP addresses are represented as a set of dotted decimal numbers. Check it out for yourself and click on the Start button. In the "Search" or "Run" field type in CMD. At the command prompt (which is the C:\>) Type in ipconfig /all followed by the Enter key.
You will see a screen that looks just like the one below (although you may see different numbers) and the yellow highlighted box is merely for this article:
Look at the area in the yellow box. Look for the line IPv4 address. You will see the numbers 192.168.1.4. This is the IP address that my wireless router is assigning to my computer which is connected wirelessly to the router.
This address is used by every other device I have connected on my home network to communicate with my computer.
Look back at the image above. You will see a line that shows my subnet mask is 255.255.255.0.
What does this mean?
Subnets divide networks into groups. You may want to create different groups within a network for giving different users access to different resources, for performance optimization, or for security reasons. Subnet masks tell other devices if a specific device is on a local or remote network, to efficiently route packets.
Another glance back at the image and you will see my gateway address is 192.168.1.1. In most small business and home networks, the gateway address is typically the IP address assigned to the router. The gateway acts almost like a traffic cop, managing the flow of traffic between the Internet and the LAN.
You can learn more about IP Addressing here.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)