Joseph Moran

There’s no doubt that handheld devices like smartphones and PDAs can help make you more productive on the road. But the flip side of their convenient size is that these devices can be especially vulnerable to loss or theft. Whether misplaced or stolen, the loss of a handheld is always a major inconvenience, but if […]

Reprinted from PracticallyNetworked.com A recent visitor to the Practically Networked Forums posted a question about the feasibility of using an external antenna on a USB-based wireless adapter in order to cure a recurring connection problem that a particular system (and only that system) was having. It’s not hard to see the appeal of USB WLAN […]

Judging by the description of the product — fast, sleek, shiny and designed by Pininfarina — I could scarcely contain my glee at the chance to review the latest exotic Italian sports car. But it turned out to be a different kind of “drive,” because what showed up at my door was a SimpleDrive, one […]

When you need to add storage to a small home or office network you typically either connect a storage device connected directly to a PC (far from the best approach from a sharing perspective) or go with a network attached storage (NAS) device that connects directly to your network and thus is easier to share. […]

Configuring or reconfiguring a wireless network — or just adding a new device to an existing one — can often be a hassle. In fact, keeping configuration effort to a minimum is one of the main reasons many people choose (unwisely) to do things like use default SSIDs, simplistic and easily guessed encryption keys, or […]

Stories about the theft of personal financial data are constantly in the news these days. This seems to most often involve credit card numbers, as was the case recently when theft of tens of millions of them from TJX, the company that owns the TJ Maxx and Marshall’s chains (among others) made headlines. Most of […]

As a small business owner, chances are you have more than one computer in your home or office. When you need to share data between them (and you inevitably will), the easiest and most efficient way to do that is through a shared storage device like a NAS (Network Attached Storage) drive. The latest entrant […]

If you need to get work done on the road (and we mean real work, not just firing off a handful of terse e-mails) then you need more than a trendy smartphone or PDA. More likely, you’ll need a solid notebook to really get stuff done, and if your productivity is paramount, HP’s new Compaq […]

It’s common these days to be out in public and see people who appear to be talking to themselves. In many cases, a closer look usually indicates that the person is actually chatting with someone else through a small ear piece wirelessly linked to their mobile phone. Such devices employ Bluetooth, a technology that’s used […]

These days, using a PC without a firewall installed makes about as much sense as leaving the house without wearing any pants. We’re not talking about the firewall built into your broadband router here — though they’re a critical first line of defense. We’re talking software. A software firewall can offer significant supplemental protection, which […]

WhatsUp Gold v11 inAction“What’s Up?” is a pretty common casual greeting in the vernacular, but for an IT administrator those words are loaded since they just as well may mean “What’s down, why and for how long?” Thanks to the copious use of AJAX and JavaScript underpinnings, WhatsUp Gold’s browser-based console has substantially the same […]

Internet telephony, more commonly known as VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol), was virtually nonexistent several years ago, but these days, it’s a viable option for almost anyone with a broadband connection. Considering all the attention VoIP is getting, you might be thinking about signing up for it and may even have already received (multiple) solicitations […]