Some time ago, ZDNet’s George Ou wrote an innovative article for TechRepublic about using USB flash drives or compact flash (CF) cards to upgrade a router. This week, I want to take that article a step further. Here’s how I used my USB flash drive with my Cisco 871W router. A little background Before we ...

This information is also available as a PDF download. Voice over IP (VoIP) can provide substantial savings on your telephone service by allowing you to use an IP network to make phone calls instead of the traditional telephone companies’ public switched telephone network (PSTN). Many organizations today run IP networks over wireless technology, and it’s ...

Not sure about you, but when I first saw a picture of the XO – the end result of the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) initiative, my mind immediately associated it with a kid’s toy. Like many of those disappointing toys in my younger days that come in the form of coveted items that only ...

According to Press Esc, a team of Georgia Tech scientists working at the institute’s Georgia Electronic Design Center (GEDC) expressed confidence that their research into multi-gigabit wireless technology will be able to yield commercially viable products within three years. Multi-gigabit wireless technology uses extremely high radio frequencies to achieve very high data transmission rates. The ...

The Security Watch blog at PC Magazine had a new posting just the other day warning of a company named “Domain Renewal” sending out bogus renewal notices to domain owners. The renewal notice is just a scam because, despite claims to the contrary, they cannot renew your domain on your behalf.

A 75-year-old woman from Karlstad, in central Sweden, has been bestowed with what we can only salivate and dream about at the moment — the world’s fastest broadband connectivity. At the blistering speed of 40 Gigabits per second pumped straight to her home, Sigbritt Löthberg is now able to enjoy 1,500 simultaneous streams of HDTV ...

The Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) is a necessary tool for every network administrator. You can easily configure it with just a few commands. SNMP is still the most popular way to monitor the performance of network devices, including Cisco routers and switches. With an SNMP management station, you can graph the performance of network ...

The best way to manage the Cisco IOS is through a terminal emulator using the command-line interface (CLI). What's the best terminal emulator to use? David Davis asked TechRepublic members, and he's got five options for you to choose from.

Default routes tell routers and switches where to go to if they don't have a specified route in their routing table. David Davis reviews the basics of default routes, explains how to configure a static route, and tells you how to distribute a default route.

In a typical IP address spoofing attempt, the attacker fakes the source of packets in order to appear as part of an internal network. David Davis tells you three ways you can make an attacker's life more difficult—and prevent IP address spoofing.

If you don't consider your bandwith requirements when building a VoIP infrastructure, you'll wind up with an unreliable system and an overtaxed WAN. George Ou looks at audio compression algorithms and WAN topologies to help you effectively determine your bandwidth needs.

Following up on my previous review of FreeNAS, I have had some time to play around and investigate further. Unfortunately, due to issues with the current release of VMWare Fusion (bridged networking does not work), I was unable to use the downloadable virtual appliance. Instead, I created a clean Parallels virtual machine and installed from ...

Creating and managing trust relationships can be a little tricky, and a misconfigured trust could have serious repercussions for your network. IT pro Rick Vanover put together a list of facts and pointers to keep in mind as you work with domain trusts.

In this SQL Server tip, Arthur Fuller explains the effects of NULLs, and the different results obtained by inner and outer JOINs.

Using quality of service (QoS) on Cisco network devices helps provide both bandwidth and priority to certain types of network traffic. In this edition of Cisco Routers and Switches, David Davis walks you through the basics of configuring QoS on a Cisco router and shows you how our downloadable template makes it easier.