Improve 3G Modem Reception with a Kitchen Pot

It would only make sense, after seeing what a kitchen strainer and aluminum foil can do, that a metal kitchen pot would provide a significant signal boost for a mobile broadband modem, or "dongle." The homemade video evidence tells all.

The video is edited in a rather stuttered style for reasons unknown, but the segments where a USB broadband modem is placed into, and pulled out of, a large saucepan, with a signal strength meter running, seem to be fairly steady. A YouTube commenter suggests a more parabolic shape, like a wok, might do even better in capturing and honing the broadband signal.

If you're ever stuck at a friend's house with weak mobile broadband reception, it might pay off to dig into their cookware. At the least, it's an instant conversation starter.

The Best (and Funniest) 3G Mobile Broadband Signal Booster [The Mobile Broadband Blog via Slashdot

Buy Your Cable Modem to Save Cash and Other Common Digital Fees to Avoid

Money site LiveCheap offers five suggestions for identifying and cutting down on your monthly digital bill without changing your service, potentially saving you hundreds of dollars. One way? Buy rather than rent your cable modem.

Photo by Rae Whitlock.

By tackling common and hidden fees, the folks at LiveCheap were able to save $500 from their yearly bill. They tackled some issues like eliminating the "free" VoIP line that comes bundled with your cable and removing unnecessary services from your cell phone plan. Our favorite cost-cutting measure included buying your cable modem box:

Even if you've already negotiated the best possible cable deal with your provider, there's one charge that you probably missed: the cable box fee or the cable modem fee. If your cable service is provided by Charter Communications, CableVision or another big operator, they'll charge you a whopping $5 to $6.95 a month for each of these boxes. $10 - $12 a month for both of these works out to over $120 a year. If you're stuck to cable, you can purchase a digital cable box in good condition online for about $30 and the cable modem will cost you another $25. It will take all of 6 months to recoup the cost.

Annual fee savings? $130. For a few other suggestions for how you can cut down on your digital bill, hit the link below.

5 Overlooked Digital Charges to Eliminate and Save $500 [LiveCheap via The Consumerist]

Extend Your Wireless Network with an Old Router and Powerline Adapters

We've shown you one way to turn your wifi router into a repeater, but if your router doesn't have the firmware or your walls aren't wireless-friendly, you can get similar results with the addition of a device called a powerline adapter.

Photo by Andy Butkaj.

While we definitely love hacking our routers with new firmware, it does have a few downsides, most notably the fact that it's a pain to install. Furthermore, you may not be comfortable installing third-party firmware that hacks your device, if your router doesn't have the required firmware available. Technology blog Tested points out that a couple powerline adapters can help give you the same results by connecting your old router to your network through the power lines already installed in your home.

Essentially, instead of wirelessly "extending" your network, you'll be turning your old router into an access point and putting it in the dead zone of your house. It'll still need to be connected to the network, though, which is where the powerline adapters come in. Powerline adapters plug into your A/C outlets and connect to your network. You don't need any kind of electrical experience to get them working. You could, of course wire it up via Ethernet, but you probably don't want Ethernet cables running all through your house—so powerline adapters are a pretty awesome way to go.

You'll need to tweak quite a few settings on your router to make this work, and powerline extenders aren't super cheap—you could probably pick a few up for the same price of a regular wireless network extender—but if you have a house that isn't wireless extender-friendly (due to thick walls or a strangely shaped house), this is a great way to get wireless everywhere you need it. Hit the link for the full guide, and let us know your experience with powerline extenders in the comments.

How To Use an Old Router to Expand Your Wi-Fi Network [Tested]

RouterPassView Recovers Lost Router Passwords

Windows only: RouterPassView is a freeware application that taps into a router's configuration file, allowing you to recover important data like router login information, wireless network keys, and more in the event any of that important information goes missing.

Once you load the configuration file into the program, it displays your (supported) router's passwords, wireless keys, and login information. It can also decrypt ISP usernames and passwords. It could be really handy if, say, you're troubleshooting a less tech-savvy friend's router or if you happened to lose that information yourself.

RouterPassView supports a limited number of models, so you'll need to check the web site to see if your router will work with the program. It includes some popular router brands like Linksys, D-Link, and NETGEAR. Support for additional routers is planned for the future. RouterPassView is a free download for Windows only.

RouterPassView [NirSoft via Ghacks]

Remotely Reboot Your Router from Any Browser

We've all had those routers that just don't cooperate, and every once in a while lose connection and need to be rebooted (or rather, unplugged and then plugged back in). Here's how to do it without walking across your whole house.

If this happens to you a lot, your router may have a larger underlying issue that needs to be fixed—perhaps the firmware needs an update, or your router is not cooperating with your ISP and you need to give them a call. If it happens only once in a while, though, and you have yet to find a defining solution (maybe you just have a cheap router), here's an easy way to reboot your router without having to be near it.

Note that you'll need to have administrator access to the router. If this is your personal, home router, this is easy. Chances are, the router is still using the default username and password for that model, which is readily available information. You can also do a hard reset of your router by using a paper clip to press the reset button on the back. If you'd rather not restore the factory settings, though, and you have a backup of your config file, you can also use previously mentioned RouterPassView to find your username and password.

To reboot the router when the connection goes down, just type in your router's IP address in the address bar of any browser. The IP address should be easily viewable in your computer's network preferences, though it's usually http://192.168.1.1 or something similar. Every router's settings page is different, but you should be able to reboot the router just by going to basic settings and hitting the "save" or "apply" button without making any changes—this will reboot your router and hopefully get your connection up and running again.

This information is an amalgamation of information from commenters over at Lifehacker Australia and a bit of Googling. I've tested it as much as I can, but I can't verify that this works for restoring lost connections that require an unplug/replug (since I cannot reproduce the event that would cause that type of connection loss), so let us know if this works for you in the comments.

Ask Lifehacker: Rebooting Your Router Remotely [Lifehacker Australia]

What Settings Should I Change on My Wi-Fi Router?

Dear Lifehacker,
I just moved into my first apartment, and bought my first Wi-Fi router. It's a standard Linksys "blue box," and seems to work fine, but I'm wondering—are there any settings I should be looking to change?

Signed,
Curious about Configuration

Photo by webhamster.

Dear Curious,

Good question! For most broadband home users, a Wi-Fi net connection "works" once you plug in the cable and power on the Linksys box, but there's more to having a secure, convenient, and easy-to-use network than just connecting.

Gina walked through setting up a home wireless network in 2006, using a Linksys WRT54G router as the hardware. Her instructions on the physical setup, and reaching the router's configuration page, still stand, but her security steps can use some updating—especially since she herself proved later on how easy you can crack a WEP-encrypted Wi-Fi password.

If you wanted to get really geeky, and unlock a lot of great features, you could power up your router (depending on your model) by installing DD-WRT or the more user-friendly Tomato on your router. But assuming you're just looking to get started with a Wi-Fi network and not start hacking firmware right away, we'll start with the basics.

Head to your router's administration page, then, by connecting to your router (usually linksys), opening a browser to it (usually 192.168.1.1), and entering the default username and password (written in the manual, but usually some combination of "admin," "default," and blanks).

I'm recommending at least four changes and look-intos for the typical router:

Change the SSID and Administrator Password

If you set up your router with an installation CD, there's a chance you've already tackled these steps. If not, head to the "Admin" or "Administration" tab in your settings, and in the main "Management" tab, change that password from whatever its default is.

Why bother? If you're going to leave your network "open"—or not requiring a password to connect—it's crucial to have your router administration password in place, as anybody who's half-familiar can point to 192.168.1.1, use a site like RouterPasswords.com, and then do ... well, all kinds of hincky stuff. Even if you're going to password-protect your system, it's still a smart idea to prevent anyone from messing with your settings.

Want to lock down administrative access even further? Turn off "Wireless Web Access" from this password page. Maybe it's too much of an annoyance to require that router configuration changes require a physical cable connection, but it's also a good way to ensure only those inside your house can mess with your network.

Before you go too much further, too, head to the Wireless tab, and change the "SSID Broadcast Name" in your "Wireless Settings" sub-section. If you keep your router named "linksys," you not only might encounter problems with neighbors who have simply plugged in their new routers, but you'll also train your computers and devices to always connect and accept connections to networks named "linksys"—not always a smart move when you're outside your home.

Change Your Security Settings

Even if you've already set up a password for your network, head to this page. It's under the "Wireless Security" section of the Wireless tab—and not under "Security," a design decision I've never quite fathomed.

If you haven't set up a password, do so now. As with any net-related password, don't make it weak. Use non-dictionary words, add numbers and special characters, and make it as long as you can remember. And change the security mode to WPA2 Personal. WEP is easily cracked, as noted above, and the first WPA has proven fairly easy for hacker-types to get into. WPA2 Personal isn't perfect, but it's the home networking security standard at the moment, and most devices made in the past few years can connect through it.

Open and Forward Any Needed Ports

If you're a BitTorrent user, good software like uTorrent should be able to automatically find an open port and connect through it. If it doesn't work, or if you need to pull off more advanced home network tricks, like screen control from outside your home, encrypting outside browsing through a home SSH proxy or giving tech support with a VNC connection, you'll want to open up the "Port Range Forward" section under the "Applications & Gaming" section.

The layout is a bit confusing, but it's actually a simple setup. Name your port whatever you'd like for reference in the "Application" field, add the port "range" in the two "Start" and "end" fields (usually they're the same number, for a single-number "range"), then choose the IP address of the computer you'd like incoming requests routed to, and click "Enable." In other words, if you want incoming SSH requests sent to your main desktop, add an "SSH" entry, assign it a port (22 is standard, though you can change it for more security from scanning attacks), and direct it to your home desktop's IP address.

But, wait, how do you know which IP address your home computer is on, and how do you reach it from, say, Panera? Good question! We'll tackle that in this next section.

Set Up Dynamic DNS

In the Setup tab, there's a "DDNS" section that allows you to hook up your router to a Dynamic DNS service, like our personal favorite, DynDNS. Gina previously covered the setup of your router to DynDNS in her guide to assigning a doman name to your home web server. Follow her steps, and when you want to remotely access your home computers, you can point your software to something like samsmith.dyndns.org, instead of trying to guess what IP address Time Warner/Comcast/Verizon has assigned you.

You'll also need to make sure your home computers stay on the same internal IP addresses assigned to them by the router—192.168.1.105 and the like. Adam's covered that in his remote BitTorrent guide. The basic explanation is that you set your steady, almost-always-on computers to an IP address that's lower than the "dynamic," changing numbers given out by your router.

---

Those are four settings we recommend peeking into as a new router owner. There are more security measures you can take, like filtering out all but a few accepted MAC addresses (i.e. specific computers/devices) or hiding your router name entirely from those who don't know it, but the average home network owner would probably find those more time-consuming than truly helpful. Your security needs and setup will certainly vary.

Good luck with your new router, and may your browser never tell you of pages not found,

Sincerely,

Lifehacker

AT&T Just Killed Unlimited Wireless Data (and Screwed Everybody in the Process)

Unlimited, all-you-can-eat wireless data was a beautiful thing for Apple devices on AT&T, delivering streams of Pandora, YouTube videos, a million tweets, and hundreds of webpages without worry. And now it's dead.

AT&T's new, completely restructured mobile data plans for both iPhones and iPads have officially launched the era of pay-per-byte data, which we've known was coming. We just hoped it would take a little longer. It's the anti-Christmas.

AT&T is likely just the first, since carriers rarely do anything alone (like when everybody launched unlimited voice calling in lockstep), and Verizon's CTO has rumbled that plans with "as much data as you can consume is the big issue that has to change." And so it is.

If you look at the costs per megabyte, you can see how, despite the fact AT&T is pitching the availability of lower priced plans as a value move, you actually are paying more for less. (Update: Corrected chart, moved a decimal place.)

Under AT&T's old iPhone and smartphone plans, $30/month bought you truly unlimited data. With their new plans for smartphones, arriving June 7 (not coincidentally, the day of Steve Jobs' WWDC keynote) the confusingly named DataPlus offers 200MB of data for $15 a month, while DataPro gives you 2GB for $25. With DataPlus, if you run over 200MB you get another 200MB for $15. But, AT&T tells us that if you're running over the 200MB limit, you can actually switch to the beefier 2GB DataPro completely pain-free (no ETFs or any of that business), and then switch back to the skinnier plan "over time." With DataPro, if you run over 2GB, you get another 1GB of data for $10, ad infinitum. So, if you use 5GB of data, you're looking at a $55 bill for data.

Tethering for the iPhone is here, finally! Hurray! Right? Wrong. First, consider that the old, non-iPhone tethering option offered you 5GB of tethering data for an extra $30 a month. The new plan charges you $20 extra to use the same 2GB pool of data for tethering. You are not buying extra data. You are simply paying extra to use it for tethering.

Let me repeat that: AT&T is charging you an additional twenty dollars a month based purely on how you use your data. This is bullshit, plain and simple.

Why does it matter how you use that 2GB? Why does it cost extra to use it in a slightly different manner, if you're paying for it all the same?

It's asburdity—especially when you consider the basic math. Under the old plan, you paid $60 a month for unlimited data, plus 5GB worth of tethering. Under the new plan, you will pay $45 for 2GB of data, total.

When you break out the dollar-per-byte value, showing just how much data you get per dollar, it becomes clear how outrageous the new pricing schemes are, whatever AT&T murmurs about how much data 98 percent of users actually consume.

The new plans apply to the iPad as well. Meaning the no-contract $30 unlimited data plan, the plan both Apple and AT&T pitched so hard, assuring us that we would never have to worry about data or contracts, is no more. If that $30-whenever-you-want-it unlimited data was a part of your calculus in buying the 3G iPad—it was part of mine—you've effectively been baited-and-switched. They promised one thing, and in just two months, it's gone. I suppose that's the downside of not having a contract with a multi-billion dollar corporation—you're free to ditch them, but they're free to screw you in return.

There is a way out, though it's really more like a way in, since it requires you to dive more securely into the vice grip of AT&T. If you already have an unlimited smartphone data plan and you renew your contract after June 7, as long as you don't change your plan, you can keep on keepin' on with your unlimited plan. In other words, you can get a new smartphone, but keep the same plan—then you're grandfathered in with unlimited data. Same deal with the iPad: If you start an unlimited data plan before June 7, and let it keep automatically renewing, you'll keep unlimited data.

If you add the $20 tethering option after June 7, though, you move to the new plans (which obviously screws iPhone owners interested in tethering). If you don't already have an unlimited smartphone data plan, and buy one after June 7, you'll get one of the new plans. If you come to AT&T after June 7, you'll get one of the new plans. If you start a new iPad 3G data plan after June 7, you'll get one of the new plans. (Here's a bit more on various scenarios and what'll happen with different configurations.)

So, what'll be? Tie yourself up more tightly with AT&T to preserve your data privileges, or join this brave new world, where you pay for every byte you eat? Any hopes you could've possibly had for unlimited 4G, you might as well shred them now. It's true, for most people (98 percent of users, says AT&T), 2GB a month might be fine—I've only used 1GB on my iPad 3G, even after streaming a ton of movies with the intent of killing my battery. And I'm not opposed to metered internet, per se. But I am opposed to higher costs per megabyte, BS charges for tethering, and broken iPad promises. And there's a principle at stake here, dammit. [AT&T]