The range reported in the Access Points specifications is under ideal conditions. How many walls, and what the walls are made of can affect their range. Other wireless devices that are in the area may also affect their range. A USB wireless adaptor on the computer usually increases the signal, and using a higher channel will also help. Savage Consulting can increase your signal and network bandwidth by installing a high gain antenna that plugs into the computer’s network card.

There are several simple steps that you can do to increase the speed of your system.

1. Scan the computer with a good anti-virus & anti-spyware program.
2. Look at how many programs are running in the background.

a. Go to Start – Run – then type in “msconfig”, then OK.
b. Go to the start up tab and remove all programs that initialize at startup that you don’t need. Just remove the check mark in the box from the program, then press OK and reboot the computer.

I removed one of my office computers from our firewall last week, and in a one-hour time period I documented over 100 attempts to try and hack into that computer. Why would someone want to get into that computer? They probably don’t care who I am, but most of us use our computers for email, financial programs, and personal documents. They may be able to steal financial information such as a financial statement, credit card or bank account numbers, or maybe even your social security number. They also could format you hard drive or install a program that would attack another computer hiding their identity. Internet security should be a concern for anyone using a broadband connection.