Geek Junk – The musings of just another Geek and his Junk

While there is the old saying, you get what you pay for, the world of computer applications sometimes is a little different. There’s a fairly large community of programmers out there that produce useful applications free of charge, relying on either donations or ad revenue to help, some are released by bigger companies that offer their product up for free for personal use and charge for commercial use, and others just do it as a hobby and enjoy providing something useful to others. Whatever the reason, there are many available, and Geek Junk wants to take the time of point out a few of them for your consumption. more »

Annoying pop-ups in the corner? Strange behavior from the Internet? Unexplained slowness? Chances are your computer isn’t possessed, you just have a nasty case of spyware. Similar to a virus, spyware can impede or even prevent normal operation on your computer. Have no fear though, because most spyware can be removed with a little time and patience. Read on and I will walk you through some simple steps that anyone can do, to help keep your computer running in tip top shape! more »

Ever wanted to use the keyboard like a real computer pro? Microsoft based keyboards have a built in Windows Key, that allows users in Windows to do many useful tricks all with the touch of a keystroke. Even for dedicated geeks, some of these keyboard shortcuts might be new shortcuts to add to your list of tricks. more »

During a recent Active Directory implementation project, I went through the hassle of finding out which ports are needed to allow proper AD traffic to pass through a firewall. There are a few lists out there, but none of them totally conclusive. While I am not giving an absolute guarantee, my list started small opening a bare minimum of ports, and then through monitoring what requests were being blocked by the firewall, one by one opened up a few additional ports. Eventually we found what we needed and had no more blocked requests getting caught by the firewall. more »

Using wireless in your home is as easy as going out to a store, buying a wireless router, and hooking it in to your internet providers connection. However, a careless approach can backfire and lead to both slower connections, or dead zones in the house that could be easily remedied with the careful selection of the placement of one’s wireless router. more »

Home Wireless Networking

Today wireless networking has almost become synonymous with home networking. Go down to Best Buy, pick up a Linksys router, connect in your laptop and you are all set. While there are a few basic security features that should be turned on, this wireless solution is more than sufficient for that majority of home networkers. However, there is a much wider world to explore when considering wireless networking. First and foremost one must decide on a standard. For personal use you will see as many as four different letters describing wireless technologies, A, B, G, and N, but to the laymen, these terms mean nothing more then a spoonful of alphabet soup. more »