Using today’s web browsers, there is really just one big switch controlling JavaScript: it’s either on, or it’s disabled for your entire web experience. Pop-ups are usually blocked, but otherwise, that’s a pretty blunt control. I may not want some random site to potentially exploit some issue via JavaScript, but I can’t check my webmail without it. Disabling JavaScript completely isn’t a good option.

White-listing to the rescue! By explicitly saying which websites can run JavaScript in your browser, you can reduce your risk quite a bit. Unfortunately, in researching this post, I could only find one tool for this job: the NoScript add-on for Mozilla Firefox. I use it, but I expected to find similar offerings for the other web browsers.

So, here’s a new twist here at HTH. We’d like to know what our readers use for JavaScript control, if anything. Lots of folks also just block pop-ups (which is the default behavior in most recent browsers), or Flash, or plugins in general.

What do you use for JavaScript control, if anything?

What does this mean?

Basically, it means that Microsoft is no longer providing security updates, bug fixes, or patches for your edition of Windows.  It also will not provide any technical support, other than the information that exists on its websites. Your operating will still function as it always did, but if you encounter a problem or someone finds a security hole, it will not be addressed outside of Microsoft’s web-based knowledge base.

How do I know if I have an affected version?

By right-clicking on My Computer in Windows 2000/XP or by right-clicking the Computer menu option on your start menu in Windows Vista, and then selecting Properties, you can see what version you have.

Selecting My Computer Properties in Windows XP

Selecting Computer Properties in Windows Vista

If you have ANY version of Windows 2000, you are out of luck and no longer have support.  When you get to the computer properties screen, Windows XP will indicate the Service Pack right under the “Version 2002″ text.

Windows XP Service Pack 2 Information Screen

If this screen indicates that you are running XP Service Pack 1, XP Service Pack 2, or it does not reference a Service Pack, then your operating system is going out of service.  If it references Service Pack 3, then you are up-to-date (for now).

For Windows Vista, the computer information screen looks a little different.  If you have a Vista Service pack, it will be indicated right under the copyright notice.

Windows Vista Computer Information Screen

For Vista, if either Service Pack 1 or Service Pack 2 is indicated, then you are up to date from a support perspective.  If no version is indicated, then you are out of support as of July 13, 2010.

What should I do?

Windows 2000 Users: Get a new computer.  Seriously.  If you are still running Windows 2000 in 2010, you are in serious need of some new hardware and software.

Windows XP Users: You may want to think of upgrading to Windows 7 (we recommend you skip Vista) if your hardware can support it, or purchasing a new computer if not.  Windows XP is being slowly phased out, and it’s only a matter of time before XP3′s support will drop as well.  However, if a new computer or operating system is not feasible at the time being, you can upgrade to Service Pack 3.

Windows Vista Users: Although I consider Windows 7 to be a far superior operating system, Windows Vista still has plenty of years of shelf-life left.  If you’re still on the original version of Vista, simply upgrade to Service Pack 2.

Wrap-up

Dealing with an Operating System going out of support is important.  If a virus comes out that affects your O/S, or a security vulnerability is found, Microsoft will release a patch to fix it on supported operating systems, but ignore unsupported ones.  Microsoft has a pretty good policy compared to most companies on backwards version support, so people shouldn’t complain.  Windows XP was released in 2002, eight years ago, so the fact that there is still a service pack of it being supported is pretty good (although much of this has to do with the market failure of Vista; expect the phase-out of Vista to be much faster).  So, if you’re affected, at the very least, update to the latest service pack, or go out and treat yourself to a brand new Windows 7 based computer.

The Social Bookmarking Sites

Delicious: Delicious (formerly del.icio.us) was the first of the social networking sites.  It simply allows people to link to interesting stories, and the more times a story is linked to, the higher it ranks.  Delicious was bought by Yahoo! recently, and has undergone a face lift.  While still very popular, it goes simply by number of links and doesn’t have the voting features of the others.

Digg: Digg touts itself as a social news aggregator, where its users find and link to news stories.  Digg added the concept of voting to allow the wider Digg community to vote the story up or down.  As stories gain in popularity, they become more visible on Digg, with the most popular stories making it to Digg’s front page.  Digg also acts as a social networking site, allowing users to friend or follow those whose links they generally find interesting.  Some have criticized Digg for becoming too cliq-driven and too slanted in its views, but it remains one of the popular bookmarking sites.

Yahoo! Buzz: Yahoo! Buzz was Yahoo’s answer to Digg,  Yahoo had the advantage of being the first major search engine/aggregation to add social bookmarking functions to its offering.  While featuring many of the features of Digg, Yahoo! Buzz offers the publishers of web content the ability to go in and modify entries linking to their content.

Reddit: Reddit is an open-source social bookmarking site that performs many of the same functions of Digg.  Where Reddit differs, however, is the way that it responds to user’s criticism and feedback of its features, and has a robust discussion community that debates and talks about the stories posted.

Stumbleupon: StumbleUpon is a different kind of social bookmarking site.  The idea of stumble upon is that, when browsing the web and funding an interesting article/page/etc., you mark it.  Then, users go to the StumbleUpon site (or use the StumbleUpon toolbar), and browse sites that others have stumbled on.  StumbleUpon is different in that it is not limited to news/content sites but can be any interesting Internet site or page.

Technorati: Technorati is a social bookmarking site specifically focused on the blogging community.  Blogs create their own feeds, where their blogs latest stories are automatically posted in Technorati.  Users can also flag blogs or stories that they follow, or find interesting.  Technorati is more of a blog search engine, which popularizes entries based on tags and user voting.

Whatever site you choose to try, Social Bookmarking gives you an option to explore the wider Internet, and find content that one would not have found otherwise.  Some have compared Social Bookmarking to an online Reader’s Digest, but with the users/readers as the editors.

So, whether you’re upgrading from Vista, you’ve been holding out since XP, or you’re thinking about jumping (back?) to Windows from Mac or elsewhere, there’s a lot to take in about this latest OS from Microsoft.

A Little History

There’s a wide perception that Microsoft dropped the ball on their last major release, Windows Vista. Whether this perception is justified or not (I don’t think it is), it’s out there, and quite prevalent, so Microsoft has had to address it. You might say that Windows 7 is Microsoft’s main effort in this regard.

Microsoft completely redesigned how hardware interacts with Windows Vista, so there were understandably some growing pains. For instance, at one point, crash statistics from Microsoft indicated that almost 30% of Vista crashes were caused by one vendor’s poorly written video drivers. Despite that initial instability, the hardware layer in Windows Vista is widely accepted as far superior and more secure when compared to XP. Good thing, because of all the changes in Windows 7, that part of the OS has remained unchanged. In fact, in most cases, you can use the same drivers in 7 that you used in Vista.

The name is perhaps a little confusing. Windows 7? This is the seventh one? Well, apparently by somebody’s count at Microsoft, it’s #7. I can’t complain too loudly, though. What the heck does “Vista” or “XP” mean? At least Windows 2000 was released around that year. There are definitely worse names than “7″.

So What’s New?

From the perspective of the guts of the operating system, i.e., how programs run and how hardware interacts with the system, little has changed from Vista to 7; it wouldn’t be entirely unfair to think of 7 as a minor update to Vista. The big changes have come in the interface

The Taskbar – This is probably the most noticeable interface change in Windows 7. The taskbar was polished up a little in Vista compared to XP, but the Windows 7 taskbar is a new animal entirely. Microsoft has sort of made the QuickLaunch toolbar (shortcut buttons on the taskbar) the central idea, and taken a few logical steps. You can now “pin” shortcuts to the taskbar, like you could with QuickLaunch, but now, when you start a pinned shortcut, it just highlights that button on the taskbar. Any subsequent instances of that program you start are all collected under that button.

So, if you have 7 Mircosoft Word documents open, there’s just one button on the taskbar for them all.

Windows 7 thumbnails

Hovering your mouse pointer of the button will pop up thumbnails of the windows associated with that program, and you can switch to those windows by clicking the thumbnails (like Vista). Just hovering over a thumbnail, though, brings that window to the forefront, making all other windows on your desktop transparent but leaving their outlines in place (referred to as “glass”), without actually switching to that window. Move your mouse away, and your windows all fade back to their prior state. It’s a little hard to explain, but it truly makes life easier if all you need to do is look at another window quickly. It’s much faster than switching to another window, and then switching back.

Using Aero Peek with "Glass" effect

Another use of the “glass” feature is functionally similar to the old “minimize all windows” button (or Win-D). Instead of minimizing all windows, you can just hover over a button at the the right end of the taskbar, and all non-minimized windows go “glass” so you can see your desktop. Since gadgets are now free on the desktop (rather than being confined to a sidebar in Vista), getting a clear, quick view of the desktop has some utility. Clicking that button does the same old “minimize all windows” trick.

Windows Live Essentials – Not exactly new features, but updated software. Perhaps for anti-trust reasons, Microsoft has opted to remove several pieces of software that used to come standard with the OS. They’re now available separately, but still for free. Windows Live Essentials is that collection of software, including Photo Gallery and Movie Maker. Also included is software called Family Safety, which allows parents to control access to certain websites, including email filtering for Microsoft’s webmail, Hotmail.

There are, of course, many many more new features, but I’m just trying to point out those that would be quickly noticeable. The best list I’ve found is the wikipedia article on the topic.

Still Using XP?

As you might expect, if you’re upgrading from Windows XP to Windows 7, it will be quite a shift for your regular computing tasks. As for a family PC, not much has changed from Vista to 7, but XP users will welcome features in 7 that were originally introduced in Vista to make family and multi-user computing easier.

Not only is there a Parental Controls control panel item in 7 (and Vista), but you can also choose which games rating system to use (i.e., ESRB in the US, , and you can restrict individual users from playing games with certain ratings. You can set time limits and maintain a list of dis-allowed software, all on a per-user basis. The game ratings restrictions are quite fine-grained, but I would say that the approach of the list of allowed programs is a little cumbersome. To block programs, it looks like Windows basically finds all .exe files, and turns it into a check list. Would everyone remember to allow explorer.exe? I think this could use some work. A little guidance and helpful default settings would go a long way.

Also, trying to have a limited user account, as opposed to an administrator, wasn’t very workable under XP. On that operating system, software would try to do administrator-only tasks with a limited user account, and just crash or cause some other issue. Vista and 7 can very easily elevate to administrator permissions (with a password, of course), or just cancel the whole operation. Actually, it’s as much a matter of the software as the operating system, but with Vista, software developers finally got on board with the multi-user and limited user paradigm.

Worth the Upgrade?

I don’t want to recommend or not recommend Windows 7. If one of the features discussed above or in an article linked from here sounds like a deal-maker to you, go for it. I personally think this is a compelling upgrade from both XP and Vista. Do keep in mind, though, that if you’re coming from XP, you’ll be able to buy the Upgrade package, but you will still need to do a complete install, so get ready to back up your data. Coming from Vista is an easy decision, though. 7 is basically Vista++.

If you’re happy with your current set up, whether XP, Vista, or something else entirely, I would suggest waiting until you purchase a new computer, and get the operating system preinstalled.

Windows 7 is released at retail on October 22^nd, 2009. I’m basing my review and opinions on the Release-to-Manufacturer version, widely released as a preview by Microsoft.

What is VoIP?

Voice over IP (or VoIP) is a technology that essentially uses the Internet to place phone calls, rather than traditional phone lines.  When you make a call, the call is routed to the recipient or to a central server farm that eventually reaches the recipient’s local calling area, and connects out to traditional phone lines in that area to eventually reach the recipient, as if it were a local call.  VoIP has been around for some time in different forms.  When I was in graduate school living in New York, I had a VoIP calling card which allowed me to call my then-girlfriend and now wife for reasonable rates that fit a poor graduate student’s income stream.  The quality was poor and there were often dropped calls, but it got the job done.  VoIP has come a long way since then, and is now a fairly reliable means of communications.  There are several different flavors of VoIP that provide different options, and the choices can be somewhat confusing.  Here, we will look at three different providers that represent a fair cross-section of what is out there on the market.

VoIP Providers

Skype: Skype is the most common of the VoIP providers.  Skype offers the ability to use a computer headset and microphone to make phone calls anywhere in the world.  Skype involves downloading an application that acts as the desktop phone system, and allows users to talk to each other for free if both are using Skype, or for very low rates to call actual phone numbers either domestically or internationally.  Skype also allows users to video conference, and to have an inbound number to receive calls to the desktop.  Skype is a good application for free and low-cost phone calls, but it is not a replacement for a land-line or mobile phone.  For one thing, you have to be on your computer to use Skype, and it does not support any kind of emergency-911 service.  If you’re looking for a cheap way to supplement your traditional phone line to make cheap long-distance calls, Skype provides a good option.

Vonage: Vonage is a VoIP service that acts as a traditional phone service.  Vonage takes the place of your local phone carrier, but sends all of its calls over IP.  Vonage is a subscription-based service that connects to your cable or FiOS broadband connection through a specific Vonage router provided as part of the service.  Vonage allows you to choose your router, and unlike Skype, supports emergency-911 by configuring your locality when setting up your account.  However, Vonage is subject to power failures and your broadband connection, which can have a tendency to experience problems more frequently than traditional or mobile phone networks.  Still, Vonage is a good option for people who want a low-cost long distance carrier that mimics a traditional land-line setup.

Google Voice: Google Voice is a virtual PBX system that allows users to connect a VoIP number to their other existing mobile and land-line phones.  When a caller dials a Google Voice number, it will forward the call and ring to all other numbers defined as linked to the Google Voice number.  Google Voice also acts as a calling-card type system to make outbound long distance calls.  Google voice also has advanced features such as voicemail transcripts, ability to route calls to different numbers based on who the call is coming from, and the ability to record calls and listen to them online.  Google Voice allows users to make use of more advanced features that VoIP and the internet allows that isn’t easily available on traditional phone lines, as well as offering a low-cost option for placing calls.

There are many other VoIP services, but most of them have similar characteristics to the three mentioned here.  With the news about Google Voice now being available as an app for the iPhone, VoIP has the potential to revolutionize not only the way we make traditional phone calls, but also the mobile phone market as well.

In the last few years, social networking has exploded with sites such as Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, and LinkedIn.  Social Networking also includes blogs and social bookmarking sites such as Digg, del.icio.us, Reddit, and StumbleUpon.  Social Media sites such as YouTube and Flickr round out the social networking platform.  This series will look briefly at all of these types of sites.  Further information and tutorials will be provided in future posts beyond the scope of this series.  Part I of this series will focus on Social Networking Sites in particular.

The Major Social Networks

Social Networks are sites that typically allow users to create a profile page for themselves, and then find other people that they know (“friends”) and interact with them.  Social Networks allow people to interact by posting updates on what they are doing, and often provide apps to allow for expandability.  The major social networking sites are Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, and Bing.

Facebook:  Facebook is currently the largest of the social networking sites.  It began its life as a way for college students and professors to interact (in fact, you used to have to have a .edu email address from a university to join).  Since it has opened up to the rest of the world, it has become the de facto social network.  Facebook offers good control of who can see what on your profile, and allows you to maintain a large friend list with limited profiles, and have an expanded profile for your closer friends.  Facebook also provides the ability to create and join networks, which allow for users to interact around a group, a company, or an event.  If you are new to social networking, Facebook is the place to start.  Facebook has become the site of choice for keeping up with old friends, posting photos online, and just catching up.

MySpace: Before FaceBook, MySpace was the most popular of the social networking sites.  MySpace offered greater flexibility in the creation of pages, but it was harder to set up a profile/page than it was on FaceBook.  MySpace has become very popular in the music industry from aspiring musicians to major headliners to post news to their fans and provide samples of their work.  Originally not as secure as FaceBook, MySpace has made strides in recent years in providing some of the same security control and featuresets as FaceBook.  MySpace is still very popular, and allows users to easily post multimedia, something that is not as common on FaceBook.

LinkedIn: LinkedIn is the social networking site for business professionals.  It allows professionals to post their resume, info about their company, and network with each other for business purposes.  I have personally witnessed the importance and effectiveness of LinkedIn.  My company was looking to partner with another company because they provided a service that would be beneficial to our product.  We had tried to contact someone at the office via traditional means, but always reached dead ends.  Finally, our CEO decided to find and contact their CEO via LinkedIn, and we had a meeting set up for the following week.  LinkedIn is a great source for professionals to discover new opportunities.

Ning: Ning is one social networking site you probably have not heard of, but is the most popular of the Social Networking Sites beyond the “big three” mentioned above.  It is important because Ning is a platform that allows users to create their own social networking sites.  Ning has been used to create social networking sites for educational institutions, political activism, corporate branding, artists, churches, computer programmers, etc.  The possibilities are limitless.  Ning allows extendability through its OpenSocial API, which allows any developer to extend the functionality of Ning.

Other Social Networks

There are many other smaller social networking sites that aren’t as big as the four above, but they deserve mention:

• Bebo: Bebo is a smaller Social Network, which recently created hooks into other social networks to allow users to view their profiles across networks in one place.
• Orkut: Owned and operated by Google, Orkut is a popular social networking site in countries other than the U.S., particularly Brazil and India.
• Hi5: Never been able to compete with the top 3, Hi5 is similar to FaceBook but popular in Central America.
• Frendster: Frendster was actually the first of the modern social networking sites.  Competitive with FaceBook and MySpace in regards to features, it just doesn’t have the same marketing presence as the other two.
• Xanga: A niche social networking site, Xanga is focused on video, photos, and blogging.

What About Twitter?

Ah yes, Twitter.  Twitter is in and of itself its own animal in the Social Networking world.  It is also the most complicated to explain and describe.  For this reason, I have decided that it deserves its own post in part 2 of this series.

Wrapping It Up

Social Networking has overtaken the web, and has changed the way people interact using the Internet, and it has proven itself to be beyond just a fad.  While newer technologies and sites may eventually overtake the sites mentioned in this article, social networking is here to stay as a medium.

Since the battle between Netscape and Internet Explorer ended, different web browsers have come and gone, with varying levels of success.  The Browser debate also garners a lot of passion as people get very attached to their personal choice of web browser.  While there are countless minor web browsers out there (which we will examine at some point in the future), we focus on the five major web browsers currently in use:  Microsoft Internet Explorer, Mozilla FireFox, Apple Safari, Google Chrome, and Opera.

Internet Explorer: Internet Explorer (IE) is the default web browser as well as the browser with the most market share, because it is made by Microsoft and is automatically installed on every single instance of Microsoft’s Windows operating system.  Since IE beat out Netscape in the original browser wars a decade ago, it has had the majority of the market share.  That market share, however, has eroded in the past few years as people have become more Internet-savvy, the availability of more powerful and faster browsers has become commonplace, and the stagnation of the IE browser in terms of a development roadmap has frustrated users.  With the latest release (8.0), Internet Explorer adds many more features  and improves performance, but still lags behind compared to other browsers.

• Latest Major Release: 8.0
• Pros: Standard with Windows, no installation necessary.  New version has some neat features such as color-coded tabbing and Accelerators to increase productivity, and somewhat catches it up with other browsers in terms of standard features.
• Cons: Still bloated and slower than other browsers, doesn’t support latest HTML5 web-standard.  Only available for Microsoft’s Windows Operating System.  Doesn’t meet web rendering standards.
• More Info: Internet Explorer 8 Home

FireFox: FireFox was created from the Mozilla Open Source project as an alternative to Netscape.  Introduced in 2004 as a lean, fast browser, FireFox has always led IE in both performance and features.  Firefox is a fast, feature-rich, and efficient browser, and is the favored web browser of techies (and also my own personal browser of choice). It is cross-platform, meaning it can work on any of the major operating systems (Windows, Mac, and Linux), and has a rich library of plug-ins that allow anyone to easily extend the browser’s capability.

• Latest Major Release: 3.5
• Pros: Fast and light, recent version speeds up JavaScript.  Plugin capability and best memory utilization.  Perfect balance of performance and features.
• Cons: New version is a bit more bloated than past versions, not as fast as some of the lesser browsers.  Doesn’t have some of the new usability features of IE 8.
• More Info: Mozilla FireFox

Safari: Safari has been the default browser for Macintosh computers since the release of Mac OS X in 2003.  Safari quickly gained a following among Mac fans, and was touted for its speed.  In 2007, the browser was ported over to Windows.  The Safari browser is known for its speed, being among the fastest browsers, but lacks many key features present in other browsers, and suffers from some website compatibility problems.

• Latest Major Release: 4.0
• Pros: Fast, nice graphics and interface.
• Cons: Memory hog, no plugin support, lacks many standard features found in IE and FireFox, no Linux version.
• More Info: Apple Safari
  

Google Chrome: Chrome is Google’s entry into the browser space.  It gives a new, different spin on the web browser concept, giving the browser a minimalistic frame and focusing more on the web pages themselves.  Chrome, being a Google product, also integrates Google’s search expertise right within the browser, allowing users to type in URLs  and search terms (or both at once) directly into the address bar.  Still being a relatively new entry into the browser market, Chrome has a tendency to be buggy, and although it allows plugins (unlike Safari), it has very few of them.

• Latest Major Release: 2.0
• Pros: Fast, light interface.  Different web browsing experience, more about the pages and less about the browser.  Unique address/search bar allows for a more intuitive browsing experience.
• Cons: Few features, buggy, prone to crashes.  Currently only available for Windows.
• More Info: Google Chrome
  

Opera: Opera has the least market share of the major web browsers, but it has its own loyal following.  Known more for their mobile and non-PC based browsers (Opera’s browser powers the Internet Channel on the Nintendo Wii), the Opera Browser has its own unique features that make it a compelling choice for a browser.  Opera has always been known for coming out with new, advanced features that eventually make their way into other browsers.  For example, Opera invented the concept of browser tabs that have become a de-facto standard in any web browser.  With Opera 10, Opera again pushes the envelope and also makes some major inroads in performance, making Opera a compelling alternative to the other browsers.

• Latest Major Release: 10.0
• Pros: Unique, powerful features, and new, fast level of performance.  Cross-browser platform available for Windows, Mac, and Linux.
• Cons: Less add-ons than FireFox, no privacy mode.
• More Info: Opera

In the end, the choice of a browser is a personal one.  All of the major browsers have their pros and cons, and the available choices provide the browser world with much-needed competition to keep innovation happening.  What looked to be a Microsoft monopoly a few years ago has now turned into a rich software marketplace that gives end users multiple good options.  So if you’re still on the default Internet Explorer 6 or 7, try a new browser.  Even if it’s just an upgrade to IE 8, you’ll be pleasantly surprised, and the alternative browsers offer features and performance benefits that will make you wonder how you ever lived without them.

These blogs differ from the wider-audience blogs in that they are catering to a select group of family and friends, and differ from personal diary blogs in that they are created to chronicle one specific event with long durations.  For example, we have a family friend who’s daughter spent a semester abroad in Europe, and she started a blog to post photos and details of her travels.  She was able to keep in touch with a wider circle of people than she would have been able to by individual emails and phone calls, and was able to circulate her photos and chronicle her travels across Europe in detail.

Creating your own event blog is easy.  There are many sites dedicated to personal blogging that can be used to start an event blog easily and without much effort.

• Blogger: Blogger is Google’s blogging platform.  It is very easy to set up and has many templates that can be set up to match the theme of your event blog.  The interface is straightforward, but it lacks some of the features that more advanced bloggers like.  For a limited time event blog for the novice blogger, it is the ideal platform.
• WordPress.com: WordPress is the premiere blogging platform for bloggers (High Tech Household uses a stand-alone WordPress blog).  Their hosted blog service, WordPress.com, is not quite as easy as Blogger, but still is quick to set up and fairly easy to use, and offers a higher range of features.
• TypePad: Typepad is a paid blogging service that offers more features than blogger and is very easy to use.  However, the price tag may not be worth it for an event-driven blog.
• LiveJournal: This free site run by TypePad is good for a quick down-and-dirty web journal without a lot of features.

There are also a few sites that specialize in event-type blogs for general or specific events:

• CaringBridge: This is a free site dedicated to people who are going through a difficult illness.  I have personally witnessed the power of this site.  It is very easy to use and really builds a small community of people providing support as family members chronicle their difficult journey through an illness and recovery.  More than any other type of event blog, I have seen the positive impact that this site has had on people’s lives, and how this type of event blog can be a source of strength for people who are facing a serious illness.
• The Knot: The premiere wedding site of the Internet allows brides to create their own blogs and chronicle their wedding preparations through their wedding day.
• MyEvent.com: A paid service that allows you to set up your own website and blog for many different types of life events, such as a class reunion, wedding, etc.

There are many more blogging sites and specialized event sites that allow blogs to be set up quickly and easily.  Event blogs are a good way to keep in touch, and chronicle both the exciting and the difficult times in life, keeping a close-knit community of family and friends in touch.  As creating your own blog is now easier to do than ever, it is an option that everyone should consider.

Podcasting helped to expand the possibilities of online radio to go by allowing users to download mp3 copies of an internet radio broadcast onto their iPods or other portable music player.  While this added some portability, in the last year, there has been an explosion of options for listening to Internet radio.

With the introduction of app-based smartphones, people have been able to stream live Internet Radio directly to their phones.  Some of the bigger players in Internet Radio (such as AccuRadio, RealRadio, and Shoutcast) either offer or have in development apps to stream their audio via the iPhone, Android, Palm Pre, or Blackberry.  These sites offer hundreds of “stations” of live audio content, and some offer the ability for an individual person to set up their own radio station with a computer and a microphone.

One of my favorite internet audio sites is Pandora.  Pandora is a site that asks you to input artists and songs that you like, and it “creates” a radio station based on your preferences and music that has similar characteristics based on the Music Genome Project.  You can further refine your station by giving a thumbs up or thumbs down to a particular song, or by adding other artists and songs.  What you end up with is a personalized radio station based on your tastes.  Pandora is also available as an app on the iPhone, Blackberry, and Windows Mobile phones, giving you the ability to stream your radio stations to your car, while out for a jog, or while on the train.

Other devices are also being developed specifically for Internet Radio.  Logitech has developed two new devices, one that looks like a self-contained radio, and a sleeker touch-screen radio that connects to an existing stereo.  With all of these options, Internet Radio offers a wide variety of choices for entertainment and information, and only stands to gain in popularity and market share in the coming years.

Your Router

A router is the device that connects all your devices to the external Internet. Whether you get your Internet access via cable modem, DSL or some other means, the router sits between your devices and the Internet, doling out all the networking goodness.

When purchasing a wireless router, you’ll usually find that it’s not entirely wireless. These days, the most common configuration sold seems to be a router with four Ethernet ports. There isn’t usually any practical limit to the number of devices you can connect wirelessly to the router, but you’re generally limited to those four wired devices. There are a few things to know about wired networking, but mostly, go with the fastest that fits your budget. 100 Mb/s (“Fast Ethernet”) is standard, but more devices now support 1000 Mb/s (“Gigabit Ethernet”). There’s no worry there, though, because you can mix and match those speeds, and the network will figure on its own out the fastest speed it can go. Generally, we suggest you future-proof your network by getting a faster router, and your devices can catch up later.

Wireless Security

You can set your router to one of two basic modes: open or secured. If you leave your wireless network open, anyone within close physical range can connect to the Internet, and your home network, through your wireless router. That’s generally not recommended, though some people make a point to host an open access point. We recommend, though, that you secure your home’s wireless network.

The industry’s first attempt at wireless security was WEP (Wired Equivalent Privacy), which was intended to offer the same level of security as physically controlled network plugs when the “plug” is simply the air. For various technical reason, this didn’t end up working well, and this security model is highly discouraged because it is very easy for a motivated person to gain access to a WEP-secured network.

The best wireless security method widely used today is called WPA (Wi-Fi Protected Access), the most secure variant being WPA2/AES, which is a revision of the original WPA using an encryption method called AES. This combination is known to hold up very well to even very motivated attackers, and it is widely supported on any new wireless router. The instructions for setting up this level of security vary slightly with different routers, but it is still a very straight-forward process. See your router’s manual for set up instructions.

Wrapping it Up

Setting up a wireless network in your home can be intimidating. Just keep a few of these terms in mind, along with your budget. Setting up a wireless router and your devices to access it has only become easier with the introduction of new technology. With a little time invested, you’ll have a low-maintenance, secure, easy-to-use home network.