Wi-Fi routers, home servers, virtual private networks, and more.
Networking
Are there cameras using buttons and knobs these days?
Episode 1416
Dale from
Dale says that the Fuji X-T2 and he says that most adjustments can be made without the menu settings. They have dials and buttons like the old days. Leo says that seems to be the trend now, going back to physical dials to make changes while shooting, and you can even reassign and program buttons for your most often used settings. It's mostly in higher end cameras, though. Leo says that they look like the old retro style film cameras and he loves that.
Can I disable the WiFi router on my cable modem and use my own?
Episode 1412
Matt from
Matt wants to get rid of his cable modem/router and get his own. Leo says that's a good idea. He'll most likely have to keep the modem, but he can disable the router in the firmware and use his own instead. Leo recommends an ASUS 3200.
Why won't my Lenovo Yoga connect to WiFi?
Episode 1411
Carrie from
Carrie has a Lenovo Yoga 2 convertible and it won't connect to the internet. It's asking for an adapter. Leo says that the Yoga is wireless, so it shouldn't need an adapter. Leo advises going into the Device Manager by pressing Windows Key and typing "device," then pressing Return. This will show her a list of all her hardware. That will show her if there's a problem with the networking device. She can delete it and then restart the machine. Windows will then reinstall the device driver. There's also a WiFi on/off switch.
How can I fix my laptop network adapter?
Episode 1411
Kevin from
Kevin has a Toshiba laptop and his network adapter went belly up. Can he use a third party adapter? Leo says that Kevin should be able to. Reliance on proprietary adapters went by the wayside thanks to pressure from the EU.
How can I get details on the signal strength of my wireless network?
Episode 1411
Keith from
Keith wants to know how strong his WiFi network is. Leo recommends WiFi Analyzer. For the Mac, there's WiFi Explorer. It will give him a line graph with signal strength according to channel. It's $20.
He can find other WiFi analyzer apps at netspotapp.com. It may be that all he needs to do is reset his WiFi settings.
How can I hardwire my home network?
Episode 1411
Brian from
Brian's gear needs ethernet, but the ethernet connections in his home aren't near the router. What are his alternatives? Leo says that TPLink's Powerline Networking is a solid option. It will use his home's electrical grid to create a wired network. Another option is to use mesh routers like Plume.
Why does the Amazon Echo stop streaming?
Episode 1410
Tamar from
Tamar has an Amazon Echo Dot. She'll be listening to streaming radio and then it will just stop working. Leo says that he's had the same problem and it could be that it hears the word stop and stops. But it could also be that the stream stalls and the Echo gives up. Leo discovered that when he used the Echo Show and could see the error message. When a stream stops, it could be a random stop of the stream to force it to restart. This is largely due to having to pay royalties for music that they play. But if it's stopping suddenly and after just a few minutes, then that's not normal.
Why can't I cast to my TV?
Episode 1409
Seth from
Seth used to work in the film industry and the backup storage that they have is up to 10 petabytes of storage and growing. A single film digitized can generate 4TB of space at 5-6K resolution. Leo says that's really not bad because storage is pretty cheap these days for maintaining archives.
How can I improve the WiFi in my house?
Episode 1406
Jose from
Jose has issues with WiFi reaching to the back bedroom in the house. He gets practically no signal at all on his phone back there either. He's told it would be a major issue to move his base station to make it better. What should he do? Leo says that it's a common problem that is largely due to congestion from everyone in the neighborhood. The key is to get an extender. He'll want one that's from the same company. It will cut his bandwidth in half, however, so that's not an ideal solution.
Why and I getting a DNS Server error?
Episode 1405
Tom from
Tom is having issues with Google's DNS server not responding. DNS is the phone book for the internet. It takes the URL and converts it to the unique IP address for that website. It will look in local memory first, then the router, and then the Internet Service Provider for the address. It can even go beyond that to the master servers that house all domain names and DNS lookups. If it can't find it, you get an error message that there's a kink in the chain. That could mean there's something broken on your PC, or even your ISP's servers.
