Also, if you install Network Magic on a laptop and that laptop travels between two or more networks, it will need to re-orient itself to the newnetwork configuration, which is what you would expect. When you install the product, you will see a screen with five buttons across the top: What's New, Network Map, Shared Folders, Net2Go Manager, and Printer Manager. The What's New screen (Figure 1) lists recent network activity (computers joining or leaving the network, especially handy for wireless networks), a list of shared folders and printer shares, and the network status box.. Figure 1: What's New Screen (click image to enlarge) The software's main feature is a map of your network (Figure 2), where you can click on each device's box and find out more details such as IP address, firmware version, and even vendor contact information if the software recognizes your device. Pure Networks has a list of several routers that they support, but we, of course, managed to find plenty of routers in our offices that weren't recognized by the software. ...

Wireless networks are wonderful things, but too much of anything often is not a good thing. The second step - if you're using WinXP - is to clear the Preferred Network list and make sure connection to non-preferred networks is disabled. Figure 7: Too many "Preferred" networks The upper portion of the window lists Available, i.e. currently detected, wireless networks while the lower section lists Preferred networks. Figure 8: Advanced Wireless Network Properties This will prevent your card from trying to connect to Ad-Hoc networks (in the unlikely event that any are around), but more importantly prevent automatic connection to any new wireless LANs that appear in your neighborhood. You shouldn't have to perform a "clean-out" in this case, but you may need to delete unwanted profiles if your client utility automatically creates them when it detects newnetworks and automatically switches among them. ...

Interview: Bigfoot's Killer NIC, Exposed. killer nic network. I know it well, and I also know other “desktop” network cards very well. In short, it goes back to the reason I founded Bigfoot Networks. Bigfoot Networks and the Killer NIC exist because of a different paradigm. Killer interrupts the system instantly whenever there is newnetworking data!...

We take a look at one of the major networking shows around. The HyperTransport team evangelizing the newnetwork extensions to the standard. Products like EmergeCore Networks' IT in a Box kind of hint at why it is important for HyperTransport to interface among the numerous components and devices of the network world. The new extensions should be available in the second half of this year. Seagate Shows Third Generation 15,000 RPM Cheetah Drive Seagate used N+I to announce the Cheetah 15K.3 and the Cheetah 10K.6, and a new naming convention. The new drives feature Ultra320 SCSI and 2 Gb/second Fiber Channel interfaces....

Launching a network-savvy application automatically popped up a box asking whether the card should be turned on, but only allowed you to select a network service, i.e. WiFi, Windows RAS, etc. and not a WiFi Network (SSID). The Palm utility doesn't provide any of these features, though I found I could force a scan for newnetworks by power-cycling the card. It also shows signal strength of nearby APs in little-bitty 5-bar signal-strength indicators on the Edit Wi-Fi Networks screen that also serves for Network selection. Negatives for both products is that only WEP (64 and 128 bit) encryption is supported (no WPA - shame!) and you can't indicate preferred networks or change the network scan order....

This makes it easier to extend their wired networks to wireless users. It also makes it easier for municipal governments to pay for the ongoing costs to run free wireless networks. They have even produced a training manual to show how they have built out their network: Third, the traditional government funding mechanisms of redevelopment grants and new public safety initiatives have poured tons of money into these areas, and even some business consortiums are getting involved. Some communities have gotten newnetworks for their police and fire departments, and as a side benefit the public gets better Internet access. Some of these newnetworks come at the expense of older and more expensive technologies that municipal agencies have used....

But to Tim Higgins, it means an annual pilgrimage to Sin City to check out what's new in Networking. Come along for a round-up of early-bird announcements and news.. While the show is pretty much exclusively focused on enterprise-grade networking, I'm sure I'll be able to find a few things to interest those with smaller networks to run. Here's a quick round-up of pre-show announcements and news. SMC Networks doesn't have a booth, but will be hosting private meetings to try out its "four levels of gigabit switching" pitch....