It wasn’t too long ago that computers were a luxury rather than a necessity. Only the lucky and the wealthy had even one in their home and a network was something reserved for large corporations.

Fast forward a decade or so and everyone has to have their own computer. There is one for the parents and one or more for the kids to use for homework and games. Home users have gone from no Internet access to 9600 kbps dial-up Internet access beyond 56 kbps dial-up access and are moving on to broadband connections to increase internet speed or match the T1 connections they relish at work.

As the Internet and the World Wide Web have exploded into our culture and are replacing other media forms for people to find news, weather, sports, recipes, yellow pages and a million other things, the new struggle is not only for time on the computer at home, but for time on the Internet connection.

The hardware and software vendors have come forth with a variety of solutions allowing home users to share one Internet connection among two or more computers. They all have one thing in common though- the computers must somehow be networked.

To connect your computers together has traditionally involved having some physical medium running between them. It could be phone wire, coaxial cable or the ubiquitous CAT5 cable. Recently hardware has been introduced that even lets home users network computers through the electrical wiring. But, one of the easiest and least messy ways to network computers throughout your home is to use wireless technology.

It is a fairly simple setup. The Internet connection comes in from your provider and is connected to a wireless access point or router which broadcasts the signal. You connect wireless antenna network cards to your computers to receive that signal and talk back to the wireless access point and you are in business.

The problem with having the signal broadcast though is that it is difficult to contain where that signal may travel. If it can get from upstairs to your office in the basement then it can also go that same 100 feet to your neighbors living room. Or, a hacker searching for insecure wireless connections can get into your systems from a car parked on the street.

That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t use wireless networking. You just have to be smart about it and take some basic precautions to make it more difficult for curiosity seekers to get into your personal information. The next section contains some simple steps you can take to secure your wireless network.

Broadband Security in 6 Easy Steps

When considering the price for High Internet Speed access, many wonder if paying such a price is truly worth it. If you're looking at Internet providers and still unsure if DSL, Cable or Satellite access is right for you, ask yourself the following:

• Is my dial up service fast enough to access streaming video & music?
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• Could I use the Internet more if web pages and downloads moved at faster speeds?
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• Do I have to free up a phone line in order to connect to the web?
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• How long does it take to receive digital photos & large email attachments?
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• Could I work from home if I had a faster connection to my information?

Time is money! And using High Internet Speed access will save you more than enough of your time to justify its cost. However, there are still many pitfalls (internet browser problem)& problems to avoid when choosing between different High Speed Internet access and the different types of connections currently available.

And that is the purpose of our free guide - to educate consumers and businesses regarding the different aspects of faster web connections and to help them.

This tip is designed for increased BROADBAND speed in Windows XP while using standard Network Interface cards (NIC) that are connected to ADSL modems, or when using any directly-connected USB ADSL modem.

To speed up the Internet connection speed we need to configure a special buffer in the computer's memory in order to enable it to better deal with interrupts made from the NIC or the USB modem.

This tip is only recommended if you have 256MB RAM or higher.

Step #1 - Identify the IRQ used by the NIC/USB modem

Follow these steps:

1. Open the System Information tool by running MSINFO32.EXE from the Run command.

2. Expand System Summary > Hardware Resources > IRQs.

3. Look for the listing made for your NIC (in my case - a Intel(R) PRO/100+ Management Adapter). Note the IRQ next to the specified line (in my case - IRQ21).

In case of USB modems you will first need to find the right USB device used by your modem. Follow these steps:

1. Open the Device Manager tool by running DEVMGMT.MSC from the Run command (or by right-clicking My Computer > Hardware tab > Device Manager button).

2. Scroll down to Universal Serial Bus controllers and expand it.

3. Right-click the USB Root Hub and select Properties. Note that you might need to do so for all listed USB Root hubs (if there are more than one) in order to find the right one.

4. In the Power tab, look for your USB ADSL modem.

5. In the Resources tab look for the assigned IRQ (in this case - IRQ21).

6. This is the IRQ we're looking for.

Lamer note: IRQs and modem names might vary...

Step #2 - Modify the system.ini file

Follow these steps:

1. Run SYSEDIT.EXE from the Run command.

2. Expand the system.ini file window.

3. Scroll down almost to the end of the file till you find a line called [386enh].

4. Press Enter to make one blank line, and in that line type IrqX=4096

where X is the designated IRQ number we found in step #1, in my case it's IRQ21.

Note: This line IS CASE SENSITIVE!!!

5. Click on the File menu, then choose Save.

6. Close SYSEDIT and reboot your computer.

Done. Speed improvement will be noticed after the computer reboots.

Update: The most speed improvement is visible with USB A/DSL modems, however there are reports that this tweak also does good for regular NICs. In any case, it won't harm your system, so why not try it yourself and let me know what you find.