Having a media server is really awesome, unless the other people on your network don’t know how to share the bandwidth. Using some simple QoS rules, you can give your computer a priority and stop your streams from dropping out. You can use DD-WRT to prioritize your traffic.
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Not all Ethernet cable is created equally. What’s the difference, and how do you know which you should use? Let’s look at the technical and physical differences in Ethernet cable categories to help us decide.

If you bought a Wi-Fi only iPad and now you wish you could use GPS with it, this is the guide for you. Follow along to hook your iPad up to an external GPS unit and/or GPS-enabled smartphone phone.
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You can find a reasonable number of web apps that will let you create organograms, process flow chartsand wire frame diagrams but you rarely find a single web service that lets you make just about every kind of diagram or flow chart you might need. Lucid Chart is a web service that is one off those rare all-in-one diagram and process editors. It lets you create drawings, flowcharts, Mind Maps, Network Diagrams, Organization Charts, Software and Web diagrams, UMLs and more. The service has both a free and paid version; you can add contacts …

If you don’t keep your home machines running all the time, you can power them on remotely with Wake-on-LAN. Doing things manually is a pain, but you can schedule computers to wake up automatically everyday using DD-WRT.
Being energy-conscious is a great thing. Why leave your computers on when you’re not home to use them? This situation is especially true with home theater PCs – you only really need them on when you’re home to watch stuff.

Windows only: MediaTab is a free program that provides tag and other technical information about audio and video files, like MediaInfo, but is integrated into Windows Explorer, so you don’t need to open another application to get these details.

Windows: If you want to create a network plan and need an inventory or just want to see all the devices using your Wi-Fi, Wireless Network Watcher from Nirsoft is a free utility that can help. It scans your network for connected devices and lists their network properties.

Windows Firewall is a software firewall and packet filtering component of Windows which helps users create inbound and outbound rules to protect their network from being compromised. Like all firewalls, it protects the networks from unauthorized access while allowing legitimate communication to pass through and by blocking malicious, specified or user profiling agents. Unfortunately, the firewall settings can be a bit difficult for many home users to configure.

Don’t be in the dark about who is visiting what web sites on your LAN. Use our two-prong approach to lock in on who is browsing what on your home network.

Via Lifehacker.com
I’ve been a huge fan of bulk-installing tool Ninite, and today they added a helpful feature that lets you link straight to your custom packages, for super simple sharing and remote troubleshooting.
Now, when you create your bulk app installer on Ninite’s page and hit “Get Installer”, it will link you to a new page listing the apps you grabbed and automatically download the package for you. What’s really nice is that you can link straight to this page—for example, http://ninite.com/chrome-skype-itunes-vlc-dropbox-essentials for Chrome, …