#1 I just bought my daughter’s PC and have got her hooked into my web connection via a Linksys wireless router and Linksys wireless adapter. For security, Linksys recommends to disable SSID broadcast. However, when I do this my daughters PC can’t “see” the wireless network? Also, the Linksys manual recommends enabling MAC address filtering. I did this as well but then after several hours, my daughter lost the connection. After some head scratching I went into ipconfig and realized that the PCs “physical address” had changed and hence that MAC address wasn’t on the “allowed” list for the router. WTH is up with that? At this point, I am using 128-bit encryption so my network is not “open” without the network key, but the SSID is still broadcast and MAC filtering is disabled. FYI, I have already changed the router password and made the SSID unique. Can anyone explain how to solve this? #2 Anyone out there played around with the parental controls on their PC? I enabled them on my daughters PC and it’s either feast or famine. So far it has blocked weather.com, cnn.com, google.com, etc. etc. Anyone have any suggestions on how to reach the middle ground?
I have been playing with wireless a few months , One setup said disable fire wall , I think the router is a firewall itself. The WEP / SSID / MAC /are just encryption / password safety . I got on my neighbors wireless by mistake a few weeks ago , No passwords / zip nada / 150 ft away.
I am guessing your browser settings need changing , Parental controls or what ever they call them.
I agree with the “Linksys sucks” comment. Ours goes down quite regularly and the only thing to do is to reset it.
As for parental controls, we don’t use them, but I’m a very strong believer that the computer should always be in the common areas of the house and not in the kid’s bedroom. We have 6 computers in our house that are all networked, but I refuse to allow them in my girls’ bedrooms. I think that’s one of the best ways to keep an eye on what they’re doing.
Dawn