now my relationship with wi-fi or wireless networking technology is rocky
at the best of times because it's slower than wired and often flaky as balls but
the alternative is plugging Ethernet
cables into phones so yeah since we're stuck with it i figured i'd give you
guys some quick tips on making the experience as painless as possible
though we'll start with the stuff that costs nothing number one position your
access point usually built into your router correctly the coverage area is
sphere shaped so center your access
point within your intended coverage area as best as you can avoid putting it
directly on the floor on a thick wall or next to a large object nearby dense
materials like stone metal and concrete will reduce your wireless signal
strength number two check for software and firmware updates for routers go to
the website of the brand on the box but for many adapters instead of going to
d-link's website you can actually find newer drivers on the wireless chipset
manufacturer's website directly examples of chipset makers include broadcom and
raylink number three choose the right channel for your access point to run on
using a free tool like wi-fi analyzer for Android gives you a visual
representation of the other wireless networks in your area on the 2.4
gigahertz band there are only three usable non-overlapping channels 1 6 and
11 and in a perfect world you would want to pick whichever of these is open
unfortunately in apartment buildings and even dense suburban areas this is
unlikely to happen and even with a tool like this there will be some trial and
error because things like cordless phones security cameras and baby
monitors are examples of products that might not even show up on a wi-fi
network map but can cause serious interference so play around with a
little bit to see how you get the best results number four and this is where we
start getting into tips that cost money is to grab a more sensitive antenna if
your access point has external antenna support they come in two main flavors
omnidirectional antennas will keep the spherical network shape but make it
bigger while directional ones can be great if you have a long thin coverage
area that you're trying to reach just make sure you aim it properly number
five is to get a repeater repeaters can be configured with the same ssid or
network name and password so you can roam between them pretty much without
noticing as long as you're not doing something like streaming a skype call
that's likely to get disconnected as you move over a boundary i don't recommend
repeaters that connect to both your device and your access point wirelessly
i haven't had great experiences with those so make sure you get one that
either connects through powerline or Ethernet finally if all of that stuff
didn't cut it it might be time for an upgrade an 802.11 ac access point can
deliver real-world throughput over megabit with a strong client and even a
dual band n1 gives you access to the much wider range of 5 gigahertz channel
that also generally suffer from less random interference both of these things
are very good things what's great too is that you don't need to upgrade all of
your stuff immediately legacy devices that can't be upgraded such as phones or
tablets can connect to the 2.4 gigahertz network on your new access point and
newer or upgraded devices can connect to the entirely separate five gigahertz
network to enjoy a totally different wi-fi experience i just moved my
notebook to ac wireless with a cheap Intel mini pci express card from amazon
real world bandwidth is about twice as good as my old card so i'm pleased as
punch with the snappier file transfer speeds and more reliable movie streaming
experience speaking of better streaming experience
hotspot shield hotspot shield vpn is easy to set up inexpensive and with
their elite service you can access all kinds of streaming services that
otherwise wouldn't be available to you us netflix will work anywhere in the
world which i guess is less of a big deal for me because canada has netflix
too but i was in a real bind when hulu reached out to me about doing a sponsor
spot on my other channel and i had never even used the service before since it's
not available to me fortunately for me my other sponsor hotspot shield this one
saved my bacon and i was able to use hulu to do my sponsored spot so i was
able to like try it out and actually like make sure it's great before i go talking about how great it is the point
here though is not necessarily access to hulu specifically but more privacy and
more freedom in general when you're browsing the web since a vpn on top of
hiding your region from the websites that you're visiting also makes it more
difficult for them to find your ip and any information about you that they can
track down with that so try hotspot shield today we recommend picking up an
elite trial rather than the ad supported free one it really is a much better
browsing experience and if you like it guys please use the link in the video
description with offer code Linus to save a few bucks on it happy streaming
thanks for watching guys i hope you enjoyed this episode as fast as possible
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