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How To: Configure a Wi-Fi Router Correctly Last week, we looked at ways to look for a good Wi-Fi router. It's one thing to choose a Wi-Fi router, but it's equally important to spend the same time to install and configure it correctly. If you’ve bought a router from your ISP, then someone from the ISP might have come over to your place and installed the router for you. Sometimes, the ISP personnel might not have any knowledge of wireless security and have no idea about your network setup at your home. If you’ve bought your own Wi-Fi router, then you will have to configure your router yourself. Let’s look at some of the most important features that need to be configured on your router. Logging into your router At this point, we are going to assume that you’ve setup the cables between the ISP and the router correctly. Routers and modems do not have any controls or LCD displays that let you configure the settings for them externally. The firmware on the router can only be accessed through a web browser. The web interface can typically be accessed on http://192.168.1.1 or http://192.168.0.1. The user name and password are both admin most of the time as well. If that doesn’t work, refer to the router manual for the correct URL or look at the back of the router. The user name and password will also be mentioned there. Some of them require you to authenticate using a web login while most of them use PPPoE (PPP over Ethernet). When you first buy your router, you might have to enter these details into the router manually for once. The interface and location of the menus differs from one brand of routers to another, but the features are common everywhere. If your ISP doesn’t use PPPoE, you can use DHCP as your setup type and if your ISP assigns you specific IP addresses, you can choose the Static IP option and enter the details manually. Enabling MAC Address Cloning Every single network device has a MAC address which is unique to that device. ISPs lock internet access to MAC addresses on their clients’ PCs. So when you buy a new router, the ISP detects a different MAC address and disables internet access to that connection. Fortunately, routers have a MAC address cloning feature that allow you to manually add the MAC address of your PC. Most of the routers have a MAC address auto-detection feature built into them. Enable it if you find your internet connection not working the moment you install your brand new router. Securing your Wi-Fi network Wi-Fi security is absolutely important if you don’t want your network PCs to be exposed and if you don’t want random users using your internet connections. Most routers come with no passwords set for the wireless network, which makes it easy for you to get online but at the same time, also easy for those unauthorized users. There are a few steps that can reduce the chances of that happening. When you first install the router, make sure that you have Security mode on your router setup to WPA2-Personal and enter a long and somewhat complicated password. Most ISPs today distribute routers amongst their users with the passwords set as admin, password, the user’s phone number or name. The next step is to block all MAC addresses other than your PC and other devices that you might be using. Remember, we talked about ISPs blocking PCs with unrecognized MAC address? Routers have a similar feature that blocks devices whose MAC addresses aren’t present in the white list. Linksys calls the feature the Wireless MAC filter. Disabling SSID Broadcast is one of the last steps to securing your router. With the broadcasting disabled, users aren’t able to see any wireless networks and accessing it isn’t possible unless you know the exact SSID of the network. Ideally, disable this once you’ve connected your devices to the Wi-Fi router at least once so that the SSID, password and settings are saved. Setting up port forwarding A lot of P2P applications and games might require open ports, which basically means that the router should be able to accept ports and forward them to your devices. Since all the connections being made to your network pass through the single router, the router needs to redirect those requests to specific PCs. In this case, incoming connections coming to various ports need to forwarded to the correct PCs. P2P applications for example need an accessible incoming port. Once you know which port your P2P application knows (which is something you can find out from the connection settings for the application), you can specify the port you would like the router to forward and to which PC or device. Some manufacturer use the term NAT, port forwarding or in the case of recent Linksys routers, the feature is available through a menu called Applications & Gaming. In this case, users can choose from one of the preset applications and ports or can choose to manually enter the values. For example, if you were hosting a game of Quake III Arena (a game that uses the port 27960) for your friends, you would need to specify the external port to be 27960, the internal port to be 27960 as well and mention the destination PC’s IP address. Don’t forget to specify TCP/UDP traffic. You can set it to be both if you’re unsure. Enabling bandwidth priority Streaming Youtube uses a lot of bandwidth. If you happen to be playing a multiplayer game online while someone else is watching a Youtube video on the same connection, you’re likely to face lag or disconnections. This is obviously very annoying. Routers have a feature which allows users to set higher or lower priority for bandwidth provided to specific PCs or applications. The QoS feature should allow you to select MAC addresses, IPs address and ports, so that bandwidth priorities can be assigned to them. Thanks to Rossi Fernandes Courtesy : Tech2

As net debt piles up to $7 bn, Reliance Communication faces key test MUMBAI: The clock is ticking and costs are seen rising for Reliance Communications Ltd as it struggles to reduce a $7 billion mountain of debt ahead of a major bond redemption next year. Shares in India's No. 2 mobile carrier, controlled by Anil Ambani , who ranked 36th on last year's Forbes global rich list, dropped to a record low this week leaving the company valued at $4.3 billion. Six straight quarters of falling profits as a tough telecoms market squeezes margins and failed attempts to raise cash are eroding investor confidence in the company, which faces tests with $1.2 billion in convertible debt falling due. "The competitive landscape for telecoms firms in India is very tough and that's a problem for Reliance as well," said Lars Hemmingsen, a Copenhagen-based portfolio manager at Nordea Intia, which manages $260 million worth of Indian shares. "What makes the matter worse for them is huge debt on the balance sheet and weak cash flow. You also have these negative news headlines hitting investor confidence in the firm," said Hemmingsen, who does not hold Reliance Communications shares. In February, Ambani became the highest-profile executive to be questioned by federal police investigating a telecoms fraud that state auditors say cost the government $39 billion in lost revenues. No executives from Reliance Communications have been charged and the company has denied any wrongdoing. Last year, Reliance Communications attempted to sell a 26 percent stake in itself to pare debt. But it found no takers. A plan to float its tower unit in an initial public offering also failed to take off and a deal to merge its tower arm with a rival collapsed. Reliance Communications is battling a fast-growing but ferociously competitive Indian cellular market in which call charges have fallen and operational costs have risen, triggering declines in margins, while regulatory worries have also increased. The shares have fallen about 35 percent this year, making them the eighth worst performer globally among large capitalised firms. On Feb 9 alone, shares in six companies of Reliance ADA, Ambani's conglomerate, dropped suddenly to wipe $2.5 billion off its market value. The billionaire blamed "baseless and motivated rumours" for the drop. DEBT TEST The cost of insuring against debt default in Reliance Communications through credit default swaps (CDS) has risen 90 basis points this year to 525 basis points. That's an insurance premium of $525,000 for every $10 million of debt and has risen as markets focused on about $1.2 billion of convertible bonds in Reliance Communications that will mature by March 2012. "If you look globally, the appetite for new issues is pretty low and this company has so many problems. I think the terms of refinancing would be stiff because the company's cash flow continues to be very weak," said Thorsten Vetter, a portfolio manager at Flossbach & Von Storch in Cologne, Germany, who last year sold Reliance Communications bonds maturing in 2012. Two convertible bonds are due over the next 12 months but investors are unlikely to convert their holdings into equity following the fall in the share price to 93 rupees. A $297 million bond due in May has a conversion price of Rs 475. A $925 million bond maturing in March 2012 has a conversion price of Rs 654. Since the bonds are out of the money at current prices, the firm is likely to have to shell out about $374 million for the 2011 bond and $1.2 billion for the 2012 debt. The 2011 convertible bonds are bid at 122-123 in secondary markets versus the redemption price of 125.84, while investors are more cautious about the 2012s, which are bid at 114.25-114.75 versus their 127.69 redemption price. A Reliance Communications spokesman declined to comment on the company's plan to reduce its debt burden. During an analysts call in February, Satish Seth, group managing director of Reliance ADA Group, said the company was evaluating several options. WEAKENING CASH FLOWS, HIGH DEBT Reliance Communication's net debt to EBITDA (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation) is seen at 4.8 times in the year ending March 31, Thomson Reuters data show. This compares to just under 3 times at bigger rival Bharti Airtel and 2.8 times at Idea Cellular . "It doesn't make sense to lend to this company any more. It needs a serious equity injection," said a senior Singapore-based loans banker who covers Indian deals, who was not authorised to speak to the media on the record. An equity issue, however, would be painfully dilutive, given that Reliance Communications shares have tumbled nearly 90 percent from their 2008 peak . JPMorgan recently slashed the company's share price target for December by 49 percent to 82 rupees, citing concern about high leverage and the cost of a possible refinancing of $1.2 billion of bonds maturing by March 2012. "First they will have to set their house in order before they start looking for strategic investors," Hemmingsen of Nordea Intia said. "There is always a buyer for a right price and transactions do happen despite a lot of headwinds." Despite the troubles, some banks are not shying away from lending to the company, Reliance Communications signed a deal with China Development Bank in December for a $1.93 billion 10-year, syndicated loan. Courtesy: ET

freinds i am giving here the way i flashed the truly epic rom : 1. i downloaded : Odin Eb13 extended -> it will give you recovery preinstalled http://www.multiupload.com/6ZCARWCFVU 2. i downloaded the rom from http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=971105 Copied trulyEpic v3 to sdcard 3. Extracted the 1. to pc. started odin, put the phen in downloading mode and connected it to the pc using usb cable. selected the .pit file in pit and extended.tar in the pda section , selected auto reboot and phone efs clear on the left and started flash. 4. after flash let the phone start, than put it on recovery pressing volume up,power and camera than imediate volume down,power and camera, the phone goes to clockworkmod recovery, wipe data/ cache and than flash the truly epic rom from sd card. 5. after the flash is completed reboot the phone. and so now you on truly epic rom. issues what i faced and how i solved them. 1. no signal so i flashed the rilance local 0001 prl. 2. phone started but data was not working so i used the the software provided to me by one of the guru : (thank you devAlap) http://mobile5.in/forums/index.php?/topic/307-data-provisioning-ppp-and-evdo-configuration/ made a dumo file and flashed it. and my data was working. 3. there are a few issues in the rom for that the patches are at http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=971105 post 2 after applying the patches you need to clean wipe again. and you have a fully working truly epic without any issues at all. sincere thanks to all the gurus who helped me in doing this.