Your IT Questions Answered (03)

In this regular section we do our best to answer any IT-related questions you might send in. Feel free to mail me at guy.clapperton@freshbusinessthinking.com

Q: I have a Nokia phone and someone has bought me a Motorola headset. Am I right in saying they won't match up?
Peter Dearing, Glasgow

A: There should be no reason for a headset from one manufacturer not to work with a phone from another. This is a reasonably common misconception so it's worth noting that it's the Bluetooth standard that matters and not the manufacturers of the phone. Try following the instructions in the headset's manual and let...

...us know how you get on!

Q: I keep hearing that my wireless Internet connection isn't secured properly. Two questions: first, what can happen, and second what can I do about it?

A: This is a common problem among people who buy a simple wireless networking kit and install it 'out of the box' under the impression that it'll have all the security elements switched on automatically. In fact they're supplied unsecured and you have to switch it on yourself.
If you don't then you might well find someone who doesn't have the right to use your Internet connection taking advantage of it. That's one thing but more worryingly an intruder could fiddle around with any of your files or folders - helping themselves to customer details, deleting items, adding password protection to anything you haven't already protected, you name it.
The way to prevent this is to look at what's on your router's software. If it has WEP, tick the box to enable it and set a password (it might also have WPA and WPA2, which are alternative security standards). This will mean people need a password to get in; second use MAC address filtering which will enable you to keep opportunists... continued on page two >

 

 

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