Who Knew Your...PC, Software, Camera, Printer, Network, Drive, Handheld...Could Do That?

Internet

...A USB gizmo could start your Internet connection the way a key starts your car? From time to time, most people share their PC with somebody, whether a family member at home or a colleague at work. You probably have files and folders that you'd like to keep private, or maybe you want to limit your child's Internet access. Griffin Technologies' ControlKey enables you to do this safely and easily.

Photograph: Kevin Twomey

The $60 USB device can be configured to work in several different ways: Simply by pulling the device from the port it occupies, you can lock your PC, put your machine in standby mode, or block the system's Internet access. ControlKey also prevents the hacker trick of booting your system into Safe Mode. ControlKey works only with Windows XP, and it can lock up files and folders only on NTFS-formatted drives.

...You could boost your Internet connection speed by tweaking your PC's Registry? No matter how you connect to the Internet, grabbing a little extra speed is always good. One cool way to goose your connection--whether dial-up or broadband--is to use the free CableNut utility to fine-tune the Internet settings in the Windows Registry. After you install CableNut, use its Registry backup feature to create a copy of the Registry, for insurance. With the backup in place, choose the profile that matches the way you connect to the Internet; then save the settings and reboot your PC. I noticed a moderate improvement in the DSL speed of my XP system, and a significant boost when I used dial-up on a Windows 98 PC. Fair warning: Choosing the right profile is important; so before you get started, read CableNut's Help file.

...You could download more than two things at a time in Internet Explorer? You may be getting less than you have coming to you when you download in Internet Explorer. For some reason, IE limits you by default to two simultaneous downloads (crazy, I know, especially if you have a high-speed Internet connection). To increase the number of IE download streams in Windows XP, first click Start, Run, type regedit, and press Enter to open Windows' Registry. In the left pane, navigate to the following key (Registry-speak for folder): HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings.

For safety's sake, back up this key before you proceed: Right-click it and select Export; then choose the folder that you store your backups in, give the file a name like 'IE Registry Backup', and click Save. Now you're ready to start tinkering with the Registry settings. Choose Edit, New, DWORD Value, type MaxConnectionsPer1_0Server=Dword:0000000a, and press Enter. Right-click the new entry, choose Modify, check the Decimal radio button, enter 10 under 'Value data', and click OK. Repeat these steps to create a DWORD Value in the same key named MaxConnectionsPerServer=Dword:0000000a with the same settings as the first one you created, and close the Registry.

...You could share files without using e-mail or FTP? Have you ever wished you could move files to a folder on your PC and have your friends see them on their PCs almost instantly? Well, wish no longer. FolderShare--a free, secure peer-to-peer file-sharing program--is so convenient that I use it almost daily. Here's how it works: Start by inviting one or more people to share a specific library. The invitation asks them to download a small application that will let them "connect" to the library. They then associate a folder on their computer with the library and download any of the library's files to their local machine via drag-and-drop in Windows Explorer. The free version of FolderShare allows you to queue up to three files for download. You can work with as many as 100 libraries, each of which may hold up to 3000 files (the maximum size of any single file is 2GB). For $4.50 per month, you gain the ability to automatically sync files. FolderShare is an ideal way to bypass e-mail and FTP servers when you want to share big files. Registration is required for the download. And read my Home Office column from last July, "Move Big Files Without Breaking a Sweat."

Bonus tip: Still moving your files the old-fashioned way? Download HJSplit, a free utility that lets you span big files across several CDs, floppies, or other media.