Configuring DHCP on Your Windows Computer

Here’s a Quick Guide on how to configure DHCP in a Microsoft Windows network

One of the more confusing parts of setting up a network is DHCP or more technically referred to as Dynamic Host Control Protocol.
It’s also one of the most fundamental and luckily for the beginner one of the easier tasks to complete, for almost all home user environments your Router is going to be doing all the work here.
Every computer and/or “resource” on a network has to have a unique TCP/IP address so the router can tell which data needs to be sent to which machine.
Just as every website has an address, such as: 205.205.47.18 ( the address of this site )

Although with a website that address is going to called a “public” address meaning that it’s able to be found on the internet, but the computers on your home network will have what’s called a “private” address and will be made up of one of a few ranges of addresses set aside for smaller networks.  It’s the public facing address that everyone online sees and in fact determines what you can access.  For example if you’ve got a UK IP address then you can access British resources, otherwise you’ll need to use a proxy like in this post – How to Watch Channel 4 Abroad.

 

As far as Private addresses go there are 3 sets of numbers you can use, they are:
10.0.0.0 – 10.255.255.255
172.16.0.0 – 172.31.255.255
192.168.0.0 – 192.168.255.255
It is your choice which to use just remember all the pc’s must use the same range of numbers in order to “see” each other.
Most vendors of routers are going to have a set of addresses they like to use and it’s easiest to simply follow their lead and continue to use numbers from the same range.

Also, IP addresses in the range of 169.254.0.0 -169.254.255.255 are reserved for Automatic Private IP Addressing. -which are address used by MS Windows if it can’t find an address from another source, so you don’t want to see this as your computers address.

To check your IP address of your computer click here IP address

All that may sound technical and complicated, however, here’s where the easy part comes in-
You could manually assign these addresses to each of your computers one by one. This technique is called “Static” addressing, and is used in more advanced set-ups.

But that’s too much work and not as efficient as using DHCP where your router will simply hand out new addresses to each new PC as it boots up and gets discovered on the network. DHCP is especially useful when you are trying to determine if your computer and router are connected and functioning.
If your computer has a private IP address then it must have gotten that information from the router and therefore they must be communicating.

So, let’s check some settings in Windows-
First, you need to verify that DHCP is turned on in the configuration of your router. For this you will need to check with the documention that was supplied with your router.
IF you can’t get to the configuration screens for your router click here

Second, you need to verify each computer is set to use DHCP. The steps for this are slightly different in each version of Windows, so follow the directions on each of the specific version of Windows because they are slightly different.The Final step is to check and verify that you have gotten a address from your router and that your computer and router are “talking.”
To do so click on the link below to check your IP address and verify connectivity.

Further Reading: http://residentialip.net/ip-address-questions-why-use-residential-ip-addresses/

Making Money From Instagram

The latest trends suggest that at least among the younger generation, people are starting to move away from Facebook and onto other social platforms.  Facebook is of course still extremely popular but there’s no doubt that it’s demographics are changing.   Your much more likely to see your parents and grandparents on Facebook than children, nephews or nieces that’s for sure.

For those who use the internet to make a living or market their businesses this can be a challenge especially if you rely more on a younger market.  Facebook advertising is relatively inexpensive, yet it can be difficult to produce a decent return on investment.  The problem is often that people are there to socialize and not to buy which makes any sort of paid advertising risky.  Indeed it’s extremely important to target your adverts carefully on Facebook if you don’t want to end up wasting your money.

For the right business, Facebook is hard to beat but for other demographics there are other social platforms which make better sense.  One of those which is extremely popular nowadays especially with younger people is Instagram.  It started out as an online photo album where you could upload your pictures to store safely on the cloud. However it has developed over the years to much more than that, and now for many Instagram is their main social platform.

One of the main reasons, is of course the development of mobile phone technology.  Instagram is primarily about sharing images and photos, and today’s mobile phones have incredible cameras built in.  Indeed many have sophisticated image editing software built in to – making sharing and posting images extremely simple to do.

Many Instagram accounts have millions of followers and if you can build up the right kind of audience, you can be very successful through this medium.

So how do people make money from Instagram?

Well there’s a variety of methods which indeed are pretty much standard across internet marketing platforms.  One of the most popular and lucrative methods is through sponsored posts.  Just like on YouTube, companies are always keen to pay for promotions when you have a large number of followers.  It makes sense that if you have an Instagram account based on fashion with a million followers – any fashion company would pay money to put their products in front of that audience.

You can also promote specific products by setting up an affiliate account.  This means that when you promote or suggest a product, that you will receive a small commission when anyone buys it.    The method involves supplying a link with your affiliate code in so that the company can track where the customers have come from.  There are affiliate schemes for just about any product you can imagine so it’s a popular route for many online entrepreneurs.

Indeed there’s actually quite a few ways in which you can turn a popular Instagram account into a money making machine relatively easily.  The hard part is to get lots of followers and create that momentum behind the account.  There are lots of tools in which you can help speed up the process of creating a successful channel however there are some issues with this. The tools which you can use effectively boost and promote your primary Instagram accounts by engaging from other Instagram users.

Unfortunately this needs to be done very discretely as if Instagram detects this behaviour then they’re likely to ban or delete the channel.   In order to hide these methods the experienced will invest in the best Instagram proxies they can afford in order to make the promotions look as natural as possible.

Using carefully configured proxies you can actually run both multiple Instagram channels and also accounts to promote them.  It’s crucial especially in the early development of a channel, to use these accounts to like and comment on.  This is crucial in order for the Instagram account to gather more followers.

There’s one more method that is available for really popular Instagram accounts and that’s to sell your own products.  Obviously this involves more work but the benefits can be even larger as you potentially keep 100% of the profits.

One thing is for sure, if you can develop a successful Instagram account with a decent amount of followers then it can be extremely lucrative.  If you do use automated tools to help create and develop the channels make sure that you use proxies to hide your location properly.  It’s important to use specialised, residential proxies too as the inexpensive ones like these used to watch UK TV in France are not suitable for hiding automated Instagram promotional tools.

 

 

The Technical Development of Online Proxies

Lots of us probably have used a proxy server in all sorts of environments.   If you use the internet at work or college, there’s a strong likelihood that you access it through a proxy server.  They are commonly deployed to control access inwards and outwards to a company network from the internet.   The idea is that rather than checking a multitude of individual connections, the proxy can funnel traffic through a single point which makes it easier to monitor and check for things like viruses.

To enforce the use of the proxy server, most network administrators will enforce their use by a variety of methods.  Firstly from the client computer the use of the proxy will be made mandatory by hard coding the settings into the browser.  So for instance, Internet Explorer would be deployed and the settings pre-configured by using something like the Internet Explorer Application kit.  The settings can also be deployed by using group policy settings deployed to the client from the Active directory.

In addition, the network administrator will also deploy settings on the external firewall to control  access through the network perimeter.  This would be achieved by specifying the IP address of the proxy and ensuring all other addresses are blocked from leaving the network.  If there are multiple proxies or they are configured in an array then multiple addresses would be configured.  This would stop anyone from overriding client side settings or installing an additional browser and attempting to access the internet directly.  If the address isn’t specified then the access would be blocked.

Proxies on the internet are normally used in a slightly different context although the functionality is relatively the same.  They are primarily used to provide a level of privacy and hide your internet address from web servers.  The idea is that instead of seeing the IP address of your client, then the web server (and your ISP) will only see the IP address of the proxy.  This would also allow you to bypass some of the many geo-blocks which exist online.  Basically if you route your connection through a proxy based in the right country then you can bypass the block.  Millions of people use these to watch things like the BBC from anywhere, although it can be challenging to find a UK proxy fast enough to stream video at least without paying for one.   This has got more complicated over the last few years though, as the websites have started to detect the use of proxies and are blocking them automatically.  Nowadays you normally need a VPN in order to watch video from one of the main media sites, because proxies won’t work anymore.

There are other common uses of proxies online and that’s usually to make money.  Many individuals and companies, use proxies in order to create additional digital identities.  This means instead of being restricted to one connection, then you can effectively utilize hundreds at the same time.  This is especially useful for conducting online research, posting adverts, internet marketing and even using e-commerce sites to buy stock to resell. For example a common use is to use automated software to buy things like sneakers or tickets to popular concerts, normally you’ll only be allowed to try and buy once but using proxies you can purchase many.  This is why people use software to automate these methods and invest in the best rotating proxies in order to facilitate these purchases.  There are many people making thousands from simple software programs, a few rotating proxy networks and an ordinary home computer buying and selling limited availability items such as these.