Troubleshoot connectivity when one or more websites are not accessible at full speed

Some times you may feel that you are not able to access a certain website despite your high speed net connection or proper performance of all other web sites from the same PC and connectivity. I am not talking about problems being caused by your misconfiguration of your PC, network, connectivity, the web server or other general problems. The problem I am discussing is a genuine problem within the Internet connectivity.

Can we find out why this happens?
Yes. Certainly. We can diagnose this problem without professional tools and softwares, with only commands built into our Operating System software. (Windows XP, Vista and Windows 7 are related here.) But first of all you need to know how Internet works and how the above problem occurs.

The Internet connectivity between your computer and the web server of that particular web site goes through many routers. Routers are network switches which intelligently transfer data between thousands of nodes to proper nodes. This comprises of some routers of your ISP (Internet Service Provider) and some routers from the ISP of the web server. This chain of routers may also go through international borders and multiple ISPs because not each ISP may have international connectivity of its own.

Sometimes one of the routers in this chain drops packets randomly due to overload or other problem. Due to this, data needs to be retransmitted several times before reaching successfully to other end. Therefore all the data passing through that particular router reaches the other end at a very slow speed. And hence we observe that a particular website is running very slow on our PC (because we reach the web server of that website through that faulty router).

Can we diagnose which router is faulty or dropping packets?
Yes, we can help ourselves to find out.

To do so, first of all try to ping the web address. Open a command prompt by running cmd.exe. Here enter the command

ping <web_site_address_here> -t

and press enter. The web address will be then pinged. What happens during this is your PC sends a packet and requests its acknowledgement from the web server. We can see the time required to get the acknowledgement from the server in the result. This is done repeatedly for consistency check. We used -t switch to perform this continously until we break the operation by pressing Control+C. Observe the timing of acknowledgement. If you see request timed out message many times in the result, this indicates a connectivity problem we learnt about. And if the acknowledgement timing is consistent, this indicates that the problem is with the web server and not with Internet connectivity between us.

Now if the problem is in Internet connectivity, we need to find out the path and the routers between your PC and the particular web server.  To do this execute the following command in cmd.exe window.
tracert -d <your_web_site_name_here>
and press enter key to execute the command. Now you will see the list of routers in between your PC and the web server of the specified web site. Also the ping time of each router is given before its IP address (routers are known by their IP address). Here timing is given in milliseconds and a star mentions request timed out. i.e. the packet was dropped in between.
Try tracing the route multiple times because results can vary. Please note that actually the packet would have been dropped by a router previous to the shown router. So do traceroute multiple times to confirm the router which is dropping packets.

Now try to ping the specific router individually using the following command in cmd.exe window :
ping <ip_address> -t
You can see the consistency of connectivity of your PC and that router here. If the router is not consistent, then try pinging the router located before the pinged router, and if the consistency is OK, then try pinging the router after the pinged router.

Now you have knowledge of the faulty router. If the router is at the beginning three to four hops, it may be your ISP's own router. Let me help you about recognising the IP addresses. the IP's beginning with 192 at the first hop is your own router (ADSL modem or other CPE) if you are on wireline broadband or similar connectivity, and IP addresses begining with 10.x.x.x at the initial hops are internal network of your service provider (particularly in case of mobile internet connectivity like gprs, edge and 3g). The best you can do further is contacting the service department of the owner of that router to get the problem solved. Better contact your Internet Service Provider with the results of the above tests.

Repair Microsoft Outlook having Reminder problems

Many of us use Microsoft Outlook for managing emails, Tasks, Appointments, Reminders and much more purposes. One of our user had a problem with Outlook reporting that
"There was a problem reading one or more of your reminders. Some reminders may not appear. Cannot locate recurrance information for the appointment. "
In this case, you may be unable to retrieve old reminders, neither create new. Outlook will also not remind you of any task/appointment, etc. In other words, Outlook completely forgets our reminders. It may also not allow to create a reminder.

This may be caused due to some reminders have been corrupted due to some unknown reason.

Solution:
Try running the command "outlook /cleanreminders" in the following way : Click on Start menu, then on Run command, or directly press Windows Flag key and R key simultaneously to bring the run dialog. type the command "outlook /cleanreminders" without quotes and hit enter or click on OK. Your reminder problem may be solved now.

Another cause is that you may have more than one data files connected to your Outlook, and one of them may have been listed twice, or may have been corrupted. To resolve this you may try removing other data files that are not default. During this process you may be cautious not to loose data. You should not proceed if you don't have backup. And it should be performed by experienced technical persons only.

Secure your PC from Internet browsing risks

Dell Kace Secure Browser is a firefox based browser from Dell. It runs in a sandbox on your system and prevents any malicious changes to your Windows operating system. When using the Secure Browser any changes or malicious files inadvertently downloaded from the Internet are contained within the secure browser, keeping the underlying OS and computer secure from hostile changes. Any changes resulting from browser activity may be quickly and easily reset to effectively “undo” such changes and return it to its initially installed state. This makes it much easier to clean a system and bring the user back to full productivity.

Learn more about it, and download at http://www.kace.com/products/freetools/secure-browser/

Download now, its free.

Windows Application Blocker : Block Any Application With One Click

Windows Application Blocker is another freeware from door2windows that allows you to block any application with just one click.

How to block an application:

1. Run the tool.
2. When it asks for the password, click OK.

3. Type the application’s executable name in the Application Executable Name textbox (Add the extension also).
   
   You can find the application’s executable name with the following tutorial:
   
   1. Right-click on the application’s shortcut.
   2. Select Properties.
   
   3. The application’s executable name will be in Target textbox.
   
4. Click Block.

How to unblock an application:

1. Run the tool.
2. When it asks for the password, click OK.

3. Select the application that you want to unblock from the Blocked Applications list.

4. Click Unblock.

How to change password:

1. Run the tool.
2. When it asks for the password, click OK.

3. Click Change Password.
4. Type your new password in the Enter new password textbox.

5. Click OK.

India brings Tablet PC for $35 only

Following TATA's NANO - the cheapest vehicle, now India is again in news for the cheapest tablet PC. Tablet PC is the smallest form of computer. The Indian Tablet PC named as Sakshat is meant for Educational purposes, mainly.

Kapil Sibal, India Human Resource Development Minister has unveiled preview with its earlier prototype available for showcase. The tablet PC will boast WiFi, and Touchscreen as main features. Considering the Hardware, Battery power and Price constraints, the device will be preloaded with Android Operating System which is increasingly gaining its popularity in handheld and mobile segments.

With its official release date in 2011, the government hopes to further reduce the price to $10-20 with subsidize and mass volume production by that time.

The tablet PC Sakshat is suitable for Internet browsing, reading e-books and viewing Multimedia.