SonicWall VPN client and wireless networks

I've had this problem for a while. I have a couple of computers connected on my home wireless network which generally can see each other to share files. But sometimes I'm unable to connect to the other machine. I'd always put this down to some weirdness going on in my wireless network and dealt with it by copying files onto a USB drive. But I finally figured it out today. It would appear if I have the SonicWall VPN client running on one of the machines this causes the wireless network to go funny. Shutting SonicWall down fixes the issue.  No idea if this is a bug or if it is required behaviour but now I know why it happens I don't really care.

Who is Edward Phillips?

Over the last few weeks I've noticed a strange thing in iTunes. Occasionally a shared music library will pop up called 'Edward Phillips's Library'. I'm even able to connect to it and listen to music. It's great, he has over 11000 tracks, not all to my taste but still something else to listen to. I did wonder where this new source of music was coming from and tonight I figured it out. I had a look at my router's web interface and noticed a few unknown computers listed in the DHCP active IP table, in fact four computers (although I suspect they aren't all connected right now).

ever since I figured out what was causing our wireless issues I've switched back to an insecure wireless network and I've never bothered to filter out MAC addresses this time around. So it looks like people are taking advantage of the fact. Am I bothered? Not really. I've not noticed any particular performance problems and it seems like my generosity has been repaid by having access to some different music.

On another note, I wonder what the music industry makes of all this? I'm guessing they don't want people sharing out their music collections to all and sundry, we should be good consumers and buy all the CDs instead. But then it's Apple doing this and they make plenty of money for the music industry with their DRM downloads. So perhaps they'll turn a blind eye?

Currently listening to Purple Rain by Prince from the album Purple Rain

More reliable wireless

When I set up our wireless router, I initially set it up as an unsecured network and restricted access to certain MAC addresses. This worked fine but when we had visitors who wanted to use our wireless connection, it was a bit of a pain to allow access to their laptop. So I changed the router's configuration so it used WPA security and it all seemed to be working fine.

But then a couple of things happened which I didn't realise were related to this seemingly simple change I'd made. First, the wireless connection would stop working every few hours. This affected any computer connected to the network and would typically last a few minutes and then everything would be fine again. This was particularly annoying when I was connected to somebody's VPN and would have to re-establish a connection. The second problem was my Vista PC started to lock up completely. This was less frequent, about once a day.

I put the first problem down to the number of wireless networks in close proximity to our house. I guessed that they were just interfering with each other and causing the connection to drop every so often. Either that or our router was just getting on a bit. Then the other day I thought I'd give Vista's wireless diagnostics a spin and it told me the wireless security key was incorrect. What the...? This kicked my befuddled brain into action and realised these connection problems had started at the same time as the switch to WPA. So I switched back to an insecure network and lo and behold, the wireless connection is working a treat. Not only that but I haven't (fingers crossed) had a Vista freeze since the switch back.

So, if you're having wireless troubles, consider switching to an insecure network. I guess it may well be specific to my router but it may just work. Yeh, hackers can probably read my email, but frankly I hope they have more interesting things to do with their time.