This opens the group policy editor window. Under the Local Computer Policy choose Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > Network > QOS Packet Scheduler > Limit Reservable Bandwidth. My screenshot below should guide you if you get lost on the navigation tree:

This will open the Limit reservable bandwidth window and you will see that by default it is not configured.

So why would you change a limit if it is not configured anyway?  Well you can see the reason if you click the explain tab:

…By default, the Packet Scheduler limits the system to 20 percent of the bandwidth of a connection, but you can use this setting to override the default.

Now that we know that limit is indeed 20% by default, go back to the Setting tab then choose enabled > then put a zero value on the limit then click OK:

I am yet to benchmark the results of this setting.  In theory it should add 20% to your bandwidth by removing this limit.

Ben Carigtan shows you how it’s done.

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How to change the Limit Reservable Bandwidth in Windows

For example, all messages entering or leaving your network will pass through the firewall, which examines each message and blocks those that do not meet the specified security criteria.

To run Firestarter in Ubuntu, go to the command prompt and execute $sudo apt-get install firestarter

At the prompt, it will ask if you want to continue.  Enter “y” then watch the terminal as it displays progress on the downloaded package.

Then open Firestarter under the System > Administration menu

The Firestarter wizard interface will open.  Click forward to begin the steps.

The first step will ask about your network setup. Choose your setup from the dropdown choices.  Choose eth0 if you have a cable modem or a DSL connection otherwise choose ppp0 if your ISP uses PPPoE protocol.

The next step is about Internet connection setup. Check the box if you are sharing Internet connection on your local network.

After that you should see the main firewall interface. It will shows you the status, events and policies that you defined.  It has a dashboard for inbound and outbound traffic so you can see real-time the activity of your network.

To define a new rule or policy, click the Policy tab then click the “+” button.  Enter the IP, host or network name that you want to allow or not allow then click the Add button.

You should see the entered name under the policy list. You can always edit the list by using the add, remove and edit icons at the upper part of the window.

You can make inbound and outbound  policies using this firewall software. You can also stop and start the firewall at any time you want.  Make sure to use this tool to make effective firewall policies in Ubuntu.

Ben Carigtan shows you how it’s done.

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How to use Firestarter to setup a firewall in Ubuntu

Also, be sure to check out my other posts on tweaking Windows, such as tweaking Windows Vista and using Tune-Up Utilites to tweak Windows XP. Also, check out cool and useful tweaks for Firefox.

The Turn off tool tab is used to schedule your system shutdown, Restart, Log off, and Hibernate on any specified time you want. You just need to enter the duration or time and date you want the program to execute the task you have selected then click the enable button.

In the Start Menu tab you can enable or disable the recent documents tracking of windows. You can also hide or show windows start menu items such as shutdown, Run, Recent Documents, Log Off, and Favorites. Take note that you need to restart your computer for these changes to take effect.

In the Miscellaneous tab you can add the notepad program and the command prompt of Windows to the right click menu with just a click. You can also use it to lock your computer and put your monitor into standby mode.

See below example of the right click menu upon adding “Command Prompt here”

The History tab is used to clear Recent Documents, Files Search history, Mapped Network Drive history, and Internet Explorer history.

For a freeware it is not that bad.  It offers a lot of functions even it is only a mere 200K in size. There is no help file which might turn off some users.  Advanced users on the other hand will use this for quick and dirty Windows registry tweaking.

Ben Carigtan shows you how it’s done.

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Tweak Windows XP using Handy Tweakers

It is multithreaded, so on relatively new machines you can scan ports in just a few seconds. You can download the latest version here: http://www.radmin.com/products/utilities/portscanner.php. Previously, I wrote about GFI Languard, a more comprehensive solution for security vulnerability port scanning.

By default it shows a range of IP addresses from 192.168.1.1 to 192.168.1.255, so you can scan this range of 255 computers.  You can set a limited range if you prefer to, but if you plan to use it in your home with only a few computers, leaving this range selected is ok since scanning is very quick.

If your network is not in the 192.168.1.0 range, you can always change it whatever you like. You can always run IPCONFIG from the command prompt to see which network class you are using, i.e. 10.x.x.x or 172.x.x.x, etc.

Click the Scan button to begin scanning the IP addresses.  In the example below it detected my router at 192.168.1.1.

It has descriptions for the common ports and can perform scans on predefined port ranges. You can see from below that it saw 4 open ports and 63 closed ports.  It was able to detect ftp, smtp, pop3 and www-http from my router’s IP:

It will show you a list of all dead and alive computers so toggle the display by using the buttons at the upper section of the window (toggle by clicking the dead computers icon to show/hide them):

By default it uses a predefined port list so you will need to add your own set of ports that you want to scan if you want to scan other ports.  To do this check “Use ports ranges list” then click the Add button:

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Free advanced port scanning tool