Section 8.4. Connection Management

8.4. Connection Management

No matter what crazy combination of Internet connections you've accumulated on your computer, Windows represents each one as a connection icon . You can view them, rename them, change their settings, or just admire them by opening the window shown at top in Figure 8-3.

Figure 8-3. Top: This lucky individual has three different ways to get to the Internet: a dial-up account (listed first), a wireless network, and ( courtesy of an Ethernet cable) a wired network. One of the many ways to go online is to double-click the connection you want to use. Bottom: Double-clicking the dial-up account name produces this dialog box, where you can click Dial to go online. (Turning on "Save this user name and password" eliminates the need to type your password each timein general, a great idea.)

To get there, choose Start Network. On the toolbar, click Network and Sharing Center. Click "Manage network connections (in the left-side task pane).

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Tip: If you travel frequently between the same couple of cities, consider making a different dial-up connection icon for each citywith the local access phone number already stored in each. To do that, right-click the first dial-up icon (Figure 8-3); from the shortcut menu, choose Create Copy. Authenticate yourself (Section 6.3), then double-click the newly hatched icon to change its built-in phone number.

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These icons are handy because their Properties dialog boxes are crammed with useful information. A dial-up connection icon stores your name, password, phone number, and so on; a broadband icon stores various technical Internet connection details.

In such situations, you need a way to make manual changes to your connections. To do so, right-click a connection icon; from the shortcut menu, choose Properties.

8.4.1. The Notification Area Icon

The Network icon in the notification area (Figure 8-4) is a handy status meter, no matter how you're getting online.

Figure 8-4. Top: If you point to this icon without clicking, you'll see a tooltip showing your WiFi signal strength and, if you're dialing up, whether or not you're connected.
Bottom: If you click it, you get additional links to key control centers. And if you right-click it, you get a shortcut menu that lets you disconnect, troubleshoot, or display "activity animation"blinky screens on the two tiny computers, illustrating the transfer of data. (Figure 8-1 shows that one.)

If it bears a red X, for example, it means that your PC isn't connected to any network at all.