Our friends over at Majorgeeks.com have put together another very good FAQ which you can use to better your own wireless network at home.

Using wireless routers has become the norm. With all of today’s devices connected people often complain about a poor signal or bad performance. There are many things you can do to improve the performance of your router. We will start with the free, easy tips that anyone can do and work our way into more advanced solutions that cost money.

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When you start to think about putting together a home network almost every time I speak with somebody who's not in the IT field about it as I'm trying to explain to them how to put it all together inevitably the first thing that spits out of their mouth are these words "do you have instructions?"

My answer is always the same: "no"

Well, just because I don't have instructions doesn't mean other people don't. As more and more people are starting to realize that they do need to build a true home network for all the devices from the television set to the DDR, to all of the mobile and cell phones in the house, to the laptops, to the wireless repeaters, to the wireless extenders, etc. people are normally pretty amazed when I bring up the router configuration within their network and show them just how many devices are connected to it. A lot of times people think that the device speaks directly to the satellite. It does when you're making phone calls and if you're not using something like Skype which relies on high-speed wireless connection. However, when it comes to upgrades, software and package installation most of the time if you're at home or on your corporations wireless network the data is absorbed by the wireless connection not your 3G or 4G connection. So you have to be very careful with what you allow on your network not only from a security standpoint but also from the data Standpoint.

If you want to know how a wireless router performs, there is no better place than our Router Charts. But what if you have a router that we haven't tested or just want to run your own tests?

We have access to the powerful measurement capabilities of Ixia's IxChariot, which provides detailed views of router wired and wireless performance. But you can use simpler testing methods to provide a pretty accurate picture of your router's performance.

The most inaccurate view of router performance is obtained using Internet-based speed tests to a wireless client. While perhaps the quickest and easiest test to run, it puts two highly-variable factors into the performance equation; the speed of your Internet connection and the speed of your wireless connection.

For accurate wireless router testing, there are two important requirements:

- Test on a local, non-Internet network
- Test routing and wireless performance separately

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Hmmm... I heard this was being done with the HP Touchpads, but now I know how it's being done!

Up until recently, only Android 2.3 Gingerbread was available for the tablet, but now the CyanogenMod team has released CyanogenMod 9 Alpha 0 for the TouchPad. It’s based on Android 4.0 and includes Google’s new user interface which is optimized for tablets without physical buttons. It’s a good fit for the TouchPad, which doesn’t have the home, back, and menu buttons found on most earlier Android phones and tablets.

Updated 1/30/12: CM9 Alpha 0.6 offers a number of bug fixes and a few new features including a quick settings menu that takes up less space and a menu that appears when you press-and-hold the power button. You can install the latest software using the steps below. If you’re upgrading from an earlier build, just copy the new files to your cminstall folder and skip to step 8 below — or follow our guide for updating your software using ClockworkMod.

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