Movin' on Up! Wireless Edition Part 1: Security

As I've mentioned earlier that I'm planning some cool stuff for the future, one such plan is the eventual understanding and upgrading of my home's wireless network. So thanks again to the good people over at lifehacker (and the rest of the inter-tubes) I have the knowledge required to achieve these goals. Over the next few days I'm going to highlight several tricks, tips and ideas for improving your mastery over your wireless network

Part 1 - Security:
Now for those who are unfamiliar (as I was until not long ago) WEP encryption is not secure, not even remotely as recent developments make it possible for one to crack WEP in as little as a few minutes.

Though hilariously enough even though cracks in WEP were seen in 2001, and it was thoroughly broken as early as 2004, and despite being put to rest with the introduction of the IEEE 802.11i standard, it's still in widespread use.
Don't believe me? then take a look yourself, next time you look at nearby networks take a look at their encyption, I'm certain that a majority of them will be using WEP as opposed to WPA or WPA2

So In light of all this information I decided to change my routers encryption (from none) to WPA2 which, was surprisingly easy all you need to do is log in to your router.
Step by step here's what you do:
Step 1: go into the command prompt (for windows) and type in ipconfig note the number after default Gateway, and type that in your browser, you'll be prompted for a password which was originally included the box (if you forgot it, hard rest your router and then search online for the default passwords for your particular router).
Step 2: now that your in, go to the wireless tab, and click wireless security, and change the setting under security mode to your desired level (I personally picked WPA2 Persona with AES as my encryption algorithm)
Please note that the image below is an example of what the page will look like and your mileage may vary,

Step 3: Find a secure password, WPA and WPA2 have a maximum limit of 63 characters, I recommend going with that. you can even use this website to come up with a secure and random password.

Congrats you've now switched your encryption to WPA (much better than WEP)
Feel free to pat yourselves on the back, though understand: even though it's more secure than WEP, WPA is far from completely 100% secure.

Make sure to tune in next time for more on improving your Wi-fi