Find of the year, IMHO.

Every time I pop open the laptop in a coffee shop and try to get some work done, I’m plagued by repeated disconnects. This would be far less irritating if I wasn’t always listening to streaming radio. It seems like it knows exactly the right track too… But I digress.

The other morning, I’m in a coffee shop.

It’s dead and wifi quality is “Good.” I’m on my old Latitude (replacing it with an EEE soon I hope…I don’t need anything fancy on the road) with the PCMCIA wifi adapter (yeah, I know). Open iTunes, open a couple documents, fire up the ‘Fox, and get cracking. Not 15 minutes later, the connection dumps. Then again. And again.

I have definitely Googled this problem before and came up empty-handed but it always makes me feel better to try. This time, I hit paydirt. It’s a question and answer from PCworld  and it goes a little something like this:

I use an 802.11g wireless connection, and I know that the Windows Zero Configuration applet searches for a new connection every 3 minutes. I have found that if this applet is disabled at boot-up, the wireless connection is not made, but if WZC is stopped shortly after a wireless connection is made, the connection stays active indefinitely, barring outside influences.

I have been using Services.msc to stop WZC (I have it in my start-up folder), but I have to scroll to the bottom of the Services window to access WZC to stop it. I would like to find a faster way to do this, perhaps in the form of a shortcut to a batch file that would start or stop the service, or a shortcut directly to WZC within the Services window. Can you tell me how to accomplish my goal?

Windows has these things called “services” that operate certain parts of the operating system. One of these services, the Wireless Zero Configuration (WZC), tries to find the best connection between your available connection and will drop you off of the network you’re on if it thinks it finds a better candidate (another preferred/automatic network). This works great for cell phones (this is actually how cellular services works, wireless hand-offs) because they know how to do it and keep the connection going (sometimes - dropped calls being the exception). Your wifi adapter, however, cannot do this so if you’re swimming in open networks and the connection you’re using isn’t the best, you might just get booted (by your own computer).

How to stop this? Stop the service…

0) Make sure you’re connected to the right wireless network first. Once you disable the service, you can’t connect/disconnect unless you restart the service.

1) Start Menu > Control Panel > Administrative Tools for the Classic View (long list of items) or Start Menu > Control Panel > > Performance and Maintenace > Administrative Tools for Category View (colorful, big icons).

2) Double-click Services.

3) In this window, click the Name column header (where is says “Name”) to sort by the service name.

4) Scroll down to find Wireless Zero Configuration. Right-click this row and select Stop.

5)  Close the window and relax.

I did this and it never disconnected for the rest of the morning… bliss.

The only problem with this, as mentioned above, is that you have to go through these steps every time you want to connect. If you turn off your computer and turn it back on, the service will remain stopped and you won’t be able to connect. It’s as simple as following the steps above and selecting  Start to restart the service but how annoying, right? The  PCWorld article has the answer:

Open Windows Explorer and navigate to C:\Windows\System32 (or C:\Winnt\System32 if you’re running Windows 2000). Locate the file net.exe. Right-drag it onto the desktop and choose Create shortcut(s) here when you drop it. Click twice slowly in the filename area and name the shortcut Stop WZC. Right-click on the shortcut, choose Properties, and click on the Shortcut tab. The Target field will probably show C:\WINDOWS\system32\net.exe. Append a space to this, followed by ” stop wzcsvc” (don’t forget the space before stop). If you like, repeat these steps and create another shortcut to start the service; just replace “stop” with “start”.

Wonderful! thanks PCWorld

• Show up early…. yes, you. Everyone needs to show up early. Depending on the amount of work that needs to be done, staff members should be on-site and setting things up AT LEAST an hour before people start showing up. Registration tables, video demos, installations, presentations… everything takes time to get ready. WHY: Because it looks silly to be dinking around with technology and paperwork while people are showing up. Have you ever gone to a great hotel and had the concierge tucking in her shirt, the computers getting installed, and the bellhop tying his shoes in the middle of the lobby? Look like you know what the heck you’re doing and be ON POINT well before the people show up.

• If you’re presenting, have some kind of back-up in case everything blows up. Have another story, have a riff on-deck, have a prop… have SOMETHING to keep that energy going. Presentations stop, internet access breaks, and wireless mouse batteries run out; be ready for it. Distract attention from the control panel windows that are going on and tell an embarrassing story about yourself. Don’t slam your OS or your software or your IT department or yourself - that gets awkward. Don’t walk people what you’re doing, multi-task. WHY: Though every great (and many good) speaker(s) can recover from a screeching halt, not everyone knows what to do DURING the screeching. If you’re lucky, there’s an IT person around who can fix the problem on the fly but you still need to keep that attention (if you even had it in the first place). Technical problems will always happen and usually at the worst times. No one is rolling their eyes at you as long as you don’t make it worse on yourself.

• Have excellent IT staff on hand. Actually, this rule is for everyone at all times. Find someone, hire someone, pay them well, treat them like they are all-important (because they are), let them work the way they want to, make sure they understand security and privacy, make sure they’re not painfully anti-social, and befriend them. WHY: There is no work-around for having a great IT guy/gal. Having someone who can quickly (and correctly) fix problems instills massive confidence. Most people (I’m talking 90% [conservatively]) don’t know how to fix fairly basic computer problems. Having someone to help these folks is very valuable. Having someone that can fix everything else as well is priceless. The IT Admin for the company I’m contracted with is smart, capable, cool, calm, collected, patient, and knows it all. It’s a pleasure to watch him work his magic.

• Does your audience need files? Documents? Installs? Data? Databases? Put all this stuff on a cheap USB and give it to them with instructions. Not possible? Sensitive data? Put all this stuff on several USBs and train your staff on how to implement. WHY: The more people armed and capable (actually capable) to help your audience, the quicker that problems will be solved and the better the conference will run.

• Give each of your staff members a pack of sugar-free gum. Tell the ones presenting that if they chew gum during the presentation that they will be fired. Then say, “Just kidding… but seriously.”

• Just saw this - if your projector isn’t fitting the whole screen on the big screen, adjust the resolution on the computer running the presentation. In Windows XP, right-click the desktop, select Properties, select the Settings tab, and drop the screen resolution down (try 800×600).

• Drink less sleep more, even if you’re having fun. WHY: Sounds ridiculous, I know, but just go with it.