Networking Gear Does Wear Out—Suspect It in Internet Slowdowns and Dropouts

Networking Gear Does Wear Out—Suspect It in Internet Slowdowns and Dropouts

We’ve helped some clients recently with networking problems that seemed to be related to Internet connections. Most notable was intermittently slow Internet performance, causing the client to call their ISP to upgrade to a higher bandwidth connection with guaranteed throughput. But that extra monthly expense turned out to be unnecessary once we tracked the problem to a malfunctioning cable modem. Other problems we’ve seen involved occasional network dropouts (a bad Ethernet switch), flaky Wi-Fi access (a dying AirPort base station), and Internet slowdowns (squirrels gnawing on an outdoor coaxial cable).

Networking infrastructure is often the very definition of “out of sight, out of mind.” Modems, routers, and switches are usually hidden away in corners, closets, or machine rooms where few people notice them regularly. In addition, most users rely on Wi-Fi–equipped laptops, tablets, and smartphones and put no thought into how those Wi-Fi connections get their Internet access. Nor do many people realize the extent that physical cables—Ethernet, coaxial, fiber optic—are required.

Plus, because network cables and gear are so hidden, they tend to stay in place for years. For the most part, that’s fine. Most network devices other than those involving network-attached storage have no moving parts to fail, and cables that aren’t exposed to extreme environmental conditions or physical movement will last for a long time. But even solid-state electronic devices wear out, and while cables seldom degrade on their own, they’re easily damaged by movement. And never underestimate the damage mice and squirrels can inflict!

It’s worth making sure you or someone in your organization has a solid knowledge—and documentation—of your network infrastructure. For instance, can someone answer these questions:

●     Where does your Internet connection come into the building?

●     What cable modem or other router are you using? Do you own or rent it?

●     Does your network rely on multiple Ethernet switches? Other networking gear?

●     Is your Ethernet cabling Cat 5 (obsolete, limited to 100 Mbps), Cat 5e (capable of 1 Gbps), Cat 6 (up to 10 Gbps), Cat 6a (10 Gbps at longer distances), or Cat 6e (a meaningless marketing term)?

●     Where is your Ethernet cable strung, and is it reasonably accessible? Can you isolate portions of your network for testing?

We also recommend putting an installation date sticker on the bottom of your network devices. That way, if you’re troubleshooting a problem like poor performance or intermittent connections, you can check quickly to see if any suspect devices are truly ancient. Even when older devices like cable modems seem to be working correctly, they may lack support for newer standards or firmware updates that provide better stability and throughput. We’ve also seen that issue with powerline networking adapters that are useful for extending connectivity to areas that can’t easily be served by Wi-Fi or Ethernet—newer adapters can provide significantly more performance. Plus, hardware does degrade over time—in particular, we’ve seen Ethernet switches and Wi-Fi routers get flaky as they age.

Finally, if solving a network problem requires new gear or cables, we strongly encourage purchasing quality hardware and cabling. Spending a little more upfront can save a lot of money in troubleshooting down the road, especially when it comes to pulling new cables.

(Featured image by iStock.com/klmax)

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Social Media: If you’re suffering from Internet slowdowns and dropouts, remember that networking gear and cables can get flaky with age, so it’s worth checking your modems, routers, and switches when troubleshooting.

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What Should You Do about an Authentication Code You DIDN’T Request?

What Should You Do about an Authentication Code You DIDN’T Request?

We strongly encourage using two-factor authentication (2FA) or two-step verification (2SV) with online accounts whenever possible. The details vary slightly, but with either one, after you enter your password, you must enter an authentication code to complete the login. Although it’s always best to get such codes from an authentication app like 1Password (which enters codes for you), Authy, or Google Authenticator, many websites still send codes by the less secure SMS text message or email. They’re better than nothing.

But what if you receive a 2FA code that you didn’t request?

1.    Don’t panic. Although receiving the code means that someone is trying to log in to your account and has your password, the extra authentication step has done its job and protected your account from being compromised.

2.    Never share an authentication code with anyone! A hacker could attempt to break into your account, be foiled by two-factor authentication, and then email or text you with a trumped-up story about why you should send them the code. Authentication codes are short-lived, so if this is going to happen, it will happen right away.

3.    Independently from the message with the code, go to the account website, log in, and change the password. As always, make sure the password is strong, unique, and stored in your password manager. If the account used an old password that was shared with other accounts, change passwords on those accounts as well.

There are a handful of scenarios that could generate such an authentication code:

Stolen credentials:The most likely scenario, which the advice above addresses, is when your email address and password have been stolen, probably in a significant site breach. You can check theHave I Been Pwnedsite to see if your account is floating around on the “dark Web.” Password managers often perform similar checks. Changing the password on any breached sites is essential.

●     Identity theft: You started receiving authentication codes from TikTok, but you don’t remember creating a TikTok account. Someone might be trying to create an account to impersonate you but cannot complete the account creation without the authentication code. There isn’t much you can do to stop such attempts, although if an account has been created, you should be able to change the password (since it’s using your email address or phone number), log in, and either just let the account sit in your password manager or try to delete it.

●     Accidental or random triggering: If you have a common email address or phone number, someone could have accidentally entered your address or number instead of theirs while trying to create an account. It’s easy to type marsha32@example.com instead of marsha23@example.com or mistake the Boston 617 area code for the upstate New York 607 area code. If you’re sure you don’t have an account at the site in question and you only get one authentication code, you can probably ignore it.

Regardless of the cause, don’t ignore 2FA codes you didn’t request for sites where you have an account. It’s not hard to change a password, particularly if you use a password manager, and the extra piece of mind is worth the few minutes of work.

(Featured image based on an original by iStock.com/Kateryna Onyshchuk)

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Social Media: Receiving a two-factor authentication code you didn’t request shows that your security is working, but it’s also an indication that someone may have your password and be trying to break into your account.

Is Your Mac Running Low on Disk Space? Here’s How to Delete Unnecessary Files

Is Your Mac Running Low on Disk Space? Here’s How to Delete Unnecessary Files

Between apps, photos, videos, music, and downloads, it’s easy to fill up your Mac’s drive, particularly one with just 128 or 256 GB of drive space. macOS warns you when you get too low on space, but those warnings may come late—for optimum Mac performance, we recommend you keep at least 10–20% of your drive free for new downloads and virtual memory swap files. There are excellent utilities that help you find and delete unnecessary files, such as the free GrandPerspective, the $9.99 DaisyDisk, and the $14.99 WhatSize, but Apple’s built-in storage management capabilities will likely be all you need.

Apple first introduced its Storage Management tool in the System Information app in macOS 10.12 Sierra, making it accessible from the About This Mac dialog. Starting in macOS 13 Ventura, Apple moved those capabilities to System Settings > General > Storage, providing a quick overview of your drive usage at the top. Hover over each colored bar to see how much space is taken up by a particular type of data. The light gray space at the end of the bar is what’s still available.

Below the graph, macOS may offer some recommendations for reducing storage over time, but they come with tradeoffs. Storing files in iCloud and optimizing Apple TV videos will replace local files with stubs pointing at a version stored in the cloud. That’s OK, but you then have to download the original before you can use it. Deleting files automatically after they’ve been in the Trash for more than 30 days is also fine but could have undesirable results if you ever want to recover older files from the Trash. Enable these if you wish, but the real work happens farther down on the screen, where you find all the categories of files you can explore. Depending on what apps you use, they will vary a bit between Macs, but they correspond to the colored bars you saw in the storage graph. Double-click each one to see what it displays.

For a few app-specific categories, like Mail and Podcasts, you merely learn how much space the app’s data occupies—to save space, you must delete unnecessary data from within the app itself. iCloud Drive and Photos are similar but also let you enable space optimization, which stores only placeholder files or smaller optimized photos on the Mac, leaving the originals in iCloud for later downloading whenever you access them.

More interesting are the Applications, Documents, and iOS Files categories, each of which may reveal gigabytes of unnecessary data. iOS Files, for instance, shows any device backups and software updates stored on your Mac’s drive. It’s worth keeping the latest backup of devices you still use, but delete any older backups and updates that are just wasting space—well over 8 GB in the screenshot below.

The Applications category lists your apps and is sorted by size by default. But try clicking the column header for Kind and scrolling down. You can probably delete most apps tagged as Unsupported, Duplicates, or Older Versions. Similarly, click the Last Accessed column header to see which apps you haven’t launched in years. Many of them can probably go, too.

In Documents, you’ll see four buttons: Large Files, Downloads, Unsupported Apps, and File Browser.

●     Large Files shows huge files regardless of where on your drive they’re located.

●     Downloads shows you the contents of your Downloads folder, much of which you likely don’t need.

●     Unsupported Apps lists any PowerPC or 32-bit apps that won’t run on your Mac. You can delete them.

●     File Browser provides a column view sorted by file size and shows sizes next to each item. It’s great for trawling through your drive to see what’s consuming all that space.

In any of these views, click Delete or Move to Trash to remove the file or Show In Finder to see it in its native habitat, which may help you decide if you should keep or delete the file. To delete multiple files at once, Command-click or Shift-click to select them and then click Delete to remove them all at once.

You may find it worth using GrandPerspective to get a visual overview of how space is used on your drive. After scanning, which can take a long time, it uses tiny colored blocks to represent files, collecting multiple blocks into bigger rectangles to show folder size. Toolbar buttons let you open, preview with Quick Look, reveal location, or delete whatever file block you click. Look in the status bar at the bottom of the window to see the path to the file.

In the screenshot below, the big boxes of color are massive virtual machine disk images, and the selected folder outlined in white at the right contains desktop pictures downloaded by an app that rotates them regularly—gigabytes of old files that can easily be deleted.

If your Mac’s drive has less than 10% free space, consider using Apple’s storage management capabilities—perhaps supplemented with GrandPerspective or another utility—to find and delete files that are wasting space.

Two final notes: Don’t get too wrapped up in the exact numbers in the storage graph matching what the Finder reports, and give the Mac some time to update its free space amounts after deleting files directly or emptying the Trash.

(Featured image based on an original by iStock.com/Bet_Noire)

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Social Media: Is your Mac low on drive space? Learn how to use Apple’s built-in storage management capabilities—perhaps supplemented with a third-party utility—to find and delete gigabytes of unnecessary files.

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