New levy will help fund the rollout of the National Broadband Network (NBN) in regional areas but additional charges may be passed on to consumers.

The Raspberry Pi is a surprisingly useful tool to test the strength of your network. To add another tool to your network testing kit, Warberry Pi is a self-contained set of scripts that run automatically when you plug your Raspberry Pi into a ethernet port.

Dodgy Wi-Fi is the bane of human existence (or close to anyway), and even worse when it’s at home. There always seems to be a black spot (hint, it's on the toilet, or in bed), or random hard to pin down interference that causes Netflix to buffer. Fortunately, there are a bunch of easy ways to diagnose and improve your Wi-Fi woes.

Earlier this week we addressed how to manage the security for your business IT systems. Now we look at software than can assist with your broader IT management strategy.

There's no point investing in hardware if you don't also have systems in place secure it. We identify the critical tools you'll need to secure your IT systems.

Windows only: If you're running a home network with more than one or two machines, free network tool Advanced IP Scanner might save you a good chunk of time hunting down IP addresses and remotely connecting. The small utility scans a range of internal IP addresses and reports the status, name, NetBIOS/workgroup name, and MAC address on what it finds. You can then remotely shutdown, wake up LAN-listening machines, telnet or FTP into a machine—anything you'd normally be able to do, just in shorter order. It's probably overkill for those with one or two machines with static IP addresses, but Advanced IP Scanner is a pretty sweet tool for networking geeks. Advanced IP Scanner is a free download for Windows systems only. Thanks, brodiemac!

Advanced IP Scanner 1.5 (Free)

MAC addresses are the 12-digit strings that wireless routers and other network devices use to restrict or open up access to a computer. They're also a huge pain in the butt sometimes, requiring pen-and-paper manoeuvres and frustrating connection attempts. If you're running a Windows system, the Online Tech Tips blog has a step-by-step tutorial on "spoofing" your address to something you can remember, or for hooking into a wireless network that's locked down. The guide is written for Windows XP, but the steps look much the same as they would in Vista. Change or spoof a MAC address in Windows

Backing up your data on a regular basis is important, and turning a spare computer into a backup server is often the best way to make sure it gets done. But most methods require either a good deal of command-line learning or serve only one operating system. Not with Restore, a free, open-source backup system that can install or run from a live CD, work with any OS, and operate through a simple browser-based interface. Today I'll demonstrate backing up a Windows laptop to an older desktop, but you'll see how Restore can be easily molded to fit just about any home backup needs.

US-centric: If you want to block your cell phone number from showing up on other phones (for whatever reason), you can do it temporarily simply by dialing *67 before the number you're calling. According to tech how-to site How To Do Things, you won't have any way to tell this is working (it does), but if you want to reassure yourself just call another phone number that has caller ID to double-check that your number, indeed, is blocked.
AU - To block your number being call-ID'd in Australia, I believe you need to dial 1831 before the number.
How To Block Your Cell Phone Number