I'm using Verizon DSL. the installation CD sets up the stuff and the connection doesn't show up as an icon in the "Network Connections" folder. how can I find out my own connection speed and IP from Windows XP? (the "connected" icon doesn't show up on my system tray) another thing is, is there a way to log all network flows between my computer and the Internet? what is the XP program for that (if one exist)?

First of all you do not need the Verizon software. It's crap and will only slow you down. Remove all the Verizon software and just set it up as a LAN connection using the XP connection wizard. START RUN Type in 'inetwiz" (with no quotes) ENTER Select the appropriate settings. Your connection speed can be found here- http://chi.speakeasy.net/ You should be about 1.5MB(1500KB)download and about 150KB upload. If not call them and tell them to uncap you to the speed they advertise. Your IP can be seen here- http://www.whatsmyip.org/ Monitoring all your traffic is a tough one unless your into Unix or Linux packet sniffers but installing Zone Alarm or any free firewall is probably good enough- http://www.zonelabs.com/store/content/company/products/znalm/freeDownload.jsp Jimi_l

hi Jimi_1, do you mean my Internet connection is going to work without the Verizon software? I set up a manual connection, but it seems to me I need to click the connection icon for each time I rebooted in order to get connected. do you know of a way to allow for it to connect automatically on boot? another thing is that the LAN-based connection doesn't show the actual speed (always says "100 Mbps", which is impossible). do you know how I can find my network information like IP, DNS servers, news servers, connection speed, etc.? thanks for the tips by the way :)

I mean, how can I find out my own connection information through my local machine? feeling kind of pathetic to ask other websites about my own information lol

ok, first off, 100Mbps is your intranet, not internet connection, dont worry about that for now. second, if you go to start>All programs>Accessories>Command Prompt now type ipconfig/all that tells you a lot of stuff about your internet. An easy way to access your IP address would be start>right click on: "My network Places">go to: "properties">on the LAN or HighSpeed Internet right click and go to: "properties">then it shows up with another screen with a small box down at the bottom saying "show icon in notification are when connected" click that>Now click OK now when you wanna check something about your IP or whatever, there'll be an icon on the bottom right looking like a pair of computers.

thanks a lot FBI Agent, but I can only obtain the information about my LAN connection from there, not my WAN information. here's what I got: ___General___ Connection Status: Connected Duration: 00:17:53 Speed: 100.0 Mbps Activity Packets: Sent 2,678 Received 2,540 ___Support___ Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) Address Type: Assigned by DHCP IP Address: 192.168.1.47 Subnet Mask: 255.255.255.0 Default Gateway: 192.168.1.1 DHCP Server: 192.168.1.1 DNS Server: 192.168.1.1 the default gateway, DHCP, DNS, etc. are all pointing to my router, so I'd expect I can't find my global connection information directly off the LAN properties. but thanks any way.

by the way, I just called up Westell and found the proper way to deal with this. but still, thank you so much Jimi_1 and FBI Agent!