QUESTION: I would like to know whether there is a way to get rid of a blog site that personally identifies you without directly trying to contact the webmaster. I was personally identified in this blog, and it is discrediting to my reputation. Is there a way to get this URL off Google? Every time I Google my name, this URL is the first thing to come up.
ANSWER: There is no way to remove anything from a website, at least not legally, without contacting the site's manager, said Jon Jordan, president of Atlantic Business Technologies, a Raleigh, N.C., Web development firm.
The best thing you could do is to create other pages that rank higher for the search criteria, thereby pushing this link to the second or third page, he advised. Usually once this material is less current and more search-friendly content has been created, it will drop in the rankings.
Depending upon how unique your name is, Jordan suggests you create profiles in major portals such as YouTube, LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook. You also could purchase "(yourname).com" and set up a basic website profile there. In all of these, the goal would be to have your name in the title of the page (what's in the blue bar at the top of the browser). This will help them outrank the other page.
Q: I'm trying to connect with my network via a laptop that has been idle for a year since before my router was replaced. The laptop, which runs Windows Vista, works perfectly on other networks or even on my own router via direct Ethernet cable. But "Access Local Only" still flashes when I try to connect to my own home network. A Windows XP laptop in the house does just fine.
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--J.H., Garner, N.C.
A: The problem here is with how different devices are identified within your network. Each piece of hardware (desktop or laptop computers, Internet-ready cable boxes or gaming systems, or networked printers or hard drives) has to be assigned an IP address to identify it on your network.
Vista incorporates a "broadcast flag" that can help in the assigning of IP addresses. However, some routers aren't able to handle this flag, so they're not able to make the connection. The reason your XP connection works is that XP ignores the broadcast flag.
Microsoft provides an automatic fix that disables the broadcast flag in Vista. You can find it at http://tinyurl.com/broadcastflag . Just click the big "Microsoft fix it" button, click "run" in the "file download" dialog box, and then follow the steps in the fix-it wizard.
On the same page, Microsoft provides directions on how to make the fix yourself. However, this requires adjusting a setting in your registry. I strongly caution you against manually editing the registry yourself unless you've backed it up, you know what you are doing, and there is no other solution to the problem.
