29th July 2002
If you're like me, then you have a ton of cables coming out of the back of your PC and it is a pain to see the network activity light on your network card. Should you have Windows XP, there is a simple solution for you. Either right-click My Network Places and choose properties, or go Start \ Control Panel \ Network and Internet Connections \ Network Connections. From there, just right-click your connection and choose Properties and put a check in the box that says, "Show icon in notification area when connected." Kinda reminds you of the days of dial-up, eh? Is your System Tray already full? Pull up the 2k/XP Task Manager (CTRL+SHIFT+Esc) and flip over to the Networking tab for a live view. 9xers could always use the System Monitor tool. But, no matter your Windows version or connection speed, you consider getting ahold of Lucent's MyVitalAgent. It's free, unobtrusive, and can provide more details about the passing bits than you could ever want to know.