

To design your network, choose graphics from the palette and drag them onto your diagram, and connect the devices using a set of drawing tools. It comes with a palette of icons for routers, servers, printers, boxes, hubs, modems and other network devices. With it, you can design your network and draw schematics that are more than flat documents - they're live and include links so that you could, for example, Telnet into any device on your network just by clicking on a button on the diagram. If you're looking for a tool to help you design your network or keep visual track of one you already have, you'll want to get Network Notepad. And as for pencil and paper, the less said about them, the better. Most drawing programs don't have adequate tools for creating network diagrams. The Lite version will let you set limits but won't do much more, and the Pro version adds a slew of features, including a firewall, scheduler and more.ĭesigning a network, or keeping a clear record of one you already have, can be an exceedingly frustrating task. There are three different versions of this program, starting with the free version, which only monitors network use and won't let you limit bandwidth use. To do it, you need to click the Grants tab at the bottom of the screen and then, for the application you want to limit, click the Grant column, enter a value for the bandwidth limit, and click the check box. This isn't the easiest program to use - at first, it seems as if there's no way to limit the bandwidth for any application. There's a lot more to this application as well, including a firewall, bandwidth monitor and other functions. You can fine-tune it quite a bit, for example, by setting different limits for uploading and downloading. The paid versions let you set bandwidth limits, including total amount of data downloaded or uploaded, on a per-application or per-connection basis. For that, you'll need to buy one of the paid versions. The free version of the software, though, won't let you actually set bandwidth limits. It monitors bandwidth use so that you can identify the hoggers. Typically, it's tough or impossible to track down which applications or PCs are using all that bandwidth and harder still to do anything about it. What's the biggest problem on many small networks? Bandwidth hoggers - applications that suck up all or most of the available Internet and network bandwidth. NetLimiter Lite costs US$8.95 to US$16.95, depending on the number of licenses and NetLimiter Pro costs US$14.95 to US$29.95, depending on the number of licenses. There are also for-pay versions of this software available.
