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You can spend hours figuring out how to lock down every browser in the house to prevent the net’s nastier stuff from reaching your kids. Or you can set up the web-boosting, attack-preventing Open DNS service to work with your router and drill down on specific prevention measures. You filter by category or content, block specific sites, pop up custom warning messages (as in, “Donny, I know what you’re up to …”), and keep logs of web activity. The How-To Geek’s got a screen-by-screen look at what you can do, for free, to keep your net stream relatively pure.

Windows only: Avanquest Connection Manager, previously a $30 app, is now a free utility that could be seriously convenient for laptop users. The app lets you create profiles for your different wi-fi or LAN connections, changing email, printer, and network drive defaults depending on where you hook up, along with security settings and other concerns. The app’s basic connection-chooser is also more user-friendly than Windows’ own somewhat plain built-in version (though that might be what some road warriors like about it). The trade-off for its “free”-ness appears to be ads for other Avanquest software scrolling across the top, but I find them pretty easy to ignore. Avanquest Connection Manager is a free download for Windows systems only.

Google is developing a tool to detect whether your ISP is throttling your bandwidth, according to web site HotHardware. Can’t wait for Google’s tool? Check out previously mentioned BitTorrent throttle-detector Glasnost.

The Atlantic Monthly’s Nicholas Carr is worried that his increasing reliance on the internet for research and other information has made him stupid:

…what the Net seems to be doing is chipping away my capacity for concentration and contemplation. My mind now expects to take in information the way the Net distributes it: in a swiftly moving stream of particles. Once I was a scuba diver in the sea of words. Now I zip along the surface like a guy on a Jet Ski.

The author dives deep into many perceived effects of the internet on the way he thinks, bolstering his argument with anecdotes about other technologies, like the printing press, and their very real influence our thought processes.

Ultimately Carr concedes that, while the internet’s influence will very likely have a profoundly positive effect on some aspects of our lives, it may have a dumbing-down effect in what we currently see as independent thought and intelligence. It’s a little doomsday, but also a great read, so let’s hear whether or not you feel Google’s making you dumber in the comments.

Want to get more than just behind on your work from idly browsing the web? The Simple Dollar weblog shares a few tips for getting both personal and professional value from your “wasted” web time. The post suggests several different methods for getting more from your browsing, most of which revolve around participating on the web rather than just consuming—whether that involves social bookmarking, commenting and sharing your knowledge, or befriending others with similar interests. If you’re a pro at squeezing value out of your web surfing (hey, you read Lifehacker, right?), let’s hear your tips in the comments.

Web site Linux.com offers a few tips for taking advantage of the second Ethernet port on the back of your computer. For example, in Linux you can bond your two ports for load balancing and fault tolerance.

…bonding [combines] both of the computer’s interfaces into a single interface…. The OS can alternate which interface it uses to send traffic, or it can gracefully fail over between them in the event of a problem. You can even use it to balance your traffic between multiple wide area network (WAN) connections, such as DSL and cable, or dialup and your next door neighbor’s unsecured Wi-Fi.

Most new computers come packed with a perplexing abundance of Ethernet ports—that is to say, two. But with a little know-how on your Linux box, you can get a whole lot more from them. The article focuses on Linux, but if you’ve found a use for your second Ethernet port on your Windows or Mac PC, let’s hear about it in the comments.