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IT bods: Vista 'drops' internet connection!


RedM

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Interesting reading.

 

I lost count of how many users used to post up on my forum with Internet connection troubles, only to find it was down to Zone Alarm. Though some here say it used to be a cracking piece of software, as far as I can see, it seems to have done plenty of damage over at least the last five years or so! No other software firewall I've come across seems to have caused as many issues, though Norton flavours of security certainly come in a close second.

 

P.S.

 

When you set a static IP address you must use the same prefix. It is also better to NOT use one in the DHCP range so basically anything from 192.168.0.150-192.168.0.256 is best.

 

You would have struggled to assign the IP address 192.168.0.256, or even 192.168.0.255. The former is simply invalid, and the latter would be the broadcast address of the subnet (assuming a 255.255.255.0 subnet mask). If anyone's interested, I've got a page explaining how the subnets and IP addresses work. It's pretty old, looks dated, but accurate. http://www.just2good.co.uk/ipAddress.php.

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You would have struggled to assign the IP address 192.168.0.256, or even 192.168.0.255. The former is simply invalid, and the latter would be the broadcast address of the subnet (assuming a 255.255.255.0 subnet mask). If anyone's interested, I've got a page explaining how the subnets and IP addresses work. It's pretty old, looks dated, but accurate. http://www.just2good.co.uk/ipAddress.php.

 

Hehehehe, good spot, didn't even notice that...

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That Smoothwall sounds like the Yoggie Gatekeeper gizmos. Basically a self-contained Linux box doing the security for you with little overheads.

 

Any opinion on the Yoggie stuff?

 

They are 'okay'... but still pricey compared to smoothie, and not as flexible. Smoothie does require a passing understand of linux though, if you extend it.

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I had TCPIP disconnect messages in the event viewer on my XP pc for ages. Always disconnecting me (but it is a really old laptop). Decided to try Windows 7. Awesome. Fast as XP but more stable and no more disconnects. I thought I had a hardware issue but turns out it was either XP or the drivers (but tried numerous drivers)

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That Smoothwall sounds like the Yoggie Gatekeeper gizmos. Basically a self-contained Linux box doing the security for you with little overheads.

 

Any opinion on the Yoggie stuff?

 

My opinion on both is that for a regular home user they're not needed. The built in firewall stuff in windows combined with NAT on the router is all you need.

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My opinion on both is that for a regular home user they're not needed. The built in firewall stuff in windows combined with NAT on the router is all you need.

 

If you have kids, I disagree :) The reason I use smoothwall is because of the phrase-filtering capability. The ability to block pages that contain naughty words and phrases is a big must these days for kids on the internet. There is no way you can supervise kids 24/7 on the net, try sitting over the shoulder of a 15yr old. For instance we don't allow Bebo and other social networking sites as a rule in my house. With a standard router a simple bebo proxy would allow that through, layer-7 grabs it as it has the bebo phrase and stops it. It also prevents nasty words and other such MSN messenger badness from coming through.

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