Tuesday, May 11, 2004

Computer turns on randomly
Go into your BIOS (press F1 or Delete on startup, depending on your PC). Make sure Wake on ring and Wake on LAN are turned off.

Remove Sasser Manually
Disconnect your computer from the Internet.
Boot in Safe Mode by pressing the F8 key during startup.
Navigate to your Windows directory (c:\WINDOWS or c:\WINNT) on your hard drive.
Look for a file named AVSERVE.EXE. Delete it.
Click on the Start menu and select Run.
Type "regedit" (without quotes).
Navigate to the following Registry key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run
In the windows to the right, look for a value called avserve. Delete it.
Exit RegEdit.
Reboot.

Monday, May 03, 2004

DNS
Human beings like to use names and words. Computers use numbers. When you want to browse a website you enter its human-readable name into the browser address bar. The computer has to convert that to the numeric address used across the Internet between your computer and the web server.

A DNS (Domain Name System) Server provides the numeric address when your computer asks for a human-readable address.

To check your settings:

Open the "Start" menu
Open "My Network Places"
Open "Network Connections"
Right click on the connection to your cable modem and choose "Properties".
Open the "General" page. Select "Internet Protocol (TCP/IP)", then click on "Properties".
Enable both "Obtain an IP address automatically" and "Obtain DNS server address automatically".
Click "OK" to close the "Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) Properties" window.
Click "OK" to close the "Local Area Connection Properties" window.

Channel Bonding
A technology that combines two telephone lines into a single channel, effectively doubling the data transfer speeds. To take advantage of channel bonding, you need two modems and two telephone lines. If both modems offer 56 Kbps speeds, for example, bonding two modems together would give you a 112 Kbps Internet connection, comparable to an ISDN connection.