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2-9-06
1 Ports and static IP
3 Open source media player
4 Streaming tech shows
5 Driver search
Last week I explained IP addressing, DNS and mentioned ports and what they do. This week I’ll cover why this is important to you and what you need to do to use these ports in certain situations.
Each program uses specific ports, some of which are common to all programs that perform the same function, as in the POP3 port 110 and the SMTP port 25. When you receive email it comes through 110 and outgoing mail uses 25. All standard email clients use those ports so they know where to “listen” for incoming messages and so on.
The use of ports keep the multitude of incoming and outgoing signals sorted out and are addressed as IP:Port (such as 192.168.0.23:80) and are needed at both ends of the connection.
A firewall monitors the outgoing packets and notes which port the response should come back to, then automatically passes the response through, but it blocks unrequested packets to almost all ports to protect against hackers. Obviously this is a good thing but in some cases it can be a hindrance to the end user when they try to make a remote connection to their PC.
I wanted to explain ports due to Hash’s article last week about VNC support in Mac OSX. Since many people are now on broadband and use a router between their computers and the modem, ports become extremely important. You see, since a router will take the IP address of your connection and re-route the signals to and from the internal addresses of multiple computers, simply knowing the connection IP is not enough to use programs like VNC, PC-Anywhere etc.
To try to explain, VNC is a program that allows you to connect to your home PC from work, or vice-versa. You run the server app on your target PC, which runs in the background and waits for an incoming connection from the client or viewer app across the Internet. For this example I’m going to use TightVNC and a D-Link DI-524 Wireless router.
After you install VNC on your home PC and start it, it will sit in the System Tray and wait for an incoming connection. By default TightVNC uses TCP port 5800 but there are a couple of problems. First is the fact that when you get the VNC client installed at work and want to connect you send a signal to you home IP address, but there isn’t a PC there to answer. The router handles that address, say 10.0.11.23, but the target PC is at a different address. Oops!
To get around this little problem you need to do two things. First you need to give the target PC a static IP address on the network. To do this you need to know the address range of your router. In XP just double click the connection icon in your System Tray and click the Support tab. Since routers by default are set to assign addresses in blocks of 100 you can easily guess the range from your own IP address. If your PC is 192.168.1.101 that tells you that you can use up to 200 as your final octet. Now count the devices hooked to your router. If you have two other PCs then you can assume that 192.168.1.10 would never be assigned by the router, so let’s use that.
Close that and right click on My Network Places and choose Properties. Once that opens click on TCP/IP and click Properties. In there you can tick the circle next to Use the following IP address. You’ll notice that the next option concerning DNS changes to Use the following DNS server address as well.
For the IP address use the aforementioned 192.168.1.10. The Subnet should be 255.255.255.0 and the Gateway 192.168.1.1. For the Preferred DNS server use 192.168.1.1 and leave the Alternate server field blank. Click OK and OK again and the Network connections screen will close. Now open Internet Explorer (or your browser of choice) to verify you’re still online.
That’s enough ground to cover this week. Next week we’ll finally log into the router and forward the port we’ll need for TightVNC.
Kevin Mefford, Editor
If you've ever
bought a new retail PC, you've seen how many icons
(pointing to software
you'll never use) can litter your desktop. But
the next step in the war
for your attention on a new machine is upon
us---toolbar wars:
http://news.com.com/Forget+the+browser+wars,+prepare+for+the+toolbar+wars/2100-1012_3-6036263.html
Google,
the company that professes to "do no evil", laid down some
punishment on
BMW's German site this week. Evidently the automaker
was using "doorway
pages" to skew search results in their favor.
While most people in the tech
world may agree with this move, what
does it say about Google's control of
the visible web? :
http://www.internetnews.com/xSP/article.php/3583606
In
an effort to combat mass-mailing spammers, AOL and Yahoo! have
floated a plan
to charge for large mailings. Will it work? As usual,
opinions
vary:
http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,124666,00.asp
And
finally, a personal story of sorts. Some months ago, I promised
that I
would switch from Windows to a Mac or Linux box if Microsoft
ever SOLD (not
gave away) an anti-virus/anti-spyware product. That
day has come (link
courtesy of team member Hash):
http://news.zdnet.com/2100-1009_22-6036290.html
With
my new iMac having arrived last Thursday, I now bid Billy Boy
Gates and the
rest of the Redmond crew goodbye. I won't miss you.
Matt
Dattilo
thepcgurus@gmail.com
www.mattdattilo.com
If you’re a fan of Firefox you’ll love Songbird, an open source media player that is cross-platform and will support extensions for customization. You can sample or play MP3s right from web pages like a browser plus play all of you local music collection like WiMP or WinAmp.
Download and play with this one for now but keep in mind this is such and early build they aren’t even calling it a Beta version, it’s a Proof-of-Concept, but this is definitely a program to watch.
Get it from http://www.songbirdnest.com/home.
For those of you jonesing for online computer shows, chatter and sometime team member Michael Champlin (USSRover in the chat room) hosts an exhaustive list of streaming tech content at:
http://www.kalnet.com/~ussrover/show.html
Q: Do you guys know where I can find a
driver or a link to a driver for a
Intel(R) 82801DB Ultra ATA Storage
Controller - 24CB? If so, could
you please send it my
way?
A: Go to the Intel Download web site at the
following URL:
http://downloadfinder.intel.com/scripts-df-external/Support_Intel.aspx
You'll
need to select your product, in this case a Desktop Board, and
look for your
specific board model. From that point, you'll be able to
download the
appropriate driver.
Ed Engelking II
ed@thepcgurus.com