Posted on 02/18/2007 8:50:31 AM PST by proudofthesouth
By all means use what security the router has to the max. You never know who is listening in. Strong passwords are a must. When you don't know what the boxes are for, check them all -- LOL. Most users are not very knowledgeable when it comes to networking.
I consult with a few local companies, so I just stop at what the customer needs.
I wish the race would start, it's cold out and need something to get revved about.
I had a supervisor from Dell phone me last week when they tried to get me to buy a new one from them.
I was told that ALL of their new systems come with Vista.
So if I buy a router do I still need a firewall? Thx.
For some reason Zonealarm keeps locking my son's computer. I don't know if Zonealarm isn't compatible with a Soyo motherboard but it's been driving me crazy so I changed switched to McAfee to see if it makes a difference.
Anyone know anything about this?
My mistake, when I gave Newegg and Amazon as example, I should have pointed out that I was NOT suggesting Dell. I've had to repair a friend's Dell where the part that Dell used was obviously a cheap POS, as you could find reports of it failing a year and a month after the system was bought, like clockwork. And of course Dell's systems are just proprietary enough to make replacing the part a minor PIA.
Throw in the of hoops they make paying customers jump through to get a Windows free system sold to them, and yeah, I steer people away from Dell as a matter of course.
I've heard that Barracade puts out some great routers / firewalls. Pricey though. Has that been your experience?
I used Zone Alarm with XP and it was great. Problem with Zone Alarm is that it isn't yet compatible with Vista.
As the happy owner of two hand-me-down Dells from my current company (server and desktop) I'm impressed with their construction and durability. My last two employers have run all Dell (~100 PC) networks, and reliability hasn't been a problem. Laptops, servers and desktops.
Get a Mac. No spyware. No viruses. No hacks. No restarts. And you can still run Windows if you really need to, on Mac.
The days of having to choose are over. The new Mac's are cheaper and more powerful than any comparable HPs or Dells.
Anyone buying 20th century hardware or OS now days is just a masochist.
HAHAHAHA! whatever.
Those are the lower end. I would check at cnet to see the reviews before buying it. It looks a lot like the one we have.
I blew out the clouds of accumulated dust with an airhose, maxxed out the memory, added a DVD burner and WD 80 gig hard drive plus several miscellaneous PCI expansion boards, and haven't looked back.
The server got its memory maxxed out and has 3 "factory refurbished" 36 gig SCSI drives on the way.
But then I'm an oddball who runs DOS, 95, NT Workstation, NT Server, 98 and 2000 on my assortment of machines. I hated the XP installation on my wife's laptop, and would have a hard time considering an OS that needs 512 MB just to kick over. No Vista for me.
Down with bloatware !
"I was told that ALL of their new systems come with Vista."
Nope. You are probably looking only at the low end products they have. I only buy their high end products which are designed for commercial use and not home users. If you go to their web page you can find models that give you options on what OS you want. You can also buy a box without an OS, but then you have to search for XP on your own.
Where a software firewall comes in handy is policing which apps on your system are getting out on the net. A hardware firewall in a router only stops unsolicited connections in. Application control is definitely not foolproof, there are some well recognized ways to defeat such a system, but as a layer of defense, its a reasonably justifiable use of resources.
A hardware FW is almost certainly going to be more secure than your software FW, and it keeps the script-kiddies' ever-present probes at bay without taking up any of your CPU cycles, whereas a good software FW like Zone Alarm watches your side of the net for stuff leaving your system. They each have their advantages, and there's little downside in using them both.
I am just looking for something to surf and word process. Don't need a screamer. What do you think of the Acers?
For example...
http://www.dell.com/content/products/results.aspx/workstations?~ck=anav&c=us&l=en&s=biz&cs=555&a=23~0~86&navla=23~0~86
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