Firewall & Port Basics

Written by Ron Merts


Continued from page 1

The answer is sort of. Picture a computer firewall in terms of its namesake. A firewall in construction terms is a specially insulated wall between office suites or apartments, which prevents fires in one suite from spreading torepparttar next suite. But sometimes builders want water or electrical conduits to pass throughrepparttar 107764 firewall. That's easy enough—they just poke a hole throughrepparttar 107765 wall, run their conduit through, and insulate around it. Computer firewalls let you do just that. They let you open specific ports while keeping other ports sealed off.

Gaming through ICF So when do you need to open ports? Believe it or not, when you want to play client-server games like Return to Castle Wolfenstein or Call of Duty on a distant server, you don't have to open any ports. That's because firewalls block data coming in, but not going out. When your PC sends handshake data out torepparttar 107766 server, a connection is established, and once that connection is fired up, it allows your game to communicate throughrepparttar 107767 firewall.

However, when you wish to host a multiplayer session or play a peer-to-peer game like Age of Empires, you do have to do a little footwork. Inrepparttar 107768 case of starting a server, your PC does not initiate a connection. When you start up a game and choose to host a server, it just sits there and waits for other computers to connect to it. When ICF is in place, those other computers can't connect. In fact, they can't even see that your PC is hosting a server. You'll have to open one or more ports to allow other players to connect to your server. Such is alsorepparttar 107769 case with peer-to-peer games, in which each participant has to connect to everyone else's computer. Thankfully, most games use a client-server implementation.

To open ports in your ICF firewall: 1) Click Start, click My Network Places, and under Network Tasks, click View network connections. 2) Right-clickrepparttar 107770 connection that you use forrepparttar 107771 Internet, and then click Properties. 3) Onrepparttar 107772 Advanced tab, click Settings, and then click Add. Inrepparttar 107773 Description of service box type a name forrepparttar 107774 port you're opening. For example, "Halo Server." 4) Inrepparttar 107775 Name or IP address ofrepparttar 107776 computer hosting this service on your network box, type 127.0.0.1. 5) In bothrepparttar 107777 External Port and Internal Port boxes, typerepparttar 107778 port number you want to open. 6) Click either TCP or UDP, and then click OK. If you're unsure, repeatrepparttar 107779 process for both protocols.

If you choose to make things easier, you can opt to turn off ICF when hosting a game and turn in it back on when you're done. However, this leaves your computer vulnerable while your PC is acting asrepparttar 107780 game server.

Which ports do you open? Different games use different ports and some use TCP, some use UDP, and some use both. You can often find out which ports are used by a given game by consultingrepparttar 107781 game's documentation, its Readme file, or by visiting its Web site and checkingrepparttar 107782 FAQ pages. Some games make port information readily accessible, and for others, it's hard to come by. You might try visiting a game's Usenet group orrepparttar 107783 message boards at its official site or fan sites and posingrepparttar 107784 question: which ports do I open to host a server? In some cases, you'll not only have to open ports forrepparttar 107785 game's own needs, but also to meetrepparttar 107786 needs of its matchmaker service, so that your server can be listed in other players' server browsers.

Be sure to closerepparttar 107787 affected ports when you're not hosting a gaming server to keep your connection secure. That sounds like a lot of footwork, but it's worth it to keep your computer safe.

For more information check out http://www.tornadocomputers.com

CIO/Sr. Vice President of Tornado Computers, Inc. in Oklahoma City, OK.


Web Designing Tips

Written by Pawan Bangar


Continued from page 1

•All It Takes Is A Droplet :

Want to optimize several images withrepparttar same settings? Create a "droplet "and save time. Openrepparttar 107763 optimize palette in Image Ready with your image open. Setrepparttar 107764 optimization to what you want-file type (JPG, GIF or PNG), quality (low, medium, high), lousiness, dither and so on while previewingrepparttar 107765 result inrepparttar 107766 "optimized" tab ofrepparttar 107767 main inrepparttar 107768 Optimize palette. This creates what is called a "droplet" that contains your optimization settings. Save this droplet anywhere you want, say on your desktop.

Now dragrepparttar 107769 folder containingrepparttar 107770 images to be optimized onto this droplet. Allrepparttar 107771 images inrepparttar 107772 folder will get optimizedrepparttar 107773 way you specified. This may take a while depending onrepparttar 107774 number and size ofrepparttar 107775 images inrepparttar 107776 folder. You can also drop images one at a time ontorepparttar 107777 droplet.

•Precise Hot Spots :

Want to link different parts of an image to various URLs? You can do this by slicingrepparttar 107778 image and assigning links torepparttar 107779 relevant slices, butrepparttar 107780 disadvantage of this isrepparttar 107781 lack of precision: slice is necessarily rectangular. Also, slices are pieces ofrepparttar 107782 image.

Say you're working on a Web page for children aboutrepparttar 107783 different parts of ancient castles. You would likerepparttar 107784 parts-dungeons; moat, guard towers, and so on-to have precise rollovers and links so thatrepparttar 107785 information is conveyed correctly. Rather than slices such an images and allot links, use image maps, selectrepparttar 107786 polygon Image Map tool in Image Ready and outlinerepparttar 107787 part you want to talk about precisely . Even circular image maps work fairly well in some areas. You can adjust points ofrepparttar 107788 map edge after finishingrepparttar 107789 shape, too .inrepparttar 107790 image map palette, you can specifyrepparttar 107791 URL to link to along with ALT text. To preview your work, save Optimized as a HTML file and check it in a browser.

•Optimize Your Web Graphics Easily :

Despiterepparttar 107792 cable Internet connections and high-speed modems, Web graphics are still limited speed-wise. The sites that load fastest and work most efficient have well-optimized graphics .GIF images are generally good for line drawings and illustrations while JPG ones are best suited for photographs. Besides file format, there are various factor that affectrepparttar 107793 optimized image likerepparttar 107794 ‘lousiness'-the amount of data inrepparttar 107795 image that you're willing to sacrifice for smaller file size-the number of colors you need minimum, whether you can have dithering or not, so on .

In Photoshop, to try out different optimization settings, click Save for Web . A window opens up showingrepparttar 107796 current image along with various options and menus onrepparttar 107797 right . inrepparttar 107798 image window itself, you can see two tabs: 2-up tab to see two versions-the original andrepparttar 107799 optimized-for comparison along with time needed to loadrepparttar 107800 image according to various modem speeds . The 4-upshows you 3 versions againstrepparttar 107801 original. These previews are useful and convenient, rather than having to manually saverepparttar 107802 image repeatedly in different ways and comparing each of them.

•Making A Banner Ad:

We're all familiar with banner ads that we see all overrepparttar 107803 Web: a strip with an image and text that changes into another and another conveying some information. Clicking on this ad takes you torepparttar 107804 site thatrepparttar 107805 company is advertising for. You don't have to use GIF Builder or any other graphics software to animate such an ad. You can make it easily using Front Page. Select Insert-Web component-banner ad manger. Inrepparttar 107806 window that opens, specifyrepparttar 107807 size ofrepparttar 107808 ad,repparttar 107809 transition effect,repparttar 107810 number of seconds to display each image,repparttar 107811 URL to linkrepparttar 107812 ad to and addrepparttar 107813 images you've prepared. That's it.

This feature could also be used you want to share a few photographs coiled also be used when you want to share a few photographs or images but don't wantrepparttar 107814 images to be save-able onrepparttar 107815 cline's side; right-click will not work on these images. Althoughrepparttar 107816 images may be found inrepparttar 107817 cache, at least they won't be able to be copied directly.

Best Regards, Pawan Bangar, Technical Director, Birbals, (Hbirbals,Seobirbals,Ebirbals,Ibirbals) #1047,Sector 42-b, Chandigarh. Cell:+91-98153-52253 email: www.ebirbals.com www.birbals.com www.hbirbals.com www.seobirbals.com


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