The Internet PDF Print E-mail
Friday, 15 October 2004 00:00

As many of you know who have been following this website, we have had some ongoing problems with our satellite Internet. We have finally resolved the speed problem by eliminating the wireless router and switching to a wired router, which in turn gives us both access to the Internet at the same time, though now we are no longer wireless. Aside from speeding up our connection considerably, we also have prevented the possibility of other people connecting to our dish with their wireless notebooks giving us a little peace of mind.

The other problem we have is that we are constantly being bombarded by viruses. With cable and dial-up or high speed, the providers have installed firewalls and safeguards which offer their users some albeit not complete protection. Galaxy Broadband, our provider, has none at all. Our server and each of our laptops each have internal, activated firewalls in place and all have Norton Professional installed on them. I run a live update two or three times a day but it does very little to protect us. The laptops are not as accessible to the virus makers but the server is virtually helpless. It seems to be an exasperating, uphill battle because I have to remove these viruses, often manually, which is most time consuming. I am not a computer wizard but I am becoming quite adept at this procedure.
For the life of me, I do not understand what kind of pathetic, sick individuals create these viruses and what satisfaction it gives them. It makes me wonder how these sicko's have so much time on their hands that they have nothing better to do with it than create these things. I firmly believe that the anti-virus software developers are behind it, each one trying to outdo the other. Why else would these viruses even exist, after all money makes the world go round? My advice; stay diligent, update your virus definitions daily, update your Microsoft software regularly and don't open any suspicious email. And until Galaxy offers a better protection... stick with cable or high-speed.