More 'Puter Questions...

motordavid · #1 12-10-2005, 04:30 PM

Another new 'Puter, (my 2nd new in 5 months; Dell likes me

), for the FLA joint; set it up, Comcast highest speed cable, runs well and fooking Cooks!

Some Questions of the 'puter Mavens here:
-the cable comes from wall to a Touchstone brand Telephony Modem (made by Arris?), that Comcast brought in. Do I need to put a "router" of some kind, ala Linksys brand, between the cable modem and the puter for masking ISP and stopping bad guys? I do have Norton Firewall, plus the inherent firewall, several versions of spyward cooking, etc. Currently, I do have a 2nd 'puter or lap top so I'm not chasing networking, just trying to understand if that blue router thing will be any real benefit?

(I do have the cable, and all "plugs" running through a Belkin surge suppresor...I use a jumbo APC w/batt backup back north on the Mtn, but that's due to the constant "outs" and line surges we have...not sure I need that kind of stuff here, in FL, in winter.)

-I took all my EMail stuff, Inbox, Sent, Address book, etc., from my NC 'puter and put it into a file via a program on web and burned it to CD-R. How in the hell do I get my Outlook OR Outlook Express, (preferred by me), running in this new 'puter AND keep/retain my old/previous email address so I can check mail, retreive mail and have people send me email at my "normal", known to all, address. I Do Not wanna do a Comcast email address and send it to all my Fans, Faves and Fams, lol! Any 5 easy pieces to do this email thing? Very fooking confusing...

Any ideas and help, written in 'puterStupid language,

, would be appreciated. I appreciate your patience in reading this long post question...
Thanks and Best Regards,
Ol'UncleMotor

Ol'&Challenged@'puterStupid.edu

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alpac · #2 12-10-2005, 05:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by motordavid

Another new 'Puter, (my 2nd new in 5 months; Dell likes me

), for the FLA joint; set it up, Comcast highest speed cable, runs well and fooking Cooks!

Some Questions of the 'puter Mavens here:
-the cable comes from wall to a Touchstone brand Telephony Modem (made by Arris?), that Comcast brought in. Do I need to put a "router" of some kind, ala Linksys brand, between the cable modem and the puter for masking ISP and stopping bad guys? I do have Norton Firewall, plus the inherent firewall, several versions of spyward cooking, etc. Currently, I do have a 2nd 'puter or lap top so I'm not chasing networking, just trying to understand if that blue router thing will be any real benefit?

(I do have the cable, and all "plugs" running through a Belkin surge suppresor...I use a jumbo APC w/batt backup back north on the Mtn, but that's due to the constant "outs" and line surges we have...not sure I need that kind of stuff here, in FL, in winter.)

-I took all my EMail stuff, Inbox, Sent, Address book, etc., from my NC 'puter and put it into a file via a program on web and burned it to CD-R. How in the hell do I get my Outlook OR Outlook Express, (preferred by me), running in this new 'puter AND keep/retain my old/previous email address so I can check mail, retreive mail and have people send me email at my "normal", known to all, address. I Do Not wanna do a Comcast email address and send it to all my Fans, Faves and Fams, lol! Any 5 easy pieces to do this email thing? Very fooking confusing...

Any ideas and help, written in 'puterStupid language,

, would be appreciated. I appreciate your patience in reading this long post question...
Thanks and Best Regards,
Ol'UncleMotor

Ol'&Challenged@'puterStupid.edu

In addition to enabling several computers to share a same internet connection a router provides you some level of security due to the Network Address Translation (NAT) method its uses to share the ISP IP address with all the computers of the network. NAT by nature provides automaticaly some kind of firewall-style protection. That is because it only allows connections that are originated on the inside network. So yes if you have a router I would use it in addition to a Firewall software running on each computer.

SANguru · #3 12-10-2005, 05:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by motordavid

Another new 'Puter, (my 2nd new in 5 months; Dell likes me

), for the FLA joint; set it up, Comcast highest speed cable, runs well and fooking Cooks!

Some Questions of the 'puter Mavens here:
-the cable comes from wall to a Touchstone brand Telephony Modem (made by Arris?), that Comcast brought in. Do I need to put a "router" of some kind, ala Linksys brand, between the cable modem and the puter for masking ISP and stopping bad guys? I do have Norton Firewall, plus the inherent firewall, several versions of spyward cooking, etc. Currently, I do have a 2nd 'puter or lap top so I'm not chasing networking, just trying to understand if that blue router thing will be any real benefit?

not really if you're not doing any networking or using WiFi. Your norton firewall and the comcast stuff will be sufficient.

Quote:

Originally Posted by motordavid

(I do have the cable, and all "plugs" running through a Belkin surge suppresor...I use a jumbo APC w/batt backup back north on the Mtn, but that's due to the constant "outs" and line surges we have...not sure I need that kind of stuff here, in FL, in winter.)

I still would recommend a surge protector as it is cheap insurance.

Quote:

Originally Posted by motordavid

-I took all my EMail stuff, Inbox, Sent, Address book, etc., from my NC 'puter and put it into a file via a program on web and burned it to CD-R. How in the hell do I get my Outlook OR Outlook Express, (preferred by me), running in this new 'puter AND keep/retain my old/previous email address so I can check mail, retreive mail and have people send me email at my "normal", known to all, address. I Do Not wanna do a Comcast email address and send it to all my Fans, Faves and Fams, lol! Any 5 easy pieces to do this email thing? Very fooking confusing...

if you saved it as a .PST file, you can just load that back into outlook and will be able to retrieve from outlook/Exchange. Hit F1 and it will tell you how to retrieve/setup the folder. The email addresses though (SMTP and POP) will have to be re-setup and that shouldn't be too difficult. You can get the comcast guys to help you out too.

alpac · #4 12-10-2005, 05:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SANguru

not really if you're not doing any networking or using WiFi. Your norton firewall and the comcast stuff will be sufficient.

The router alone is not sufficient but combined with a firewal software it will provide an additional security layer. When Internet security is concerned the more the better. That is why I suggest that if Dave has a router he should use it.

SANguru · #5 12-10-2005, 05:50 PM

bear in mind though that the 'puter will not be up 24*7 and hence my recommedation. Tis true though that you can never have enough security.

Quote:

Originally Posted by alpac

The router alone is not sufficient but combined with a firewal software it will provide an additional security layer. When Internet security is concerned the more the better. That is why I suggest that if Dave has a router he should use it.

Chris F. · #6 12-10-2005, 06:08 PM

MD what program did you use to 'archive' all your outlook stuff? That will help us help you

I think some of the newer cable modems might NAT built in, but I'm not sure (I'm talking to the techie guys here MD, not you

)

SuperGreg · #7 12-10-2005, 06:27 PM

Feedback follows questions in bold.

Quote:

Originally Posted by motordavid

Another new 'Puter, (my 2nd new in 5 months; Dell likes me

), for the FLA joint; set it up, Comcast highest speed cable, runs well and fooking Cooks!

Some Questions of the 'puter Mavens here:
-the cable comes from wall to a Touchstone brand Telephony Modem (made by Arris?), that Comcast brought in. Do I need to put a "router" of some kind, ala Linksys brand

I wouldn't bother given your situation

(I do have the cable, and all "plugs" running through a Belkin surge suppresor...I use a jumbo APC w/batt backup back north on the Mtn, but that's due to the constant "outs" and line surges we have...not sure I need that kind of stuff here, in FL, in winter.)

I would run your cable straight to the modem, just my 2¢

-I took all my EMail stuff, Inbox, Sent, Address book, etc., from my NC 'puter and put it into a file via a program on web and burned it to CD-R. How in the hell do I get my Outlook OR Outlook Express, (preferred by me), running in this new 'puter AND keep/retain my old/previous email address

Open up Outlook > Go to File > Import and Export. This will open up the import export wizard. Then just tell it where to find your .PST file for Import, which in your case in on your CD.

Any ideas and help, written in 'puterStupid language,

, would be appreciated. I appreciate your patience in reading this long post question...
Thanks and Best Regards,
Ol'UncleMotor

Feel free to call me Dave. If you don't still have my number, then shoot me a PM.

Ol'&Challenged@'puterStupid.edu

Thunder22 · #8 12-10-2005, 06:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chris F.

MD what program did you use to 'archive' all your outlook stuff? That will help us help you

I think some of the newer cable modems might NAT built in, but I'm not sure (I'm talking to the techie guys here MD, not you

)

uhhhh, NAT does nothing but allow many computers on one side of a router to use 1 IP address on the other.... it's not designed as a security feature in any way. It was developed to save a company from not having to have a "real" IP address for every device on the inside of their network. If NAT didn't exist, ARIN would have run out of IP addresses to allocate a long long long time ago.

That being said, there are different schools of thought on whether software firewalls alone are sufficient or whether a router should always be used. I"m a "more is better" type of person when it comes to home firewalls as most people don't have a clue on how to configure them.

My advice is to spend the $70 on a linksys router. That's all I've used for the last 5 years and haven't had any problems.

alpac · #9 12-10-2005, 06:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chris F.

MD what program did you use to 'archive' all your outlook stuff? That will help us help you

I think some of the newer cable modems might NAT built in, but I'm not sure (I'm talking to the techie guys here MD, not you

)

Correct but this is for cable modems which also integrate firewall and router which is not the case of any of the Arris Touchstone models as far as I know.

Chris F. · #10 12-10-2005, 06:43 PM

Ahhh OK, that makes sense. I wasn't sure whether Arris had it or not. Thanks for the info!

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