James & Katy Moffitt: 05/15/2005

Saturday, May 21, 2005

Knoppix , Wi-Fi and browsers

The June 7th edition of PC Magazine arrived in the mailbox today and I have taken the time to consume it one page at a time. There are several articles of special interest to me. One article is about Wireless Networking and the technology and definitions being used to describe the technology. In other words what are some of the differences between 802.11b vs 802.11g? There are two major differences, one being speed and one being security. The 802.11b standard gives you 4 to 6 MBPS (real world throughput rates) while 802.11g provides you between 20 and 21 MBPS (real world through put rates). The other thing that is different is that (g) provides you with WPA vs WEP that came with (b) standards. WPA is much more secure than WEP. The next article that caught my attention was the article talking about Knoppix which is a FREE version of Linux that you can either download off the Net at www.knoppix.org OR you can actually order a CD with the image already burned on it. What attracts me to Knoppix? The first thing that attracts me is that it is NOT Mickeysoft. Do not get me wrong, I have been supporting Mickeysoft products for over 15 years and I am intimately familiar with its many nuances , bugs and security risks. However, anyone will tell you that Mickeysoft is so problematic because it is one of the most prominant operating systems out there and it is a HUGE target for all the hackers to target. Does that mean that Linux is not suceptible to security risks? Of course not, the operating system is more secure than Microsoft Operating Systems but it certainly is not completely inpenetrable. Anyway, back to what caused me to be interested in the Knoppix release of Linux. The Linux OS boots completely off of a CD rom and you do not ever need to install it on your hard disk. That is right folks, the OS comes in an .iso image format that you can burn to a CDR and you can then BOOT your computer to that same CD and be running Linux Knoppix release in no time. This releast comes with TONS of free software to use as well. If you have a broadband connection it takes approximately 66 minutes to download. I currently have 30 minutes left before my download is complete. You also have to download a .md5 program that will allow you to verify the validity of the .iso you just downloaded BEFORE you burn the image. This process will validate that the .iso image is genuine and is not damaged in any way. The third article that is a highlight in this months PC Magazine is the one on browsers. They compare IE with Firefox, Opera, Netscape and others. Like I said earlier, Internet Explorer which is part of the Mickeysoft OS is a huge target. If you want to run a browser and not worry as much about being attacked because of IE security holes then pick a different browser. The downside to using something other than IE is that IE gives you Active X control support which is used with some website content to run other applications. Most if not all of the browsers listed in the article provide you with plugin support for the many different applications that you might want to run such as real player etc.

myblogsite appears to be down

moffittjc.myblogsite.com which is my secondary blog site appears to be down. I am able to logon to my admin website and create content but the actual public url has been down for most of the day. Hopefully this will be automagically corrected in the next 24 hours and if not I will be contacting Fortune City to see what is going on. Until then, stay tuned here for more updates. Good night...