By Val Bakh
2.7.4 Internet Explorer Security Features
The Internet has become an integral part of our lives. Nowadays, the Internet gives us access to e-mail, instant messaging, telephone, television, banking, shopping, research—you name it. It is so completely woven into nearly everything we do so that most of the time we don’t even think of it as something external, something that we need to connect to before we can make use of it. That is, of course, until something goes wrong. The Internet is not only a convenience; it is also a potential danger.
By Delana Hallstedt
My initial plan for this blog post was to attempt to unravel the alphabet soup approach to all things technology related – Why so many acronyms?!? However, upon doing a little bit of research on the origins of acronyms (retronyms, neologism, and alphabetism oh my!), I quickly talked myself out of that and settled on one particular acronym.
By Amy Haigh
As a network administrator, you will be responsible for ensuring that each host on your network is configured with the appropriate TCP/IP parameters to communicate with other hosts. To communicate on a network, either private or public, a host must be configured with — at minimum — an IP address, a subnet mask, and a default gateway. On a small private network with consistent hosts, you can manually configure these options on each host. But if you administer a large network, or even a small network where laptops and tablets continuously connect and disconnect, you will find implementing Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) to be a lifesaver.
2.7.3 Windows XP Mode
By Val Bakh
We don’t talk much of Windows Vista nowadays. It didn’t stay on the market very long and was soon replaced with a “new-and-improved” version, Windows 7. The important fact, however, is that Windows Vista was the first of the new generation of Microsoft’s operating systems. The move from Windows XP to Windows Vista and Windows 7 is perhaps even more significant than the long-forgotten departure from Windows NT in favor of Windows 2000. In the big scheme of things, Windows 2000 brought us Active Directory, but from a regular user’s perspective, the change was not all that significant: a prettier graphical user interface (GUI), but not much difference in the applications that users could run. Windows XP added a few new bells and whistles but did not hinder our ability to run most of our favorite legacy applications.
By Kailin Acheson
If you are a network administrator, you might be familiar with various types of attacks that malicious users might launch against the network in an attempt to destroy it. These attacks, described in Network Security Part 1: Attacks, include passive, active, close-in, insider, and distribution attacks. As a network administrator, you should also be familiar with possible threats to the network. These include physical threats, reconnaissance attacks, and access attacks.
By Kailin Acheson
If you are the administrator of a network, you likely have been thinking about, and possibly worrying about, potential network attacks. It's much more rewarding (and less stressful) to protect a network than to fix it (unless, as Tim Charlton wrote in one of his recent blogs, you like the pressure. It might be helpful to try to answer the following questions as you consider attacks on the network:
By James Hanback
You've spent all these weeks and some of your hard-earned cash studying for Cisco's 640-816 ICND2 exam only to discover that there's a brand new Cisco Certified Network Associate (CCNA) version 2.0 track. Cisco's 200-101 exam, along with its 100-101 ICND1 prerequisite, was announced on March 26 and is now available to candidates pursuing CCNA certification or recertification. Cisco also released a new version 2.0 of the composite exam, which is numbered 200-120. Among the many questions these new developments raise in your mind as you consider heaving your old 640-816 study guide toward the trash bin might be "Have I wasted my time studying for 640-816?"
By Michael Aldridge
Have you ever felt like the cartoon character who tries to kick the football, but at the last second, the football is jerked away, causing the poor guy to flip into the air and land flat on his back? Some of you who are studying for your Cisco Certified Entry Networking Technician (CCENT) or Cisco Certified Network Associate (CCNA) certifications might feel that way after Cisco's recent announcement of brand new ICND1, ICND2, and CCNA exams. But fear not! You're in a much better position than our cartoon counterpart is.
By Kailin Acheson and Delana Hallstedt
As you begin the process of setting up a network, you will likely first need to figure out how to best connect the devices on the network so that communications are optimal. You might have to do a little research, planning, and organizing to make sure everything is positioned to maximize performance on that network. One good place to start is with the devices you will need to deploy. You can ask a few key questions to help point you in the right direction, such as the following:
