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By JEREMY BOWERS
Published April 13, 2005
This week, I'm debunking a couple of myths I've heard around the water cooler.
I need a firewall to keep hackers from breaking into my computer.
Verdict: True, but not for the reasons you think.
The greatest myth I hear repeated is that rogue hackers bent on breaking into your computer are slipping by in an act of skill much like cat burglary. In reality, most geeks prefer you call the bad guys "crackers" since we like to think of a hacker as someone who is a skilled engineer.
Most "cracks" are truly executed by other computers spewing out programs that can exploit vulnerabilities in your computer's defense. When your computer connects to the Internet, it uses a metaphoric ports system for organizing traffic. Web pages travel on port 80, which is reserved for http traffic. When Outlook checks your e-mail, it's making a request on port 110. According to the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority, ports 0 through 49,151 are useable for moving data to and from your computer over the Internet.
The problem is you don't want your computer arbitrarily accepting connections that originate from the Internet because a hacker will find an open port.
This is where your firewall comes in. A firewall is a hardware or software barrier that instructs your computer to receive Internet traffic only on a few well-known ports. Almost every modern router will act as a hardware firewall, and Windows XP has one built into Service Pack 2 that's turned on automatically. Visit http://v4.windowsupdate.microsoft.com/en/default.asp to get Microsoft's latest updates for your computer.
My big, expensive desktop will play video games just fine.
Verdict: Maybe; depends on your video card.
It's funny, but video game performance is a very specific subset of overall computer performance. Most computers lining the shelves of a retail store use about 3- or 4-year-old technology for 3D performance. You're looking for the words "integrated video." This means the computer has a video chip built into the motherboard that shares memory with the rest of the system. While these solutions are often perfect for most users, video-gamers will turn up their nose in disgust.
To perform at acceptable speeds and quality for video games, a more specialized tool is needed: a 3D video card. This card is like a miniature computer. The faster the processor and more memory your video card has, the better video game performance you can expect.
You can buy a wonderful video card for less than $150, like the Asus NVIDIA GeForce 6600 available from http://www.newegg.com However, be sure you know what kind of expansion ports your machine has. The most popular way to connect a video card is through an advanced graphics port, known as AGP. Other computers will use PCI-Express or plain old PCI. You can check with your system manufacturer or the retailer you purchased the computer through to sort out this alphabet soup.
Next week: I'll sort through the best free video games available for your computer.
-- Mr. Right Click is Jeremy Bowers, who is a bona fide member of the Best Buy Geek Squad. You can e-mail him at jeremyjbowers@gmail.com
[Last modified April 13, 2005, 14:38:18]
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