MaximumPC 2003 12

IS MY ROUTER A FIREWALL?

I have just installed a Linksys

four-port router connected to

my cable modem. The Linksys

router model BEFSR41 claims

to act as a firewall of sorts. It

includes the ability to block all

anonymous Internet requests.

How safe and functional is

the integrated security of the

Linksys router? Do I need to

install separate firewall software

such as ZoneAlarm?

—DENNIS JACKSON

Most home routers work by using

network address translation (NAT),

in which a single Internet address

is shared among several computers

on your home LAN. NAT is inher-

ently secure, because it won’t

forward any unsolicited incoming

packets from the Internet to your

LAN. Some routers, including the

model you mentioned, allow you

to push all unsolicited incoming

packets to one of your private

internal IP addresses. This is great

if you want to host a small web

site at home, but it’s a real problem

when worms start blasting every

device connected to the Internet.

The solution is to either disable

the IP forwarding, or to set up a

software firewall (like ZoneAlarm )

on the machine that you forward

incoming packets to.

Another problem is that the

Linksys firewalls are now so

ubiquitous that people are actually

writing malicious programs that

attack the routers. You can avoid

an attack by keeping your router’s

firmware current. You could also

set up a separate firewall between

the router and the cable modem,

but that’s probably unnecessary.

SPYWARE STRIKES AGAIN!

I’m sick and tired of having to

reset my Internet home page

every day. I like it set to Yahoo

because that’s where my e-mail

account is, and every day the

home page resets to a site called

Global-Finder. I can’t get it to

stop doing this. I’ve scanned my

hard drive for viruses, but to no

avail. I’ve gotten so desperate as

to even consider reformatting

my hard drive. Please help me.

—LUIS TENORIO

It appears your machine is infested

with spyware. The ware in ques-

tion is CoolWWWSearch —a small

program that runs every time you

boot your PC. Every time the pro-

gram runs, it changes your home

page and bookmarks, and creates

pop-up ads for web sites that don’t

have pop-ups. We can see how it

would annoy you.

The best way to rid yourself

of CoolWWWSearch is to down-

load a handy little utility called

CWShredder. You can get it at

http://www.spywareinfo.com/~merijn/files/

cwshredder.zip.

TEMPLATES GONE WILD

I’m running Microsoft Office

2000 in Windows 98. About

a year ago, I pasted an e-mail

message into Word to print and

save it. Now whenever I open

Word that message appears.

Whenever I open a blank

document the message appears.

I have deleted Document1 and

the message still appears. I have

deleted the text and saved the

empty document, and the text

still appears. Searching for the

text indicates it can be found

in User.dat, Rbbad.cab, and

Normal.dot. How do I get rid

of the text so that a new blank

document is really blank?

—RICH38

It sounds like you accidentally

saved your pasted e-mail to the

default Word template. To fix it, all

you need to do is find normal.dot

using the Windows search tool,

remove the offending text, and then

save normal.dot. The next time you

open a new Word document, it will

be blank, exactly as you’d expect.

Power users can take this one

step further. We use a specific

template for all our documents at

Maximum PC , so several of the edi-

tors have changed their normal.dot

file to match that template. It saves

a few seconds every time someone

creates a new file.

WHO’S BOSS, SERIAL

OR PARALLEL?

I recently read in your magazine

that you can run both Serial ATA

and parallel ATA hard drives in a

system. If you have one SATA

drive and one parallel ATA drive

on the primary master controller,

who’s the boss? On which one

should I install the OS?

—GARTH FRANCE

The Doc recommends that you

install Windows and your fre-

quently used apps on your fastest

hard drive. Then install the stuff

you don’t use as often, like MP3

files, digital photos, and less-used

games to your slower drive.

Now, don’t confuse your drive’s

speed with its interface type. For

the most part, Serial ATA drives

are faster than parallel ATA drives;

 MAXIMUMPC DECEMBER 2003

I’M PIF’D!

I have a question about a DOS game

I’m having trouble getting to work.

The game is Scorched Earth , which

is an old DOS game. I’m having

trouble running it in a DOS window

through Windows. The program

reports this error: “invalid startup

directory, please check your pif

file.” Is there any way you can help

me with this? Thanks.

—SOUTHERNFENIX

“Invalid startup directory” means you

need to fill in one or more fields on the

PIF window. Make sure the “Start-in”

field in the shortcut’s Properties win-

dow points to the same directory the

executable is in.

If your DOS shortcuts are complaining about

“Invalid startup directories,” make sure the

Start-in section of the shortcut’s Properties

tab is filled in.

Ask the Doctor Symptom Diagnosis Cure

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