Linux.com Article: Protecting Networks with SmoothWall Express 3.0

Originally published at www.linux.com on December 09, 2008 at 09:00 AM; reprinted with the author’s permission. Corporations and home users alike need firewall protection. Many choices abound, including some expensive, commercial options that only run on specialized hardware. Others, like SmoothWall Express, are freely downloadable, built on the same technology as the commercial solutions, and even deliver some superior features. SmoothWall Express 3.0, from August 2007, is an open source firewall distribution released under the GNU General Public License (GPL). It provides all the features commonly found in a modern system, but also a few that you might not expect. Stateful inspection, dynamic and static NAT, egress controls, demilitarized zone (DMZ)...

Posted by on Apr 28, 2009 in Connections, Security | Comments Off

CCleaner – Clean up your Windows

CCleaner – Clean up your Windows

Well, if you haven’t been paying attention, apparently Windows will slow down after some time in use…or so they say.  Mine doesn’t.  Mainly because I’m careful about spyware (not such a problem anymore since Google Chrome and Firefox), but also because I use utilities like this. So if you want your machine to stop dogging out.  First, uninstall all the worthless programs you never use but none-the-less have collected over the last year or two.  Go to Microsoft Update, get any updates you may need.  Update your hardware drivers from each vendor’s website. But most of all, go to Piriform and download the excellent FREE CCLeaner.  Once installed and started, the interface presents four tabs on the left.  Cleaner,...

Posted by on Apr 24, 2009 in Connections | Comments Off