Sierra Corporation, IT Services and Support

June 2006

Lost Connection at Home

Do you seem to be losing your internet connection every so often? There are different reasons why an Internet connection fails and it also depends on the Internet connection type you have. If you have dial-up connection, the cause could be extra noise running through the phone line, letting your computer sit in idle mode too long or maybe you have some type of call waiting - all of these things will hinder a dial-up connection.

Many of you however have a cable modem. Sometimes a cable modem can lose a connection simply because it gets tired. If you leave your computer on for several days at a time, your modem may start to build up, causing it to stop at random times. If this happens every so often, the best possible thing to do is unplug your modem, wait about 30 seconds and then just plug it back in. You may not like having to resort to that, but sometimes a good "unplug and re-plug" is all it needs.

Now, if your modem seems to be crashing every day, it is possible that the modem is going bad and it would be best just to replace it. There could be other factors going into the modem problem, such as a software issue. You don't really want to mess around with software issues.

The problem could also be your firewall. If you have more than one computer in your home set up on a home network and yours is the only one having trouble connecting to the Internet, it may not be a problem with the modem; it just might be your firewall. Firewalls do a good job of blocking Internet connections, depending on the settings you have on it. You could have a setting that is stopping the connection or there could be a bug within the firewall software.

To check on this, open up your firewall to the configuration screen (this will be different for each firewall program) and look through the list to see what programs are being blocked from connecting to the Internet. If you don't really catch anything, try turning off the firewall. After you do that, reboot your computer and see if the connection problem is still there. If the problem persists, please contact us as there may be a more in-depth configuration that may need to be altered.

Samsung to Launch Flash-Disk-Based Portable PC’s

Samsung Electronics has announced that they will embark on two portable computers next month that will use flash memory in place of a hard-disk drive for data storage.

Flash memory has long been a potential replacement for hard disk drives because they work faster and more efficient. They are lighter and more shock-resistant; nonetheless, they still remain more expensive. Samsung has gone ahead and built 32 GB of NAND flash memory into a case the same size as a 1.8 inch hard-disk drive.

Samsung has also gone ahead and stated the reasons flash memory is beneficial is because they can withstand about twice the impact that would cripple a similar hard disk, and are much less affected by harsh environmental conditions. Read speed is 300 percent faster and write speed 150 percent faster than a hard-disk drive, so Windows boots faster and data can be loaded more quickly. The solid-state disks also make no noise when in use. The two computers are the Q1-SSD, which will costs about $2500 and the Q30-SSD, which will be at about $3200.

How to Name Files

When naming files, it is very important that it is done using proper characters so that it does not conflict with the operating system or the anti-virus software. For example, a period within the naming of a file should not be used, as any characters after the period are treated as file extensions that refer it to the application type that you are using to open the file. Thus, it will not work or can cause issues with the way they open.

In addition, Panda or other Antivirus' may block such files, as it will consider it to be a Trojan or other type of attack. In lieu of a period, it is safe to use an underscore or a hyphen.

We also ask that you refrain from using these other characters that may prove to cause problems as well:

~ / \ : * ? “ < > @ ! ‘%

If you have any further questions in reference to this, please feel free to contact us.

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