Jedi Star

After the plug wall pulled on the Web Hosting firm McColo in the US. This was after 4 months of investigation by Washington Post newspaper. The major clients of this firm were gangs running spam botnets.

Due to this move the spam traffic has gone down by 70%, but this would be a temporary slump for the gangs until they find a new network to move to.

The data that was collected on the Web Hosting Firm was passed on to the ISP’s of McColo, which led to the internet service providers Global Crossing and Hurricane Electric to pull the plug on this company.

The gangs which were hosted with the Web Hosting firm were running botnhets- whic basically are computers which are like zombies which are taken over by the spammers who send malicious software and spam.

As the US industry is pulling its socks up to fight and secure its network more and more gangs are looking for networks outside US where policies are less stringent.

However this will only make the spammers more cautious while making their moves henceforth.

However lets try and enjoy the spam free mailboxes while we can.

Posted under Latest News

According to a recent research by consumer group uSwitch 1 million users have come close or exceeded their broadband usage limit.

What did the uSwitch Survey say?

•    7.5m did not know their download limit
•    6.2m customers thought they had no usage cap
•    One million have reached or nearly reached their limit
•    22% of broadband providers advertise the true limits of their packages

However most of the users dont even know that until their services are cut-off by their respective ISP’s.

All the major ISP’s brand their broadband packages as unlimited however they also have these so called usage caps where the amount of bandwidth used by each user is has a limit.

Most of the broadband users are confused regarding these caps and not sure how they can track their usage.

Also with the need of broadband increasing day by day, having your broadband cut off is like having your electricity cut off.

Also even though these companies have these so called usage caps or Fair Usage Policy most companies have not stated what these limits are.

According to me no ISP should be allowed to tag their packages as unlimited unless they really mean so.
Its high time the ISP be transparent to their user or face their grunt after the disconnection.

But again what I think is the major grunt for these disconnection is faced by the Technical Support Staff for these ISP’s who themselves are not sure what are the policies as even they are not been kept informed regarding the same.

As per my experience in a Technical Support Center for an ISP, what I feel is if the ISP’s keep their customers in the loop they can have more happy customers who would stick with them for long.

If you check what the major ISP’s offer on their website you would find that most of them brand their services as Unlimited. For e.g.

•    Tiscali – advertised as unlimited, has fair usage policy but with unspecified excess, will cut off those deemed heavy users

•    Be – advertised as unlimited, unspecified excess, will not cut off users

•    Sky – unlimited with no usage barrier or cut off policy for those on its own network. 40GB monthly limit for other customers

•    Toucan (Tiscali in Disguise) – advertised as unlimited, with unspecified fair usage, will cut customers off

•    Virgin Media – unlimited but traffic of heavy users is shaped at busy times

•    Orange, advertised as unlimited, unspecified excess, will remove heavy users

•    BT, advertised as unlimited, unspecified fair usage, will not cut users off

•    AOL, 40Gb limit, will remove users who exceed it

•    Plusnet, 30Gb peak-time limit. Those exceeding their limit will be encouraged to upgrade

Usage levels are going to increase with more and more people using catch-up TV services such as the iPlayer and what these ISP’s need is to have broadband packages with unlimited bandwidth and no caps on the same. But I think these packages won’t come cheap.

Posted under Broadband Help

Virgin mail users are facing the grunt of spam attackers. Tens of thousands of users have been cut off from their mails for the last four days.

The spam attack halted the delivery of all genuine emails after the attack started tuesday evening.

According to Virgin spokesman the mail were available in the respective accounts but access via webmail might have been taking a long time.

Out of the 200,000 people using the Virgin.net accounts half of them were affected. Virgin states that no emails were lost in the spam attack.

According to Virgin other ISP’s were also affected by this spam attack but none reported so far.

“All customers are able to access e-mail again now, though due to a large queue of undelivered e-mail messages, there may be a short delay before some e-mails reach customers’ accounts.”

But none of the cable service users were affected according to Virgin.

Posted under Broadband Help, Latest News

First lets Start With XP Setting. (and i would give the example of Xbox 360)

1) First plug you USB modem and connect to the internet on your PC.

2) Connect your Xbox 360 with an Ethernet cable to your PC. Please use the cable that came with your console or use a Patch Cable.

Now how to share the Internet connection With your Console.

Step 1: Go To Start > Settings > Network Connections and start the Network Setup Wizard to set up Internet Connection Sharing.

Step 2: On the first two Dialog Boxes click Next, Next. If you’re using a laptop and don’t use Wi-Fi, the Wi-Fi adapter might be shown here – tick the box to Ignore disconnected network hardware. There shouldn’t be any hardware listed here for a desktop PC, unless it has more than one Ethernet port – you can ignore this too, in that case. Click Next then

Step 3: Then Chose the option This computer connects directly to the Internet and then Click Next.

Step 4: From the list of hardware select your USB modem. It should be obvious which entry to choose. Click Next.

Step 5: Now select the network connection that you want to share your USb modem’s internet connection with – this should be the Ethernet port or NIC. Click Next.

Step 6: Click Next to leave the remaining options at their defaults, but select Turn off file and printer sharing when prompted. Click Next another two times and Windows will then configure your network accordingly – this may take a minute or two

Step 7: When the Wizard has finished, select the Just finish the wizard option, then click Next, then Finish. Windows XP is now configured to share the USB 3G modem with the Xbox 360.

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And now lets Start With Vista Setting.

Step 1: Go to Start > Settings > Control Panel > Network and Sharing Center, then click Manage Network Connections in the Task pane.

Step 2: Right-click your  broadband connection and choose Properties.

Step 3: When the dialog box appears, make sure that your  broadband modem is ticker in the Connect using list, then click the Sharing tab.

Step 4: Enable the Allow other network users to connect… option and if it doesn’t appear automatically, select your Ethernet port (this should be listed as Local Area Connection) in the drop-down list below. Click OK

Step 5: You may need to disconnect your mobile broadband modem and re-connect for the settings to take effect

With the appropriate steps completed for your operating system, it’s time to move onto the Xbox Live settings on the Xbox 360!

Set up Xbox Live

Step 1
On the Xbox 360, open the Dashboard and select System (the far right screen). Then select Network Settings > Test Xbox LIVE Connection.

Step 2
If you’re currently signed into Xbox Live with a profile, you’ll be prompted to sign out. The console will then run through a series of tests for the Ethernet (wired) connection to the PC.

Step 3
If the console passes each test and ends with NAT: Open, that’s all there is to it – press the Y button on the console controller to return to the Xbox Dashboard.

Troubleshooting

If the Xbox 360 fails any of the Xbox Live Connection tests, press the X button on the controller to repeat them. If you still have no luck, disconnect and reconnect your mobile broadband connection on the PC, then re-run repeat the appropriate sequence of steps to set up Internet Connection Sharing – keep all the settings the same.

It’s worth repeating this process a number of times if it doesn’t work – it took us several attempts before the Xbox 360 would establish a connection and complete the tests.

If the console still refuses to establish a connection to the PC, or if the NAT setting result shows ‘Strict’, you may have to reconfigure the firewall settings on your PC.

If you have a third-party firewall installed, try disabling it temporarily and running the Test Xbox LIVE Connection tests again. If this solves the problem, you’ll need to enable the firewall and forward these three ports:

88 (UDP)
3074 (UDP)
3074 (TCP)

Alternatively, you can put the Xbox 360 (via its IP address) in your firewall’s DMZ. This means that it won’t be protected by your firewall, but that’s not a problem for a games console.

If you use either port forwarding or the DMZ, you’ll need to know your Xbox 360’s IP address. By default, its IP address is assigned automatically and will change each time it goes online. You need to change this to a static IP address – one that never changes.

On the Xbox 360, open the Dashboard and go to System > Network Settings > Edit Settings (or select Edit Settings from the Test Xbox Live screen). Make a note of the IP Address, Subnet Mask and Gateway.

Press the A button on the controller, then select Manual. You can then select the IP Address, Subnet Mask and Gateway in turn and enter the values noted above. Select Done when you’re finished and the console will prompt to test the connection again.

That the end of it.

Posted under Broadband Help, Computers

To Configure Outlook Express follow these steps: 1. Open Outlook Express. On the navigation bar, click Tools and and then choose the option Accounts .

2. You will then see this screen.

3. On the right hand side, click Add and then Mail. This takes you to this screen.

4. Choose a Name for your Account as you would like it to appear on emails you send. Then click Next

5. On this screen, write in your full email address. Then click Next to go to the following screen.

6. Here, enter the email settings needed to download your email. Incoming mail (POP3) – Outgoing mail (SMTP) - Then click Next

Enter your Account name and password. Remember that your account name is your full email address. 7.Leave the checkbox Log on using Secure Password Authentication clear, and then click Next

8. Click Finish to end the set up process. And you are ready to use Outlook Express. Additional Tips: If you use your mails on the go and would always like to have a copy of you mails on the web mail you will have to make the following changes for your account: a) On the navigation bar, Click on Tools and then choose the option Accounts :

b) Then In the mail option on the Internet Accounts Window, Choose the option Properties

:

c) Then Choose the Last Tab Advanced on the Properties window and nnder the option Delivery choose the Option Leave a Copy of Messages on Servers .

d) Then Click on Apply and then OK. Then close the internet Accounts Window and you can start Using Outlook Express.

Posted under Mail Clients

Why Do you get Error 691?…………

1) Your account is suspended.

2) You have the wrong user name and password.

3) Your dialer has gone corrupt.

How to Resolve this Error?……….

1) Check the user name and password you are typing in the dialer.

2) Check which number the dialer is dialing, it should be ‘0,38′.

3) Recreate the dialer. Steps to recreate dialer:

a) Go to ‘Start’ >> ‘Control Panel’ >> ‘Network Connections’ >> on the left hand side you have the option ‘Create a New Connection’.

b) Follow the steps as: click on ‘Next’ >> ‘Connect to Internet’ >> ‘Setup Connection Manually’ >> ‘Connect Using Dial up Modem’ >> ‘ISDN Channel’ >> type: Tiscali as ISP provider >> dial up number as ‘0,38? >> then enter your user name and password >> click ‘Finish’.

4) Try to connect. This should work If your acount is not suspended. If none of the above works please call your ISP and check if you account is suspended

Posted under Broadband Help, Common Connection Errors