Rev and Windows local networking

[Kurt Kaufman]

Recently, Mark Wieder wrote:

> If you are assigning static IP addresses to your locally networked
> computers (and this is a good thing btw) *and* you have dhcp enabled
> on your router, make sure you are assigning addresses outside the dhcp
> address pool. For example, if the router will assign addresses
> between 192.168.1.100 and 192.168.1.150, you can safely assign a
> computer an address of 192.168.1.5 but 192.168.1.101 will get you into
> trouble some day.

The gateway itself (as well as the default DNS server) uses  
192.168.2.1 and the range of addresses I have set Zone Alarm to  
permit is from 192.168.2.1 to 192.168.2.9; all of our PCs are within  
that (inboard) range.  I flipped the numbers in my last message  
(192.168.1.2); sorry!  I suppose those numbers are OK to use?

> ...but I have to ask: does Zone Alarm give you any protection that the
> firewall built into the router doesn't already do? I ask because I've
> only ever seen Zone Alarm or the builtin Windows firewall cause
> connection problems on computers that are already behind firewalls.
> For my money, I would dump ZA and let the router do its thing.

ZA claims that it blocks unspecified "intrusions" and "access  
attempts", but it also notifies me if Adobe or Intuit, for instance,  
is trying to send information over the Internet without my prior  
permission. This is above and beyond whatever the router may do, I  
guess.

Kurt