Not totally a NEWBIE but.....
Okay, here we go. Got the linksys router box. no, not the wireless or I would not be here but, I do have family in China, Utah, Vegas, Virginia and New Jersey. I do use my web cam for video chat with my cousins and all but when I turn on the firewall for the router, I can't do ANYTHING and not only that but, I don't like people looking over my shoulder so my two questions are.....
1. how do i set up my firewall and not have it affect all my chat programs (trillian=aol, yahoo, messenger and ICQ)
2. AGAIN, can someone suggest a way to hide my ip address? i have heard people saying they "hop onto an offshore server and do their browsing that way so that the 'ip address' is never a true ip address. Although, I hear this is only applicable as well as capable with a wireless router. please clarify.
Thanks in advance. You can get in touch with me using all the chat programs i use or e-mail or...post here and I will check back. Mahalo!
Re: Not totally a NEWBIE but.....
With the Linksys are you able to connect to the internet at least or do you get nothing?
If you can connect to the net you should be able to change the config options in the router by plugging into it and typing in 192.168.1.1. The default username is blank and the password is "admin" (or maybe the other way around). the configuration options for the firewall should be in there. you may have to grant the server you are connecting to, incomming access.
If you are not getting any connection at all then what I have done is turn everything off including the modem. Then turn on the Linksys and let it run through it's tests. Then plug in the modem. After the Linksys gets the IP from the modem you should be able to ipconfig your box to get the new ip from it.
I don't think I have ever run across the linksys routers blocking a web cam and IM stuff. sometimes email gets blocked but that usually requires you to set the ip address of the mail server up in the router.
Hope this helps