Re: A Baffling Question
- From: "Jim" <jp100@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <jfw@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 29 Feb 2008 14:54:14 -0800
Hi Tom,
I didn't mess with the router at all. It's like it went from one day to the
next. Restrictions? I had no idea that was even possible via a router. I've
been way too busy this week to really mess with anything that isn't absolutely
necessary, and a router and perfectly good internet connection was not going to
be altered.
I appreciate your help anyway, Tom. Keep it coming, please!
Jim
----- Original Message -----
From: Tom Lange
To: jfw@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Friday, February 29, 2008 2:32 PM
Subject: Re: A Baffling Question
Hi Jim,
You wrote:
I've got a duzy for you. I really hope someone has an answer.
As of Wednesday night, I have had the strangest thing happening with my
computer and the internet. When I'm at home, it will connect online, as usual.
It will let me go to Google and a few websites, and I can use Outlook Express
to get my e-mail. However, all of the websites I try and access on a regular
basis weren't opening. It would say that Internet Explorer couldn't access
that page or something to that effect. I figured I could go to these page via
google, since I was able to connect to Google. However, when I'd hit enter on
one of the links, it would tell me that the page couldn't be accessed. The
next day, I figured I'd try this same thing at work. So, I brought my laptop
to my office and was able to connect wirelessly just fine. I ran some of the
same websites, without doing any change whatsoever, and everything ran as it
always has run. I went back home that night and tried going onto some of these
sites again, and the same problem was happening as the previous night.
This is the strangest thing I've seen yet, because it's as if it knows when
I get home and goes into restriction mode or something to that effect. What is
going on, and how do I fix it?
Now, I did try doing some things, such as going to internet options and
deleting all of my cookies and internet files and such. That still didn't
work. I have no idea what else to do.
Well, first off, are you connecting at home through a router? If so, some
routers, like my Linksys WRT54G, will let you implement access restrictions.
The restrictions can take several forms. You can block Internet Access on
certain days or at certain times. You can block access to certain web
addresses. Or, you can tell the router to block access to web sites based on
keywords found in the web page content.
When you implement such restrictions you can save them as specific access
policies and recall them at will. So, you could have a policy in place that
keeps the kids off the porn sites, myspace and facebook, for example, then have
another policy which has no restrictions, which you can turn on when the kids
are away or off to bed.
I didn't know that routers had that kind of control built into them, but I
got a hint about this when I was looking at one of my friends' ActionTech
routers last night. In the case of that router, those access restrictions were
called parental controls.
So, as a long shot, if you are connecting through a router at home, go into
its setup pages and see if access restrictions or parental controls
accidentally got turned on and, if so, turn them off and save the settings.
Or, you could reset the router to its factory defaults and tweak it as
necessary to reflect your particular security requirements.
I hope this helps some.
Good luck.
Tom
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