Tech Prognosis Blog Technology Tips for Businesses in Round Rock, TX

Routers, Hops, Executioners and Obituaries: A Look at ICMP

March 9, 2017March 4, 2011 by techprognosis

ICMP is the Internet Control Message Protocol which works at Layer 3 or the Network layer. It is used for all kinds of network messaging services utilized by IP, the Internet Protocol.
In fact, here’s how it is defined by Wikipedia:

“The Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP) is one of the core protocols of the Internet Protocol Suite. It is chiefly used by the operating systems of networked computers to send error messages indicating, for example, that a requested service is not available or that a host or router could not be reached. ICMP can also be used to relay query messages”
(see RFC 1256, if you are into that kind of thing).

Can Computers Speak Human? A Look at ARP Conversations

March 2, 2011 by techprognosis

Have you ever wondered what goes on behind the scene when you send an email, connect to a website or simply plug a new computer into your local network? I took a look recently, and I must say, machine language, basically, is no different from ours at some levels. When we hear the term machine language, we no doubt immediately think of 0s and 1s (zeros and ones) which is true, essentially. So how do computers know where to send information and that laptop you just connected to the network, how did it get its IP address so you can browse the network and surf the net? They do the same thing we do, they ask.

Using Download Options in Internet Explorer 9

March 1, 2011 by techprognosis

Microsoft recently released Internet Explorer 9 RC and it included a download manager. According to Microsoft:

Download Manager is integrated with the Windows download folder. It’s an easy way to interact with file downloads, which means you can sort, print, or send your downloads to another location, just as you would with other files. You can also use Download Manager to control your downloads, including everything from running or opening files to pausing or canceling downloads. You can even delete downloads from Download Manager.

Read more

How To Enable DHCP in VirtualBox 4

February 28, 2011 by techprognosis

Virtualization seems to be the buzzword these days and the software that makes its adoption painless for ordinary folks, in my opinion, is Oracle’s VirtualBox. It may not be “there” yet with VMWare, wherever “there” is, but for a basic testing lab, VBox does an awesome job.

The software is free – no one asks you to sign anything, fill out a long form, hand over your kids, or agree to some hidden EULA before you download. Go to the website, look for the version that matches your platform and download. If you are using a Linux Operating System, VirtualBox is most likely in the repository of your distro.

Windows 7 SP1 Nightmare

August 20, 2019February 25, 2011 by techprognosis

Microsoft released Service Pack 1 for Window 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 in 2011. At that time, knowing that we would will soon be getting calls to update computers, we decided to give SP1 a spin. We attempted to install SP1 on three computers so far without much luck. First, using automatic update did not work. The download always got stuck at 90 or 91 percent complete.

Read Your Yahoo! Emails Without Going Blind!

January 26, 2017February 25, 2011 by techprognosis

If you are like most people, you probably have one or two email accounts with Yahoo!, Windows Live and Google. I applaud these Internet powerhouses for giving us free email accounts, but does Yahoo! Mail need to make us go blind when reading our emails? I mean, talk about Flash and JavaScript overkill! The first thing I noticed when I logged in recently was this HUGE space taken up at the top by an ad banner after you sign in.