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I knew that installing the Yoggie would take at least half an hour if all went well. From my past history, I know that all never goes well. Cathy would not have tolerated an Internet down time of fifteen minutes, so I had to wait for her to leave.
The first thing the Yoggie does is to download new software from the Internet, a process they say takes from ten to fifteen minutes. I plugged in the power, then the Internet connection from my cable modem, then the network. Nothing seemed to happen. I waited half an hour with, apparently, nothing happening. Then I cycled power on the cable modem. Nothing. The lights on the cable modem didn't blink. I cycled power on the Yoggie. Lights started blinking, which is a favorable sign.
I waited half an hour, then powered up my Mac Mini. There was an error message waiting from the wireless router: DHCP wasn't working. That was a good sign because the Yoggie is supposed to take over the DHCP function. I was given the option to disable DHCP on the router, which I selected. That led to several error messages from my email programs, which I ignored for the moment.
I started up a browser, Flock, planning to go to the Yoggie site specified in the instructions. It went there automatically. I registered and entered a new password. The status display came up, showing that my system was at high risk: there had been 58 firewall events in the roughly ten minutes I was on line. The count is now up to 152 (eight hours later) but the risk is now rated as being low. There have also been six IDS/IPS events, whatever they are, and zero malware events.
My email programs were now working without protest. A few messages got flagged as possible spam and one message got flagged as a possible phishing attempt.
Very nice! My system was protected after only ninety minutes. It usually takes me three days with standard anti-virus or anti-spyware software.
The SOHO Gatekeeper version of the Yoggie system is designed to protect a small network with up to five computers. Let's see. I have a Mac Mini on which I do most of my work. I have a Compaq running Windows XP that I mostly only use for hardware that lacks Mac drivers, a rapidly diminishing category; that machine has been broken for a couple of months. I have a chameleon system with removable hard drives on which I can run Windows, Linux, BeOS, DOS and a bunch of other stuff; it hasn't been plugged in for over a year. There is the laptop Cathy uses. Finally, I have an old Windows 98 SE system in a Shuttle box that I built for Delia but that Cathy took over; it hasn't been turned on for several years. Five computers.
I like the idea of my computers being protected by something external to them.
I think that's what I now have.
- Mood:
pleased
