Try it again Sam.
Virtually everything you do on the Internet
involves packets. There are at least 2, and
usually 8 to 20 hops involved. If any of
those packets gets dropped anywhere along
the way you won't get the result you expected.
The easiest thing to do is try whatever you
were doing again. Use your browser controls
(buttons/menu) to refresh" the page
-- click the link that didn't work again
(be careful not to slide the mouse while
clicking) -- "send" the email again
-- whatever. It may just work the second
or maybe third try.
If that doesn't do it, go one layer deeper.
The "connection" to your ISP is
built with more than one "handshake"
agreements. If one of them gets confused
(again, due to a dropped packet), you won't
get anywhere on the Internet any more. Close
the connection and reopen it. Things may
work again. I have had to do that several
times a week with some ISPs I've had.
Programs that (no longer) work?
Sometimes the Internet just doesn't seem
to work. But sometimes you put a hole in
your own foot. The prime example is side
effects from an Internet firewall. If you
don't configure the firewall correctly, some
programs that need access to the internet
may no longer have it.
For example, you may be still be able to
browse, but your email program will no longer
work with the firewall running. Close or
disable the firewall to determine if it is
the cause. If it is, you need to change the
configuration (settings) of the firewall
so your email works again.
Ad blockers, proxies, cookie blockers and
popup window stoppers can also prevent programs
from reaching the Internet when they need
to. For example, LiveUpdate for Norton Antivirus
gets its updated virus definitions from Akamai.com,
which is also the source for many of the
advertisements on Web pages. Naturaly, an
ad blocker is likely to block the virus definitions
too. So... if something no longer works...
think about all the shields you have up,
and temporarily turn them off to see which
one is blocking the program's access to the
Internet.
It's easy to set up ZoneAlarm correctly. That's one of the reasons it's
such a popular firewall. You do need to respond
correctly to the questions it asks in the
"learning" phase though.
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