DNS SETTINGS FOR FASTER INTERNET ACCESS

DNS Settings for Faster Internet Access

A handful of DNS hacks for speeding up access to web sites.

You use the Web by typing in hostnames such as www.google.com , but web servers and Internet routers can't understand plain English words, so they need those letters translated into numeric IP addresses. Whenever you type in a hostname, such as www.google.com, it needs to be resolved to its IP address, such as 74.125.236.49(GOOGLE IP ) . DNS servers provide that name resolution automatically and behind the scenes as you surf the Web.

There are several ways you can hack your DNS settings so that you can get faster web access.

5.4.1 Speed Up Web Access with a HOSTS File

It takes time to send your request to a DNS server, have the server look up the proper IP address to resolve the name, and then send the IP address back to your PC. You can eliminate that delay by creating or editing a local HOSTS file on your own PC that contains hostnames and their corresponding IP addresses. When you create one, XP will first look into the HOSTS file to see if there's an entry for the hostname, and, if it finds it, it will resolve the address itself. That way, you won't have to go out to a DNS server and wait for the response before visiting a web site. The HOSTS file is a plain text file you can create or edit with a text editor like Notepad.

You'll find an existing HOSTS file in C:\System32\Drivers\Etc\HOSTS. The file has no extension; it is named only HOSTS. Open it in Notepad and enter the IP addresses and hostnames of your commonly visited web sites, 

like this:

74.125.236.49       www.google.com

69.171.224.14      www.facebook.com

Each entry in the file should be on one line. The IP address should be in the first column, and the corresponding hostname in the next column. At least one space should separate the two columns. You can add comments to the file by preceding the line with a #, in which case the entire line will be ignored by the file, or by putting a # after the hostname, in which case only the comment after will be ignored. You might want to comment on individual entries—for example:

130.94.155.164  gralla.com      #still in beta

When you're finished editing the file, save it to its existing location.

CONFIGURING OUTLOOK FOR GMAIL

Gmail is one of the email services which supports IMAP feature which enables to send and receive emails from Outlook without any ads. Besides one use Outlook for all the business mails and now you can also add your personal gmail account along with it. The advantage of having setup this using IMAP is that when you read a mail or delete a mail, it is synchronized with both the web version of Gmail and the Outlook.

There are lots of features which are different in the new Outlook from Office 2010 than  Outlook 2007 which makes it even more desirable to use Outlook for your Gmail.

Having said that, now lets see How to Setup Gmail IMAP in Outlook 2010?

Before you can start using Gmail IMAP in Outlook, we need to enable IMAP in Gmail settings.

In Gmail, go to Settings -> Forwarding and POP/IMAP –> Make sure Enable IMAP is checked and click on Save Changes if you made any.

If you are starting the Microsoft outlook 2010 for the first time, you will be seeing the following startup screen, just click Next and choose Yes in the next screen where they askwould you like to configure an email account?





Note: If you already have another Email Account or if you have chosen No in the earlier case and has already gone through the initial outlook startup settings before, follow this screenshot else continue to the next one.

Click the Office button on the top left corner and go to the Office Backstage. Under Info –>Account Information –> Click Account Settings and Click on Add Account.



On the Add New Account screen, just choose Manually configure server settings or additional server types and click Next.



Choose Internet E-mail, connect to POP or IMAP server to send and receive e-mail messages and click Next.



Here give the User information, enter your Name, your full email address including @gmail.com or your @custom-mail.com.

Under Server information,

Account Type – IMAP

Incoming mail server – imap.gmail.com

Outgoing mail server (SMTP) – smtp.gmail.com

Also enter the logon information, enter your user name in full and enter the password.

NOTE: Now don’t click Next yet, click on More settings above it.



In the Internet email settings, go to Advanced Tab to change the server port numbers.

Change Incoming server (IMAP) to 993 and use SSL as the encrypted connection.

Change outgoing server (SMTP) to 587 and use TLS as the encrypted connection.



Now go to Outgoing server tab and check My outgoing server (SMTP) requires authenticationand choose Use same settings as my incoming mail server.



Now you should be taken back to the Add new account screen, click on Test Account Settingsand see if everything works without any errors. If there are any errors go back to all the settings and recheck if you have entered correctly.



Click Ok and Finish.



Now you will be taken to the main Outlook window and on the left sidebar a new set of folders will be created to synchronize with the Gmail account. It will also include Drafts, Sent Mail, Spam, Starred, Trash and all other mails synchronized.



Note: If you have a huge Gmail account already, then it will take sometime to download all your email contents from the web server.
Setting up the Sent Items Folder

When you send a mail for the first time, it will ask you where to store the sent mails. Make sure you DO NOT SET the sent mail from Gmail. When you send a mail through outlook, it goes to the gmail server and it saves the sent mails automatically to the sent mail folder. Now if you try to save it again in the sent mail, it will create duplicate copies of the sent mails. So use the Local Folder. See my other post on Choosing the Sent Items Folder while using Gmail in Outlook


Setting up the Deleted Items Folder

In gmail, you can either archive a mail or delete a mail. When you archive a mail, they are removed from the Inbox but they still remain in All Mails folder but when you delete they are moved to the trash mail folder and eventually deleted permanently after 30 days.

Likewise, you can set the action to move the mails to trash folder when you delete them.





If you want to archive a mail but not delete it, I usually have a folder called arhive and move the mails there so that my inbox remains clean and concise.
Folders and Labels

Outlook Folders are equivalent of labels in gmail. If you add a mail to two labels it will be present in both the folders.

Topology In Networking

Illustration of Different Network Topologies - What is Topology?
The virtual shape or structure of a network is referred as topology. It is worth remembering that this virtual design does not correspond to the actual or the physical shape of the computer networks: you could arrange the home network in a circle but it does not replicate Ring Topology. The logical or/and physical connections between nodes could be mapped graphically for determining a network topology. Graph Theory is used for studying network topology: nodes’ distance, interconnectivity, the rate of transmission and signal’s types of two networks might vary but their topologies could be identical.

What are the Basic Types of Topology?

The pattern or layout of interconnections of different elements or nodes of a computer network is a network topology that might be logical or physical. As opposed to physical design, the transfer of data in a network is referred in Logical Topology (the basic network) where the Physical Topology (the core network) accounts the physical structure of a network that carries devices, cable installations and locations. LAN (local area network) is an example of network that keeps both logical and physical topologies. 

There are seven basic topologies in the study of network topology: Point-to-point topology, bus (point-to-multipoint) topology, ring topology, star topology, hybrid topology, mesh topology and tree topology. The interconnections between computers whether logical or physical are the foundation of this classification. 
Logical topology is the way a computer in a given network transmits information, not the way it looks or connected, along with the varying speeds of cables used from one network to another. On the other hand the physical topology is affected by a number of factors: troubleshooting technique, installation cost, office layout and cables’ types. The physical topology is figured out on the basis of a network’s capability to access media and devices, the fault tolerance desired and the cost of telecommunications circuits. 
The classification of networks by the virtue of their physical span is as follows: Local Area Networks (LAN), Wide Area Internetworks (WAN) and Metropolitan Area Networks or campus or building internetworks.

How Is the Physical Topology Classified? 

• Point-to-Point Network TopologyIt is the basic model of typical telephony. The simplest topology is a permanent connection between two points. The value of a demanding point-to-point network is proportionate to the number of subscribers’ potential pairs. It is possible to establish a permanent circuit within many switched telecommunication systems: the telephone present in a lobby would always connect to the same port, no matter what number is being dialed. A switch connection would save the cost between two points where the resources could be released when no longer required.
• Bus Network TopologyLANs that make use of bus topology connects each node to a single cable. Some connector connects each computer or server to the bus cable. For avoiding the bouncing of signal a terminator is used at each end of the bus cable. The source transmits a signal that travels in both directions and passes all machines unless it finds the system with IP address, the intended recipient. The data is ignored in case the address is unmatched. The installation of one cable makes bus topology an inexpensive solution as compared to other topologies; however the maintenance cost is high. If the cable is broken all systems would collapse.

• Linear Bus: If all network nodes are connected to a combine transmission medium that has two endpoints the Bus is Linear. The data transmitted between these nodes is transmitted over the combine medium and received by all nodes simultaneously.
• Distributed Bus: If all network nodes are connected to a combine transmission medium that has more than two endpoints created by branching the main section of the transmitting medium.
• 
• Star Network Topologythe topology when each network host is connected to a central hub in LAN is called Star. Each node is connected to the hub with a point-to-point connection. All traffic passes through the hub that serves as a repeater or signal booster. The easiest topology to install is hailed for its simplicity to add more nodes but criticized for making hub the single point of failure. The network could be BMA (broadcast multi-access) or NBMA (non-broadcast multi-access) depending on whether the signal is automatically propagated at the hub to all spokes or individually spokes with those who are addressed.
• Extended Star: A network that keeps one or more than one repeaters between the central node or hub and the peripheral or the spoke node, supported by the transmitter power of the hub and beyond that supported by the standard of the physical layer of the network.
• Distributed Star: The topology is based on the linear connectivity that is Daisy Chained with no top or centre level connection points.

Ring Network Topology

Ring topology is one of the old ways of building computer network design and it is pretty much obsolete. FDDI, SONET or Token Ring technologies are used to build ring technology. It is not widely popular in terms of usability but incase if you find it any where it will mostly be in schools or office buildings.
Such physical setting sets up nodes in a circular manner where the data could travel in one direction where each device on the right serves as a repeater to strengthen the signal as it moves ahead.

• Mesh Network TopologyThe exponent of the number of subscribers is proportionate to the value of the fully meshed networks.
• Fully Connected: For practical networks such topology is too complex and costly but highly recommended for small number of interconnected nodes.
  
• Partially Connected: This set up involves the connection of some nodes to more than one nodes in the network via point-to-point link. In such connection it is possible to take advantage of the redundancy without any complexity or expense of establishing a connection between each node.


• Tree Network Topologythe top level of the hierarchy, the central root node is connected to some nodes that are a level low in the hierarchy by a point-to-point link where the second level nodes that are already connected to central root would be connected to the nodes in the third level by a point-to-point link. The central root would be the only node having no higher node in the hierarchy. The tree hierarchy is symmetrical. The BRANCHING FACTOR is the fixed number of nodes connected to the next level in the hierarchy. Such network must have at least three levels. Physical Linear Tree Topology would be of a network whose Branching Factor is one.

Conclusion:

Knowledge of networking topologies is of core importance of computer networking design. Computer networks can only be developed using the knowledge about these topoliges and decide to which topology design is best suited according to the requirement.