Mr. Usenet wrote...

Running a firewall on the same PC you are attempting to protect is a waste

of time and cpu cycles.

Interesting point about the CPU cycles.  According to my TaskInfo2003, my
ZoneAlarm Free (the most wonderful firewall in the universe -- NOT) is using
5% of my CPU cycles.  That becomes a significant amount of lost SETI work
units.

Just in case you were wondering, with SETI Driver set to Normal Priority:
ZoneAlarm is using 5%
SETI Command is using about 94%
Total CPU usage is about 99% .

If I switch SETI Driver to High Priority:
ZoneAlarm drops to 3%
SETI Command increases to 95.5%
Total CPU usage ups to about 99.5%.

Wired routers cost about $40, now.  The best thing is that once you have one
running, it's a small step further to start growing a computer farm.

I had a chance to get intimate with a Linksys WRT54G *wireless* router
(closer to $80 for one of those).  It was only slightly more complex than
what you might be generally used to in your pedestrian lives.  Lots of
menus, a couple of new concepts (ports, IP addresses, the DECO in your
router assigning local IP addresses to the computers in your farm -- the
meat of the hardware firewall concept).

I'm out of that situation now; I don't have the Linksys router anymore.  And
I agree with Usenet that switching to a router / hardware firewall (wired or
wireless) and getting rid of the ZoneAlarm software-firewall carpool would
be an improvement -- not only for getting back 5% of my CPU cycles, but for
improving the stability of my computer.  I'm pretty sure the ZoneAlarm is
responsible for most of the crashing that happens around here.

OK, I confess I'm still using Win98se, and I have some minor stability
issues.  If I insist on continuing to use 98, I think it would be much
happier if I'd get a hardware firewall and un-install that dumb ZoneAlarm
running in the background.

Ciao,
        -Neil-