Infinite State

After a lot of painful diagnosing I found that my Netgear Router has a setting for “NAT Filtering” that defaults to Secure…and when set to Open it resolves a frustrating problem with the Checkpoint SecureClient VPN software which was causing “Cannot connect to gateway” problems. I found lots of threads online but nothing clear (and Checkpoint’s software and error messages leave a lot to be desired). So if anyone’s struggling with their connections from this thing, try fiddling with your NAT filtering on your router. I’m still unclear from Netgear’s perspective of how “Open” increases my vulnerability though, so I’m hesitant to use it.

Currently using VPN-1 SecureClient NG R56 HFA1 Build 031.

Good luck.

I’ve had Apple computers off an on since 1980. I remember a IIci that I dragged across country and back. But it’s really been a Windows world for me for most of the past 15 years, I’d say.

Not anymore.

A sweet little Aluminum Macbook and the 10.5 release of the OS (Leopard) has won me over. I resisted, I was obstinate (can’t stand following the crowd, even when they’re still the minority crowd) but now each day it gets better and better. Spotlight, Quicksilver, Mail, Growl, Adium, GrowlMail, Fusion, GarageBand, Mail Act-On, even Safari…good stuff. And with an XP Pro VM running in Fusion, I feel I’m still able to run whatever I need to. Except, strangely, I don’t need to (except for some Visio and Project files).

It’s simply a better computer, better operating system, better quality of software. I wish I had switched over sooner.

That’s the story. Going back to having a good time with my computer now.