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The Differences between a browser plug-in and browser extension

The Differences between a browser plug-in and browser extension

There are billions of computers in the world connecting to the internet each day. Something which is common with almost of all these irrespective of where they connect to the internet from, all they need is a browser to use the web services. When it comes to browsers, there are a lot of aspects which people actually fail to understand. This could because of a wide variety of reasons. Anyways, something most of which people mistake is in identifying the differences between a browser plug-in and browser extension. So, for all you enthusiasts, this article will help understand what  a plug-in is and what an extension is.

The Differences between a browser plug-in and browser extension

Differences Between A Browser Plug-in and Browser Extension:

To understand the difference between these two high-end terms, lets go through each of them separately; carefully walking through what each of them is capable of and what they can’t.

Browser Plug-in:

Just before a few years, the earlier versions of HTML couldn’t actually deliver all stuff like videos, music and images; like the HTML versions today. So to add additional features to your browser, you were to manually add pieces of software which could process them. These are called the browser plug-ins. These plug-ins actually attach to particular web pages using tags like <embed> or <object>.

These are the additional features your browser is embedded with. A Plug-in never interferes with your browser and operates only in the space that is allotted to it within the webpage.

For example, users may download the Adobe Flash Player plug-in to view interactive videos and images present on the webpage.

Some of the other famous browsers are the Apple Quicktime player, Adobe Reader, Macromedia Flash etc.

Browser Extension:

Adding extensions or ‘add on’ to your browser means extending it; you may look at it as adding more powers to what your browser already has. This is under your control and picking one or not is totally up to you. But if you do, they become a part of your browser itself (not really the webpage). Some stuff a typical browser can do is:

  • Create toolbars.
  • Affect Browser Menus
  • Control Tabs and WebPages, etc.

The Google Voice Extension for Google Chrome is the best example for a browser’ add on’ or browser extension.

These are what Plug-ins and extension mean; hope you could clearly understand what are the differences between a browser plug-in and browser extension!

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5 Interesting Facts About Computers You Probably Don’t Know Of

5 Interesting Facts About Computers You Probably Don't Know Of

Without doubt, we live in a world of computers. These machines for long now have been reducing human labour and making lives simpler and simpler.

As per definition, computer is a device which has the ability to perform arithmetic and logic operations automatically. This is something many of us know, but there are lots of amazing and interesting facts about all these silicon devices.

So here are few such interesting facts about computers for you.

#1. Charles Babbage, known as father of computers invented the first computer (mechanical) which in no means looks similar to your laptops or desktops. But anyways programmable computing started with him.

5 Interesting Facts About Computers You Probably Don't Know Of

The early electronic computers which came out in the 1940s, were of the size of large rooms and even they are vastly different than today’s computers.

#2. Though you do a lot of stuff with your computers say run games, movies, software etc. All of them result from your computer’s ability to perform small instructions which include adding numbers and moving data between places. That’s it!

5 Interesting Facts About Computers You Probably Don't Know Of

Simply a few millions of such small instructions result your web browsers, video players, word processors etc.

#3. The modern computers are being built with transistors in form of integrated chips. But if someone were to connect each transistor individually (almost impossible), then we have it our ancestral room-sized computer!

5 Interesting Facts About Computers You Probably Don't Know Of

#4. Computers are not just machines which can help you write documents, surf web; they can even help you wash clothes (as in washing machines), cook food (as in microwaves).

5 Interesting Facts About Computers You Probably Don't Know Of

The only difference is the processors present in such electronic goods are capable of performing only one specific task. It surely isn’t the case with our laptops or desktops.

#5. The circuitry in computers is very sensitive, so much so that static electricity is sufficient to destroy it.

5 Interesting Facts About Computers You Probably Don't Know Of

So before you put your hands into the case of your computer next time, keep this in mind.

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Everything You Need To Know About Internet Ports

ports

Using the internet is so much fun, but there are a lot of concepts which make it what it is. One such important concept is the IP Address and follows it is the ports concept.

Well anyways for a normal internet user, there is no necessity in understanding these because your web browser takes care of all this, but for you enthusiasts; this article on ports will walk you through what ports mean and your knowledge levels of the internet’s functioning are sure to boost a step further.

What are Ports, anyway?

Just like a hardware port helps connect devices to your computer, every computer on the internet connects to the other through a port. These ports are numbered based on their functionality and for programming purposes. And the most common ports are from 0 to 1023 are reserved for internet.

ports

Since IP Address provides unique identification to all computers within the internet, ports provide efficient and non-interfering data transfer. There are two different types of ports and they operate in two different methods: TCP and UDP.

What TCP means?

Transmission Control Protocol (TCP), like already mentioned is a method in which the computers connect to each other over the internet. In this method, the two computers are connected directly with each other. The computer which is sending the information stays connected with to the recipient computer until the data transfer is completed and then the connection is closed.

This method is much efficient and reliable to the User Datagram Protocol (UDP) in which there is no guarantee of the data being received at the destination; but this isn’t the case with the TCP method. Anyway, both TCP and UDP ports are used.

Now that you are already aware that your computer’s identity on the internet is determined by its IP Address, now let us look at what happens then after.

As your computer is to accept information it is being sent from, say a web server, it does it via one of its UDP or TCP ports.

If you are uncomfortable in understanding what ports are, don’t worry it really is too technical. But to simplify things for you, here is a real life example you can relate all the jargon you have read about till now.

You can look at it more like, your T.Vs cable connection. First the operator has to uniquely identify your device with its serial number and sends you cable. Now it’s upon you to select a channel among the lot based on show you want to watch. So here the serial number of your cable set is analogous to IP Address and the channel you choose for watching your desired show is the port, the cable is the TCP or UDP.

Right now your IP Address is associated with over a 65,000+ UDP and another 65,000+ TCP ports. And one among them is port 80 – the Hypertext Transfer Protocol, port 25 – for mails (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol), port 20 and 21 for FTP (File Transfer Protocol) server application and so forth. All such prominent services have their ports assigned with particular numbers and this is the port number by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA).

Like mentioned earlier, there are port numbers from 0 to 65535; of which 0 to 1023 are reserved for privileged services also called the ‘well-known ports’. The ports from 1024 to 49151 are ports which can be registered by any software corporations. And the ports from 49152 to 65535 are private and can be used by just about anyone.

Should you bother about Ports and Port Numbers?

Like we have started off with this point, you don’t really have to worry if these ports work properly or not. The processing of all these port numbers is taken care of by the network hardware and software. The real thing is you wouldn’t even come across them while using your network features. But it is purely to build your knowledge about how internet and ultimately computers work.

 

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Open Port 25 To Fix The Simple Mail Transfer Protocol ( SMTP ) Problem

How to open port 25 and send e-mails

The Port 25 is the port used to send emails. Ports can be opened or closed on your computer for security reasons. If port 25 is closed on your computer, you can not send emails. So if you are having any problem in sending e-mails , Then you need to open port 25 .

Steps To Open Port 25 :

Step 1: Open Control Panel :

Open Port 25 ?

Click on Start button and select Control Panel. Now Move on to ” System and Security Section ” and click on ” Windows Firewall ” option. Now click on the ” Advanced Settings ” which is located in the right side of the page.

Open Port 25 ?

Open Port 25 ?

Step 2 : Inbound Rules :

Now Right-Click On The ” Inbound Rules ” ( located on the left sidebar ) and Select ” New Rule ” Option .

Open Port 25 ?

Step 3 : Select The Port Option :

Mark the radio button next to the ” Port option ” in the window titled ” Types of Rules “. Now Click Next.

Open Port 25 ?

Step 4 : TCP And Specific Local Ports :

Select the ” TCP ” and ” Specific Local Ports ” options. Enter the port number 25 in the given text box and click Next.

Open Port 25 ?

Step 5 : Select The Action :

Select the action that the network must take when a program attempts to access the port 25. Select ” Allow the connection if it is secure ” option to allow only authentic connections. Click Next.

Open Port 25 ?

Step 6 : Select The Type Of Connection :

Check the boxes of the types of connections you want to have access to port 25. Domain , Private or Public are activated by default. Disables the boxes if you want and then click Next.

Open Port 25 ?

Step 7 : Assign A Name :

Enter a name for the rule. It can be something as Open Port 25 . Type the name into text box labeled Name . Now you can find this new rule in the list of Inbound Rules. Click the Finish button.

Tips :

  • To test if port 25 is open or closed, click the Start button and type ‘ ipconfig ‘. Now type ‘ telnet mail.domain.com 25 ‘ and replace the area of the domain name by your Internet service provider and press Enter. If port 25 is closed, you will see a connection error.
  • Many Internet service providers block port 25 and send emails on the other port. That can add greater security. Generally spam emails are sent in bulk to port 25. To combat this , Many service providers blocked access to port 25.
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How To Check The Performance Of Your Network And Internet connections

How To Check The Performance Of Your Network And Internet connections

Did you just connect your PC to a network or Internet ? Want to know the easiest way to check, if you are connected properly or not ? The ” ping ” and ” tracert ” command will help you to do so. These commands measure the latency, also known as ” lag ” of your connection.

Steps To Check The Performance Of Your Network And Internet connections :

Step 1 : Open Command Prompt ( CMD ) :

To open your command prompt , just Press ” Windows key + R ” and type ” cmd ” in the displayed Run dialog box . Now press Enter to open the ” command console “.

How To Check The Performance Of Your Network And Internet connections

Step 2 : Check your loop-back address :

  • Enter ping ” 127.0.0.1 ” ( it is same on all computers, so do not worry ). This checks the network chip of your computer and not the modem, router or your Internet connection.How To Check The Performance Of Your Network And Internet connections
  • Press ‘ Enter ‘ to begin the ping.
  • Place ” -t ” at the end of the line for this test continuously.
  • To stop checking the ping press ” Ctrl + C “.
  • Write ” -n 20 ” at the end of the line for 20 consecutive pings. You can replace the number 20 with any number of ping you want to do (But the value must be a valid integer 32 bit or 64 bit).
  • If all goes well, Look at the statistics of ping. It should reflect ” 0% loss “.
  • Check response latency, as it represents the time it takes for information to travel from the server to your computer. The digits under 100 are very good. The latency varies greatly depending upon where the server is in relation to your computer. Normally, most connections should have a latency of a few hundred milliseconds. In-case, If there is no network connection you will see a message like ” Request time out ” repeated several times.

Step 3 : Check your gateway :

Find the IP address ( Public IP Address ) of your default gateway:

How To Check The Performance Of Your Network And Internet connections

  • Type ” ipconfig ” in the Command Prompt and Press Enter .
  • Now Command Prompt will display the results of the ipconfig command.
  • Find the numbers under ” Default Gateway “. This is the IP address you can use to check the connection between your computer and your router or ISP.

Step 4 : Now check beyond your local network :

Check the connectivity of your router,modem, LAN, or Internet connection using an Internet IP address.

How To Check The Performance Of Your Network And Internet connections

Step 5 : Check the IP address of a website :

Instead of typing an IP address, type the name of a website such as ” www.onlinecmag.com “. When you ping a domain name, you also will see your computer’s ability to resolve the IP addresses of Internet domains ( find the number of the IP address using the domain name ).

How To Check The Performance Of Your Network And Internet connections

Step 6 : Check the performance of your network and Internet :

This Is only For Windows NT, 2000, XP, Vista and 7 Users. Use the ” tracert ” command to measure the response of each element involved in the network. Your connection to a server requires many ” hops ” between servers and other network components. The fewer hops on the path, the better. Most connections to a server including at least a dozen jumps.

To check this follow the below steps :

How To Check The Performance Of Your Network And Internet connections

  • In the command prompt type ” tracert zzz.zzz.zzz.zzz “, replace zzz.zzz.zzz.zzz with the internet IP address.
  • Press Enter and watch the ping checks each jump. The first ping should be your computer, then the modem or router, and the last ping should be the address to which you want to reach.
  • Check how the response time to more distant points is greater than the closest places.
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What Do You Think Blue Screen of Death (BSoD) is?

The Blue Screen of Death

If you are using any of the Windows operating system, chances are that you encountered a blue screen with white words and then all you can do is reboot your computer.

Everything About the Blue Screen of Death (BSoD)

If it hasn’t happened with you, that’s really good and we wish it doesn’t happen any sooner as well. But if you see it quite often, its better to take few measures. Anyway in this article we walk you through a lot of fancy stuff about this General Protection Fault (GPF) error which is commonly called the ‘Blue Screen of Death’ error.

The Blue Screen of Death

BSoD: The Consequences

This error message or the error screen is usually generated by the operating system itself when there is an unexpected error, which is beyond its scope. At this instant the operating system is all powerless and gets abruptly terminated. In many cases it is also accompanied with loss of work. The Blue Screen of Death error is considered to be the worst among the errors computers usually experience. And there is every reason you shouldn’t expect it!

BSoD: The Causes

The BSoD is generated in case of software crashes or during some hardware issues. Generally, the software which users use aren’t so capable of leading to a BSoD but the lapses in driver software could provoke such drastic consequences.

Though our computers encounter several application crashes overtime but none of them are so intense that they could bring the operating system down along with them.

This blue screen is displayed when there is a ‘stop message’ windows receives. This error causes the windows to crash; though the programs can’t save data, even under such critical situation the windows operating systems manage to create a file and write to it the information of the crash. This information is very important in pin-pointing the cause of such massive crash, and provides a good lead in troubleshooting them later.

Bottom Line:

A computer in the most ideal condition shouldn’t go blue, but mistakes do happen and nothing is perfect. These errors are so common and can strike any computer anywhere. Even Bill Gates, the chairman of Microsoft had his share of experience with the Blue Screen of Death error in a public demonstration of the Windows 98, luckily he had a spare computer with him.!

If your computer displays a Blue Screen of Death message once in a blue-moon you shouldn’t be worried that alright, but if it happens much often you have got a problem.

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Are The Public and Private IP Address Different?

Are The Public and Private IP Address Different?

Internet Protocol Address is a means of providing unique identification to all devices within the network, so that the other computers can identify your computer. Anyways no two computers connected to a particular network can have same IP Addresses at any instant; just like no two houses have the same address. In this article we help you understand the difference between the private and public IP Address. Also there is a brief explanation on how the dynamic and static IP address, differ as well.

Public and Private IP Address:

There actually are two different types of IP Addresses: Public and Private IP Address and both of these have a dot decimal format. So lets’ run down to what each of them mean and if there is any interconnection between them.

Are The Public and Private IP Address Different? , Are The Public and Private IP Address Different? , Are The Public and Private IP Address Different? .

Public IP Address:

A public IP Address is provided to your computer by the Internet Service Provider (ISP) as soon as you connect to the internet. Through it your computer can be uniquely identified throughout the internet. The user has absolutely no control over this IP Address and it isn’t fixed. Each time you freshly connect to the internet the same loop occurs and a new IP Address is assigned. This ‘are called the dynamic IP Addresses and are the most common ones. There are also the static IP Address which wouldn’t change at all, but are mostly confined to web hosting purposes.

The process that happens on the backstage is that once you typed in onlinecmag.com, this domain name will first be converted by the Domain Name Server (DNS) into the IP Address of the server hosting this website. Now the server has the exact address to which all the information in this website should be sent to. This is much similar to the postal services.

Private IP Address:

Private IP Addresses are the reserved set of IP Addresses among the 2.4 million IP Addresses which are allotted to the private networks (say Local Area Networks) by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA). Here are they:

IP Address (FROM) IP Address (TO) TOTAL
10.0.0.0 10.255.255.255 16,777,216
172.16.0.0 172.31.255.255 1,048,576
192.168.0.0 192.168.255.255 65,536

Any network takes up a set of these IP Addresses and assigns them to the computers in that particular network, just like the LAN. For clearer understanding, say a network contains 20 computers then their IP Addresses can be between 192.168.0.0 and 192.168.0.20 . All these 20 computers can communicate with each other but not with a computer from the other network. So, for these computers to connect to the internet, a router or other device which can perform Network Address Translation is required.

A Private IP Address though is extra-secure it doesn’t mean you can indulge in any unauthorized affairs and escape. There actually isn’t any IP Address that can go untraced, because this entire system is designed for transparency and better and uninterrupted information exchange.

This is some important information you need to have about the Public and Private IP Address. Do write in if you have any more of such questions and we will be happy to help.

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How to Find the Private IP Address of Your Computer

How To Find Out The Private IP Address Of Windows Using The Command line :

When you connect your computer to a network, it is assigned with an address i.e called known IP address. If your computer is connected to a network and the Internet, then you will have an private IP address (internal IP address) to determine your location on the local network and a Public IP address, which is the IP address of your Internet connection.

Steps To Find Out The Private IP Address Of Windows Using The Command line :

Step 1 : Open your command prompt :

To open it just Press ” Windows key + R ” and type ” cmd ” in the Run dialog box . Now press Enter to open the command console.

How to Find the Private IP Address of Your Computer , When you connect your computer to a network, it is assigned with an address i.e called known IP address. If your computer is connected to a network and the Internet, then you will have an private IP address (internal IP address) to determine your location on the local network and a Public IP address, which is the IP address of your Internet connection.

  • In Windows 8, you can press ” Windows key + X ” and select ” Command Prompt ” option from the drop down menu .

Step 2 : Execute the ” ipconfig ” function :

Write ” ipconfig ” and press Enter . This way you will see a list with information about your network connections. This list contains all network connections on your computer.

How to Find the Private IP Address of Your Computer

Step 3 : Find your IP address :

Your active connection could be shown as ” Wireless Network Connection ” or ” Ethernet Adapter ” or ” Local Area Connection ” . It could also be displayed by the name of the manufacturer of your network adapter . Find your active connection and see which is labeled ” IPv4 Address “.

How to Find the Private IP Address of Your Computer , When you connect your computer to a network, it is assigned with an address i.e called known IP address. If your computer is connected to a network and the Internet, then you will have an private IP address (internal IP address) to determine your location on the local network and a Public IP address, which is the IP address of your Internet connection.

  • Your internal IP address contains 4 groups of digits, each group contains up to three digits .

Example : 172.128.11.433

  • The list of ipconfig is somewhat lengthy , So you may have to sc
  • roll down to find the ” IPv4 address “.

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