'I' Can't Find It!

You turn on your computer, open up Internet Explorer and you're greeted with a page that tells you that the website you are looking for can't be found?

Your heart sinks. You may want to yell at the computer, or yell for your spouse to ask him/her what he/she did to the computer.

Let me tell you, for a person who makes his living using the internet, that is one of the worst feelings in the world.

What to do?

First thing, make sure you ARE connected.

How do you do that you ask? Well, read on...

Check your connection

If you are using a dialup connection, the easiest way to do that is to pick up a phone in the house and see if there is a static-like noise on the line. If there is, you are connected. If there is not, check to make sure that the phone you have picked up is connected to a wall jack that is live.

If you are using a highspeed DSL/cable connection, be sure that the DSL light (on the DSL modem) or the Link light (on the cable modem) is lit up. If they are not, or they are blinking, unplug the modem from the wall or power strip, wait for about 5 seconds, then plug it back in. It should only take a moment or two for the modem to reconnect to your ISP. Once the connection light is solid again then proceed.

Pinging

Once you have determined that you are connected, open up a command prompt: Click on the Start button, click on 'Run', then in the 'Open' box type in 'cmd' (if you are running Windows 98/ME, type in 'command'), then click 'OK'.

This will open up another window that has a black background and a line of text that should read something similar to this:

C:Documents and SettingsTheNameofYourComputer>

The easiest way to check to see if you have a connection to the internet is to 'ping' a website. At the blinking cursor, type in 'ping yahoo.com' (without the quotes) and then press the enter key on the keyboard.

If you are connected to the internet you should get results like this:

Pinging yahoo.com [216.109.112.135] with 32 bytes of data:

Reply from 216.109.112.135: bytes=32 time=181ms TTL=47
Reply from 216.109.112.135: bytes=32 time=99ms TTL=47
Reply from 216.109.112.135: bytes=32 time=226ms TTL=47
Reply from 216.109.112.135: bytes=32 time=249ms TTL=47

If you get a 'request timed out' or 'unknown host' 'can't find host yahoo.com' then you are probably not connected. Go through the steps above to recheck your connection.

Stymied by the firewall

Once you have determined that you are connected and you still can't get to any websites, it's time to start looking for a firewall or some other software that may be blocking your access.

The most common firewall in use today is a software based one. These applications usually come bundled with the antivirus software you are using. You are using antivirus software, aren't you??

Norton Internet Security and McAfee Personal Firewall are two of the most common of these firewalls. Both usually come preinstalled on new computers and need to be activated to be used. Unfortunately, both of them usually only have a 3-6 month trial period to use them, then you have to pay to keep using them.

What you will have to do is disable the firewall to find out if it is the culprit that is not allowing you to get out to the internet.

With both NIS and McAfee this is just a matter of finding the program icon in the System Tray (in the lower right hand corner of your computer screen next to the clock), right clicking on it, then clicking on 'disable'.

At this point you should have choice as to how long you would like to turn it off. Choose whatever time period you would like.

Ahhh, it's fixed

Open up Internet Explorer again and? it should go to whatever you have set as your homepage.

Ron Barrett is the owner of Ron's Computer Service. You can subscribe to his weekly newsletter 'Bits and Bytes: Decoding the Digital World' by sending an email to Bits-n-Bytes. He is Certified Help Desk Analyst, CompTIA A+ Certified and has earned a Bachelor's Degree in Information Technology. He has worked in several companies in the role of help desk analyst, desk top support and network/email administrator. In his free time he enjoys spending time with his wife and three boys, working around the house and trying to perfect his golf swing.

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