Barcelona vs Chelsea at Nou camp

Hey this gotta be a disappointing match to watch as Chelsea was leading 0-1 by halftime through a Belleti own goal in the 33 min. I managed to wake up in time for this match unlike the day b4 for the match b/n Rela vs Juve.

Chelsea was basically desperately defending for first 30 min. And suddenly a pass to Duff from Frank Lampard, then it looked like a deflection from the barca keeper and Belleti turned into his own net while trying to clear the ball. And 2 minutes later a missed chance for Drogba for a one-on-one with the keeper. Suddenly, the tables looked to be turned against Barca. Eto'o and Ronaldinho couldn't hit any decent shots into the direction of Petr Cech.

The game erupted into controversy in the 55th minute when Anders Frisk red-carded Didier Drogba for what appeared to be nothing more than a 50-50 challenge for the ball with goalkeeper Victor Valdes.And on seeing the red, I was really angry with the decision of the referee. Yes, Drogba was a bit physical in the first half having conceded a yellow card but i think the knock against the Barca keeper Valdes was just unavoidable and he did not have the intention of bringing the keeper down instead it was a 50-50 situation. Drogba trying to kick the ball while the keeper rushing to get the ball.

Then the substiture Maxi from the Nou camp scored a goal in the 67 min within minutes of coming into the game and then Barcelona keep attacking from all flanks since they have the numerical advantage upon the dismissal of Didier Drogba. All hats to Petr Cech who had to endure enless shots at the goal. If not for him Chelsea could have been downed by more than 2 goals. And the 2nd goal from Samuel Eto'o was astounding to watch as he sneaked in b/n 2 defenders to connect with Maxi's pass into the penalty area and the ball was too fast for Cech to do anything about it. That was the 73rd min. And Barcelona keep on attacking while Chelsea were doing all they can to stop the attack.

This match would have been nice to watch if Chelsea were to have 11 men against 11 men. However, it was really disappointing to watch a one-sided game when Chelsea were reduced to 10 men. Well, I think in the previous game Mourinho made the mistake of substituting 3 players namely gallas, duff and bridge to turn the tides when Chelsea were down 1-0 to newcastle. All 3 were injured and bridge being the most serious possibly rest of the season sidelined. Hmm, well if Mourinho were not so ambitious to aim for a quadruple maybe Chelsea would have a better preparation for this match against Barca. But then again, I think Chelsea really need to purchase more attackers to really challenge for a quadruple. Their defence is good enough. Quality replacements for Arjen Robben and Duff should be in place in case the 2 are injured. And definitely better strikers are needed as Kezman is a total flop. I would think faster strikers would be an adv. Hopefully Tevez is coming to Chelsea soon. Maybe Owen could be a good choice also. Well, I do not have much hope for Chelsea to do well in the next leg against Barca since we still lack the attacking abilities of Robben and Drogba...

Chelsea FC

I've always like chelsea since the days of Zola and Flo (dwarf and giant). Although at that time, there were a lot of foreign talents and not really much of local english talents I like the interesting characters such as the 2 mentioned soccer players.
Gianfranco Zola who is like less than 1.6m, really makes his presence felt.In early 2003, Gianfranco Zola was voted as the best ever player of the team by the Chelsea fans. Whenever I see zola and flo play in the match i would be thinking abt the dwarf and the giant in the same team and playing together so well ha. There were also players like Di matteo, Dutch goalkeeper Ed de Goey, Nigerian defender Celestine Babayaro, dennis wise and defender graeume le saux. I remember the time when Ruud Gullit who was then a Dutch midfielder from Sampdoria who joined chelsea in 1995... and a year later became the Chelsea manager. Well, at least he made history by being the first foreign manager to win the FA cup in the 96-97 season when Chelsea beat boro 2-0. However, there was a dispute b/n the board of directors over transfer funds and thus he was sacked.
Italian striker Gianluca Vialli took over as player-manager and quickly established himself by winning two major competitions - the League Cup and the Cup Winners Cup. Well, as a Chelsea fan i really think there is an interesting history going on. 2 player managers taking over the club in a row and yet they did well in the league so far. However, vialli was sacked in 2000 when he guided chelsea to a FA cup win. And in came Claudio Ranieri the tinkerman....
Ranieri 's biggest achievement was to guide chelsea to the runners-up pos after Arsenal in the league. Despite this, Ranieri was sacked by the club's new owner Roman Abramovich - who had already ploughed almost £300million into the club. His successor was Jose Mourinho, who had just quit as coach of Portugese champions FC Porto despite winning the European Cup.
Well, the champions league first leg of the last 16 is coming soon and I really hope chelsea to at least snatch a draw from this difficult against barcelona. Mourinho has lost key players like wayne bridge and Robben through injuries and has to make do with some key players still having injuries like duff and Gallas who are doubtful to start and should be on the bench. This match would be a victory for Chelsea if they were to overcome the attacking prowess of Samuel Eto'o, Deco and Ronaldinho by snatching a draw in my opinion due to the current injury crisis in the squad... Well for Chelsea fans let's cheer them on!
And one thing which i think Chelsea lacks is world star players like Ronaldinho or Shevchenko who i think could strengthen the attacking power. Well, at least I am impress with the fact that we do not have any best players in Europe in the team but yet doing so well in the league.

Firewall

Oops, it has been quite a while since i last wrote... now writing again. Well, today's topic is firewall which is really sth very impt to protect information on the computers. Basically, a firewall is a barrier to keep destructive forces away from your property.

Firewalls use one or more of the methods below to ctrl traffic in and out of the network:

• Packet filtering - Packets(small chunks of data) are analysed against a set of filters. Packets that made it through the filters are sent to the requesting sysytem and the others are discarded.
• Proxy service - Info from the internet is retrieved by the firewall and then sent to the requesting system and vice versa.
• Stateful inspection - Basically examine contents of each packet and then compare the key parts of packet to a database of trusted info.If the comparison yields a reasonable match, the information is allowed through. Otherwise it is discarded.

Making the Firewall Fit

• Ip addresses - Each machine is assigned an unique address known as ip add which are 32 bits numbers(eg: 216.27.61.137). If certain IP add is reading too many files from the server, the firewall can block traffic to and from the IP address.
• Domain names - basically string of characters which seem to be easier to read than IP address. Can be blocked also.
• Protocols - pre-defined way that 'someone or sth' who/which wants to use a service talks with that service. Some common protocols that you can set firewall filters for include:

1. IP(internet protocol) - the main delivery system for info over the internet.
2. HTTP(hyper text transfer protocol) - used for webpage.
3. FTP(file transfer protocol) - used to download and upload of files.
4. telnet - used to perform commands on a remote comp.
5. TCP (Transmission Control Protocol) - used to break apart and rebuild information that travels over the Internet

A company might set up only one or two machines to handle a specific protocol and ban that protocol on all other machines.

• Ports - Any server machine makes its services available to the Internet using numbered ports, one for each service that is available on the server
• Specific words and phrases - This can be anything. The firewall will sniff (search through) each packet of information for an exact match of the text listed in the filter. for instance, you could ask the firewall to block any packet that contains the word "tele" in it.

A software firewall can be installed on the computer in your home that has an Internet connection. This computer is considered a gateway because it provides the only point of access between your home network and the Internet.

There is also the hardware version of firewall.In this case, the firewall itself is the gateway. "A good example is the Linksys Cable/DSL router. It has a built-in ethernet card and hub. Computers in your home network connect to the router, which in turn is connected to either a cable or dsl modem. "

What it protects you from

Remote login - This is when someone is able to connect to ur comp and ctrl it in some ways(viewing files or copying files).

Application backdoor - backdoor is the hidden access that provides some level of ctrl of the prog.

SMTP (Simple Mail Transport Protocol) session hijacking - It is the most common method of sending email over the internet and by gaining acess to a list of email addresses, someone can send unsolicited junk emails to lots of users. This is done quite often by redirecting the e-mail through the SMTP server of an unsuspecting host, making the actual sender of the spam difficult to trace.

operating system bugs - some OS have backdoors while others provide remote access with insufficient security controls or have bugs that an experienced hacker can easily take adv.

denial of service - This type of attack is nearly impossible to counter. The hacker sends a request to the server to connect to it. When the server responds with an acknowledgement and tries to establish a session, it cannot find the system that made the request. Byflooding a server with these unanswerable session requests, a hacker causes the server to slow to a crawl or eventually crash.

email bombs - someone would send u the same email message a thousand times or so to make ur email system crash

macros(script of comms the apllication can run on) - Hackers take adv by creating macros that may destroy data or crash the comp.

viruses- basically a small program that can copy itself to other computers.

spam - normally harmless but irritating to the core. Be careful of clicking on the junk emails because you may accidentally accept a cookie that provides a backdoor to your computer!

Redirect bombs - hackers can use ICMP(Internet Control Message Protocol) which is used to change the path info by sending it to other routers. This is one way in which denial or serv works.

Source routing -" In most cases, the path a packet travels over the Internet (or any other network) is determined by the routers along that path. But the source providing the packet can arbitrarily specify the route that the packet should travel. Hackers sometimes take advantage of this to make information appear to come from a trusted source or even from inside the network! Most firewall products disable source routing by default. "

Proxy Servers and DMZ

A function which is often combined with the firewall is a proxy server. Proxy server is used to access webpages by other comp. When another comp makes a request of a webpage, it is retrieved by the proxy server and the info would be sent to the requesting comp therefore there is no direct contact with anything on the home network.

Proxy server can make internet access more efficient. This is so as the webpage is cached(stored) on the proxy server when u access it so that the next time u access it it will load faster ...Sometimes, you would want remote users to access ur network such as website, online business and FTP download and upload. Thus, you would want to create DMZ(demilitarized zone)Think of DMZ as a front yard where u can put ur things outside the firewall and the more valuable thing swould be properly secured in ur house. "Setting up a DMZ is very easy. If you have multiple computers, you can choose to simply place one of the computers between the Internet connection and the firewall. Most of the software firewalls available will allow you to designate a directory on the gateway computer as a DMZ. "

This is abt it. Anyway, I would strongly recommend ppl to use firewall like Zonealarm(free) , or if u have any firewall software be sure to test it at www.grc.com.