I have a question that's been bugging me for a little while now.

I have an Netgear RT314 router hooked up to a Cisco 678 DSL modem. I have tried placing my computer "outside" meaning typing in my IP address in the default area in the routers menu # 15. Then I try to host or play a game (AOE2). I cannot connect to other people nor can they connect to me. I thought this was the way to solve this?!?! I was thinking maybe the Cisco could use some "tweeking" as well?

Just a guess, but you said your router supports DMZ. Are you keying your own system into the DMZ? That means that you're effectively quarantining your own computer. :-) You might be able to get port 80 connections (Web browser) through it, but it won't let anything else through.

Take your computer out of it, and try changing your port settings across the board. Being a new net user, you'll need to start paying attention to those readme docs that tell you "Ask your network administrator to open port #### in your firewall to allow this connection." While it takes some time, the best policy is to close all the ports except for 21, 25, 80, and 110, and then start opening them as needed.

For relevance:
21 is FTP
25 is SMTP for outgoing mail
80 is HTTP for basic web browsing
110 is POP3 for incoming mail

__________________
"And knowing is half the battle!"

OK, with that said. I have been looking over the "filters" function of the router. I have read, and heard from a Netgear tech, that putting the computers IP address in that "default" box basicaly allows all trafic to go into that specific IP address. As my last post indicates, it in fact does not. This brings me to another question. The private range of "internal" IP's are widely used. How does someone on the outside come into/through my router to my specific computer? You can't just ping 192.168.0.x over the internet..... I was thinking that this also had something to do with it.

Thanks

Devices such as the one you have are called a NAT router which stands for Network Address Translation. From DSLReports :

NAT [is] setup to allow a single public IP address to be simultaneously reused by multiple internal PCs with private IP addresses. To the outside world, you appear to have only a single IP, but you actually have many devices 'behind' this IP address.


I hope this helped!