Friday, April 4, 2008

Internet Service Providers High Speed Internet - Time Warner

Like Comcast in Vermont, Time Warner inherited the old Adelphia cable business in Maine. I spoke to them yesterday, and speaking for the midcoast region of Maine, this is what I learned about their high speed internet offering.

Time Warner offers 3 levels of service. The first is called Road Runner Lite. Their advertised speeds for this service are 750 kbps download and 128 kbps upload.

The next level is called Road Runner High Speed Online and is their standard offering. Advertised speeds are 5 mbps download and 384 kbps upload.

Finally, there is Road Runner Turbo. This advertises speeds of 10 mbps download and 768 kbps upload.

If you are a Time Warner Road Runner customer, check out your speed at speedtest.net and see where you fit in. If you do not know which of the three plans you are on, the chances are you are on the standard offering plan and should see download speeds near 5 mbps. I would be interested in hearing what your results are.

Check your actual speeds here

Thursday, April 3, 2008

A newbie’s guide to Facebook

If you don't know what Facebook is, the chances are you don't have much contact with teenagers. If you do know a teenager, you can just ask him or her what it is. Facebook is described as a "fast-growing social networking site". This excellent guide I found at computerworld.com will fill you in on all you'll need to know as a newbie, and even shows you how to join.

 A newbie's guide to Facebook

Wednesday, April 2, 2008

Thanks for the Memory

Those of you who have taken one of my classes know how strongly I feel about this: DON'T SKIMP ON THE MEMORY! Your computer's memory, or RAM as it is sometimes called, is a very critical component of your system and affects its performance in a big way. Memory is also one of the least expensive components of your system.

If you are buying a new computer with Vista Home Premium installed, make sure you get at least 2 GB (gigabytes) of memory or RAM. I am working on a customer's nearly brand new Compaq laptop right now. It has 1 GB of RAM. For starters, the HP company and the store who sold her the machine should be ashamed of themselves. This just isn't going to cut it. My customer says the system is slow. Well DUH! Any store clerk in a big box store should know this. My recomendation is to buy a new Vista machine with a minimum of 2 GB. While you are there, ask what the price differential is to upgrade to 3 GB or even 4 GB. I think you'll be surprised at how little the difference is, so go for the most you can afford, but PLEASE, don't get anything less than 2 GB. My customer is running Vista Home Premium, Norton Internet Security, and AOL, and these three are among the biggest memory hogs I know.

If you have a Windows XP machine, look into upgrading to 1 GB at least. Normally an XP machine does just fine with 1 GB of RAM. However, many machines were sold with 256 MB of memory and are still at that level. This just won't cut it any more. XP itself has grown and most of the applications that we have been running have also grown with updates and upgrades to later versions.

A good site to check the maximum memory permitted in your older machines, and to get an idea of cost for upgrading, is linked to below. Check out your system and think about upgrading. You will not be sorry. Memory is not only inexpensive but it is also very easy to install. Send me a note if you have any questions about this.

Kingston Manufacturing

Tuesday, April 1, 2008

Enterprises pass on IE7, Windows Vista

No real surprise here. Having come from the corporate world I have an understanding of what a massive undertaking it would be to convert a huge corporate network to IE7 and Vista. I don't know how Microsoft could have expected anything different.

Enterprises pass on IE7, Windows Vista

Monday, March 31, 2008

CCleaner

Back on February 15 I wrote about running Disk Cleanup on a regular basis. I also stated "For the more experienced user, there are better ways to do this by using free downloadable programs."

One better way is to use the tool I am recommending today: CCleaner. CCleaner was originally known as Crap Cleaner, but it has since been renamed. It is a really excellent tool to use to get rid of the clutter, the unnecessary files that dwell on your system. Nowadays CCleaner is the first program I run as a part of my cleaning and tuneups.

The best part of CCleaner? Like most of the programs I recommend, it is FREE. You can download CCleaner at the site linked to below and begin to realize the benefits of this fine program.

It is very fast and beats Microsoft's Disk Cleanup easily, both in terms of its speed and in terms of what it deletes. I always delete everything CCleaner identifies.

Write me if you have usage questions after downloading and installing Cleaner.

Download CCleaner here