Barb’s Blog » Entries tagged with "internet"
Tell Me A Story
I don’t know how I got on the subject of my friend Kiko to John Fieck, who stayed in our home this weekend, but I next heard Miranda ask, “Who is Kiko? I never heard you mention him before.” So the next thing I know, I am telling her of Kiko. It was fun trying to remember everything. One of my Spanish students dared me to enter a chat room in Yahoo, not just any chat room, … Read entire article »
Facebook Will Own the Internet?
I was watching CNN this morning, and in fun, it made the mention that soon, Facebook would “own” the internet. When I see how much of our lives are entwined with it these days, I paid attention and listened to the statistics they listed: People on Facebook More than 400 million active users 50% of our active users log on to Facebook in any given day Average user has 130 friends People spend over 500 billion minutes per month on Facebook Activity … Read entire article »
Filed under: News Items
Future of Media
Saw this on Rodney’s site, and thought to share it here at Barb’s Blog too. Future of media: Changing times, changing rapidly! … Read entire article »
Filed under: General
Obama Wants Emergency Control of the Internet
From C-Net News Internet companies and civil liberties groups were alarmed this spring when a U.S. Senate bill proposed handing the White House the power to disconnect private-sector computers from the Internet. They’re not much happier about a revised version that aides to Sen. Jay Rockefeller, a West Virginia Democrat, have spent months drafting behind closed doors. CNET News has obtained a copy of the 55-page draft, which still appears to permit the president to seize temporary control of private-sector networks during a so-called cybersecurity emergency. The new version would allow the president to “declare a cybersecurity emergency” relating to “non-governmental” computer networks and do what’s necessary to respond to the threat. Other sections of the proposal include a federal certification program for “cybersecurity professionals,” and a requirement that certain computer systems and … Read entire article »
Filed under: News Items
Packet Loss
When can you have the best connection, a strong signal, and the fastest speed tests ever with your internet, and still be stressed by your connection? Apparently something called packet loss. I did numerous speed tests, only to find that the speeds were amazingly fast: The speeds didn’t make sense as I was noticing interruptions to my teleconferences, my uploads, downloads, and page loads. Nothing was consistent. I called comcast who said they could test my modem … Read entire article »
My Weekend Visits
I spent the weekend basically sick in bed, but thanks to the mobility of a laptop I was connected and entertained and informed somewhat. This is where the net took me: You Tube – Democratic Senator defends Governor Palin This was rather funny. On a radio talk show, they tried with all their might to get a Democrat Congressman from Alaska to say something negative about Palin’s personal and professional life – thinking that he would elaborate with the Democrats that are viciously telling lies. He just wouldn’t. He admitted that he didn’t agree with her on the issues but could not go along with them with the lies they wanted to talk about. Barack Obama does support sex-ed for kindergartners. Eternity Matters – Shouldn’t Christians agree with Jesus? Enric, Baby Silas, and … Read entire article »
Filed under: General
Comcast Data Caps Official
I don’t know how to feel about Comcast’s new policy on caps. I really like my connection. It’s fast, it’s reliable, when or if there is a problem they work hard to fix it. Did I say it was fast? Test Yours? Caps are not unknown around the world, but it is different for a cable company here. The lesson here is that because of a few abusers, the rest of us pay the price. Or maybe not. Their … Read entire article »
Filed under: General
Computer Rage
You’ve heard of road rage. How about computer rage? Apparently a 15 year old Florida boy became so enraged over a change in computer priviledges, he attacked his mom and younger sibling. He chased his mom with a knife and hit his brother with a sugar cane. He has been taken into custody. Now before you take it lightly, [43% of parents have no Internet use rules for their kids to follow] here are some guidelines from Howard County Maryland for Parents and Teens reguarding computers and the internet, that seem quite sane to me: "The most effective, reliable, Internet Safety Filter is an Involved, Informed, and Aware Parent and an Educated and Ethical Kid." Don’t let your kid have an Internet accessable computer in their room. Don’t let your kid have a … Read entire article »
Filed under: General
Connected and Mobile
I love communication. I love to be connected with others, know what is going on with their lives, share my latest, and make plans for future events with them. All of this requires communication of some sort. I can also say that sometimes, busy lives keeps the lines of communication closed, and even so, it’s rather rewarding to know, with my very best of friends, that when I actually DO get a moment, we can pick … Read entire article »
Filed under: News Items
Interview
I was recently asked to do an interview for a site that likes to promote photographers and photomemes in a humorous way. Sometimes their humor is a little crude, so when I was approached, I agreed with some hesitancy. I am not new to being interviewed, but each time, I must admit, it is a very nervous experience for me. I remember the first one being TuCows, who via ICQ interviewed Mike and I regarding our site, MXskinz . Next, when I made my trip to Spain, a newspaper from Sabadell, Spain asked for two interviews, one regarding my internet life and the other the subject of homeschooling . Later, a Spanish magazine called Clara, interviewed me also regarding the theme of Homeschooling . That was a real one to be nervous about, taking a defensive against … Read entire article »
Filed under: Personal
Negative Internet
After a few hard days on the net, my site’s forum getting hacked being one of the reasons, I can’t help but feel so cynical about the internet these days. Like I often do when things are heavy on my mind, I look up quotes and stories on the subject… I found a few about the net, all different views: As the most participatory form of mass speech yet developed, the Internet deserves the highest protection from government intrusion.” Judge Dalzell “The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it.” John Gilmore “National borders aren’t even speed bumps on the information superhighway.” Tim May “How many of you have broken no laws this month? That’s the kind of society I want to build. I want a guarantee — with physics and mathematics, not with laws … Read entire article »
Filed under: General
One billion Internet Users
More than one billion people in the world have access to the Internet, with a quarter of them with broadband, or high-speed connections, according to a survey. This milestone was reached in late 2005. The United States is still number one in terms of numbers of Internet users with 175 million, and broadband households, 43.7 million. Europe had 233 million people online and 55.2 million broadband households. China had 111 million users and 34.1 million households with fast connections. The region that was growing fast was Latin America. Amazing how far we have come. I still remember vividly getting my first computer and refusing to use the net because it was “too slow”. That was back in AOL days when we paid by the minute! loan auto 5.5credit 12000 bad loanloans $900,000401k … Read entire article »
Filed under: News Items
Teachers Today
Naturally since I homeschool, I have a preference to do so over public schools. I sent my oldest to a private school for a few years, but, started my homeschooling “career” while he was in 4th grade. Scanning the headlines the past month or so, I am almost inclined to believe that it’s not preference, it’s necesity that will soon keep me teaching my children at home. Where do they get these teachers today? Read a few … Read entire article »
Filed under: News Items
Machines and objects to overtake humans on the Internet
That was a headline that caught my eye today. According to the article, “Machines will take over from humans as the biggest users.” There is something strange and science fiction-like about all that, which goes on to declare there are 875 million internet users out there, a number that could double, however machines could make up tens of billions in the future. They would be tied into an all pervasive network where there would be no need … Read entire article »
Filed under: News Items
Comcast Update
If you read my blog rather regularly, you know about my frustration with Comcast. I thought I owed an update. Monday came and their maintenance man came to look at the ‘tap’ up a telephone pole. He did so with some difficulty. It seems the pole is built near a ditch, and he couldn’t get his truck with a moving ‘lift’ near enough, and I feared the worse, he wasn’t going to be able to work on … Read entire article »
Filed under: Personal
Mom said there’d be weeks like this…
“The Internet is like a giant jellyfish. You can’t step on it. You can’t go around it. You’ve got to get through it.” -John Evans “Getting through it” hasn’t been easy this week! First my usually splendid speed on Comcast (when it works), died on me. It has been next to impossible to be productive. To get answers to my repeating connection issues, is an ordeal I could write a book on. I got my new connection in October, it is now August, and my reported amount of outages (which I didn’t document, but just KNOW they are many). I’ve had three incidents where techs needed to come to my house this month, each time my connections upon them leaving was worse than when they got here . I finally called Comcast’s billing. … Read entire article »
Filed under: General
Skype (Making and receiving phone calls on the computer)
I have recently downloaded and installed Skype, and thought to pass on a little information about it. Skype is a little piece of software that lets you make free calls over the Internet. Users can make superior quality voice calls to other Skype users for free and to landlines and mobiles worldwide for the price of a local call. It already has over 100 million downloads of the software and every day over 150,000 new users join … Read entire article »
Filed under: General
Comcast
Comcast has to be one of the biggest cable tv and internet providers in the US. Not long after I blogged the speeds that cable is capable of, I am LUCKY to even connect! I am working on 5 long outages in the span of 10 days and my productivity is falling way short of what I need it to be! And you know what else bugs me? Not ONE darned explanation of what could be the problem. Nothing. Why should Comcast bother to provide its paying members anything? Where else do we have to go? I will now make it my mission to speak to a real human (if there actually is any) at COMCAST CABLE and see if this is the kind of service we are to expect in the future, and … Read entire article »
Filed under: General
Need for Speed
Coming from a one time owner of a Mustang Cobra II and a Camaro Iroc Z (with a corvette engine), I’ve always had a need for a little speed. That goes even more for my internet connection. I mean, there is no chance for a ticket if it goes too fast, no risk of an accident…so, let me go as fast as possible! So imagine my delight reading Tomorrow’s Net speeds could be up to 1,600% faster. My own ISP, Comcast was also quote in the following paragraph. While cable operators now usually transmit broadband at 3 million bits per second (3MB), a download of “a billion bits per second is completely doable,” Comcast CEO Brian Roberts told the industry’s annual convention here this week. “The network could do this quite … Read entire article »
Filed under: News Items
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