SpeedPlexer Blog

Online chat rooms are now a favorite haunt for teenagers who want to connect with their friends. They are not only popular among teenagers; people from virtually all age groups find chatting online an ideal way of communicating with other users. A few online chat clients have also added video conferencing facilities, which have become quite a rage today. It goes without saying that a fast cable internet speed is needed for a smooth online chatting experience.

Chat rooms are primarily divided into two categories, which are paid chat rooms and free chat rooms. Most popular chat rooms such as Yahoo, Windows Live, and AOL are free chat rooms, and they contain rich graphical interface, both in 2D and 3D. This is the reason why they are also called Visual Chat Rooms. A minimum cable internet speed of 256 kbps is required to utilize the 3D features of Visual Chat Rooms, such as “Avatars”. These “Avatars” are animated characters which can be moved around in a graphic environment. However, if you intend to use text and audio only, an internet connection speed of 128 kbps should suffice.

The enduring appeal of online chatting lies in its inherent ability to shorten the distances between users and facilitate communication in real time. It is suggested that you verify your actual cable internet speed before you sign up for online chat. There are a number of reliable web-based internet connection speed test applications which can help you enumerate your true internet speed and make your online chatting experience more enjoyable.

A website predicting the collapse of Twitter, posted as a joke by a Canadian application developer, seems to have caused quite a frenzy online. But as the Los Angeles Times tech blogger, David Sarno, says, “Are we in for a massive Twitpocalypse that will destroy the fabric of our fragile 140-character universe?  Not likely….”

The page went up after he found a weakness in his own software,but it was fixed months ago and the Twitter API (application programming interface) development community has known about the problem for a while and has had plenty of time to make the small changes necessary to avoid the problem. He’s just happy it has worked out to have been a good viral marketing move.

Read Write Web tells us of another issue more likely to upset the balance of the social networking world as we know it.  Their article “Are Trolls Ruining Social Media” alerts us to a sad trend.  Wikipedia explains, “In Internet slang, a troll is someone who posts controversial, inflammatory, irrelevant or off-topic messages in an online community, with the primary intent of provoking other users … or to generally disrupt normal on-topic discussion.”

Recent celebrity troll victims are Trent Reznor, who has publicly quit Twitter and author Stephenie Meyer, who has decided to give up on her MySpace page. For celebrities, they may be able to handle the issue better by hiring a public relations team that specializes in social networking and Web 2.0.  For the rest of us, cyberspace may become less anonymous as a means to force people to stand by their words. Twitter is looking into verified accounts, since Facebook seems to be able to avoid this problem fairly well.

So, though news of the Twitpocalypse is greatly exaggerated, our world is certainly changing with internet speed.

In these challenging economic times, this new study from the Interactive Advertising Bureau is a nice pick-me-up.  According to them, the internet directly employs more than 1.2 million Americans with above-average wages in jobs that did not exist two decades ago. And another 1.9 million people work to support those with directly Internet-related jobs, making a total of 3.1 million Americans who are employed thanks to what they call “the interactive ecosystem.”

And apparently, interactive advertising is responsible for 300 billion dollars worth of economic activity in the U.S., which is about 2.1% of the total U.S. gross domestic product (GDP).

This is part of the first-ever research to analyze the economic importance, as well as the social benefits, of the Internet.

The study was commissioned by the Interactive Advertising Bureau and was produced by Harvard Business School professors John Deighton and John Quelch, along with Hamilton Consultants. They designed the study was to provide an impartial and comprehensive review of the entire Internet economy, and to answer questions about its size, what comprises it, and the economic and social benefits Americans get from it.

The paper’s Executive Summary reminds us that within two decades, the Internet has become central to social and economic life and is, today, a mature and integral element of the U. S. national economy.

Not only is it vital infrastructure, it spurs on entrepreneurship and social change. It has changed the way firms find customers, customers find information, and people manage social relationships. It contributes significant value to the U.S. economy by creating and maintaining jobs, facilitating the rapid flow of information, and generally enabling the growth and prosperity of businesses.

We at Speedplexer hope this report may lead the way out of the global economic struggle, with internet speed!

Wi-Fi is a wireless networking technology that makes use of radio waves to provide fast internet speed for users. A Wi-Fi Hotspot is the place where users can gain access to the internet. Wi-Fi hotspots generally use wireless LAN and a single router to provide internet access. They have become very popular destinations for internet users, and they are usually found in coffee shops and hotels all over North America and Europe, as well as other parts of the world.

Devices such as Wi-Fi phones, PDAs, or laptops are typically used to provide fast internet speed from a Wi-Fi Hotspot. The surging popularity of Wi-Fi hotspots has prompted several major internet service providers to jump into the Wi-Fi bandwagon. According to an article in the Wall Street Journal, Qwest and AT&T have joined hands to offer free internet access to 17,000 Wi-Fi Hotspots around the US. Verizon Communications and Boingo Wireless are also expected to follow suit. Besides American ISPs, the Swedish company Tele 2 has also unveiled its plans to provide its customers with access to 700 Wi-Fi Hotspots throughout the US, and these include a number of McDonald’s outlets.

It is not only the fast connection speed that makes Wi-Fi hotspots so popular; it is also its availability and convenience of use. However, it is known that Wi-Fi Hotspots do not provide a very reliable security, but you can overcome the problem by using a virtual private network (VPN) when you are accessing the net from a Wi-Fi hotspot.

I remember being told as a child not to give out too much information over the phone–especially about things like if my parents weren’t home. But with the relatively new social networking tools like Facebook and Twitter, even grown-ups are having to learn about the ramifications as we go along.

We posted a story not long ago about the problems of tweeting while on jury duty.  Now USA Today has published a story about a guy who tweeted his vacation plans, and ended up getting robbed.

As the article points out, “Most people wouldn’t leave a recording on a home answering machine telling callers they’re on vacation for a week, and most people wouldn’t let mail or newspapers pile up while they were away. But users of social media think nothing of posting real-time vacation photos on Facebook showing themselves on beaches hundreds of miles from home, or sending out automatic e-mail messages that say, ‘I’m out of the country for a week.’”

Yahoo’s tech blog put it this way: “Those ill-reasoned tweets offered the burglars all the opportunity and information they needed to do the job — in real-time, no less.”

Remember: by default, anything you say on Twitter is broadcast to everyone, at almost instantaneous Internet speeds, not just friends who are following you. In fact, Twitter missives are searchable and updated continuously. If you have a small base of Twitter followers and to know them all personally, set your account to “Protect my updates” under the Settings function if you’re determined to tweet vacation plans.

Same goes for Facebook and MySpace: You might want to make your Profile visible only to friends if a lot of information on your wall is too revealing of your privacy.

In the past, the internet was a medium that required cables and servers to function. However, with the arrival of the 3G internet technology, fast bandwidth speed is possible without the use of cables. 3G is the third generation of hardware standard, and it predominantly caters to the mobile networking market. It is based on the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) standard, and it offers a faster internet connection speed than its predecessor 2.5 G.

With 3G technology, you can expect a wide spectrum of services and fast bandwidth speed when you access the internet from your mobile. Some of the exclusive internet services that are available to 3G users include video calls, wide-area voice telephony, and broadband wireless data. Furthermore, another service called the HSPA data transmission can give you internet speed of up to 14 Mbits/sec on downlinks and 6 Mbits/sec on uplinks. This makes 3G internet speed comparable to broadband internet.

When you are moving around with your mobile, you can expect a bandwidth speed of 2 Mbits/sec. While you are in a car, you can look forward to a speed of around 500 Kbits/sec. So, with a 3G mobile phone in your hand, you will be able to surf the internet with fast bandwidth speed, whether you are at the mall or airport, in a train, or driving a car. 3G is ideal for internet banking, making Skype calls, downloading music, and even video conferencing.

3G allows you to use a full-featured browser as well, so that checking emails or downloading attachments will be a breeze. All you need to unlock the internet speed of 3G is a good mobile provider and a 3G device.

The age of fast internet speed has arrived, and it has changed the way people do business. Business is in a stage of transformation, and tedious business trips and long waits are being replaced by video conferencing and a few clicks of the mouse button. To be a successful online businessperson, you need a winning idea, and of course, a fast cable internet speed.

There are several forms of e-businesses, and these include affiliate marketing, online sale of products and services, pay per click programs, and others. The current economy has also compelled online business owners to upgrade their infrastructure so that they can stay competitive in the world of e-business. One of the first priority upgrades is the improvement of your cable internet speed. Internet is the backbone of any e-business, and a faster internet speed will enable faster email checking, faster upload and download of data, and also easier communication between businesses.

Although a high speed dial-up connection will allow you to carry out e-business transactions quite efficiently, broadband and ADSL are more ideally suited for the purpose of e-business. For a larger e-business setup, however, the best internet connection option is satellite internet. By using fast internet connections such as these, you can conduct online business transactions in a most convenient and efficient manner.

An e-business allows you to save more money because it does not require much investment or operational cost. Also, the e-business model is a very effective way to rake in sales, because it can help you gain a global market for your products and services.

The BBC News website is pretty good at explaining things, like that there are a lot of good reasons to have broadband. “As broadband speeds get faster, BBC News looks at what speeds are required to run different online applications.” They posted a graph on their site, (sourced from thinkbroadband.com) that gives a good idea of what you can and can’t do, if you don’t have a high enough internet connection speed.

It’s basically about the amount of data you can upload or download and how quickly you can do it. For example, you can upload digital photos to be printed if you have less than a speed of 1Mbps, but it’ll take about an hour. But if you have a small increase in connection speed to about 1.5Mbps, it’ll take only 10 minutes to do the same thing.

Think broadband.com puts it in terms of usage:
“The amount of data you transfer depends on what you do. Downloading lots of music or viewing a lot of video content will increase your usage. Video is probably one of the main causes of high usage on the Internet. This includes watching movie trailers (or even entire movies), home movies posted on websites like YouTube, or viewing TV over the Internet. Peer-to-peer (P2P) programs such as eDonkey, Kazaa, and BitTorrent can also be high bandwidth utilisers.” (British spelling.)

With 1 mbps or less you can download and listen to online radio, receive video and audio from Skype, watch videos on YouTube, play World of Warcraft, use an iPlayer or pay bills online.

You’ll need more to download an entire album in mp3 format, watch YouTube in high quality, or play Second Life. The higher the quality of video or graphics, the greater your need for speed.

Some years ago, cyber cafes were the most popular way to access the World Wide Web, and they still continue to draw a large number of people, especially in countries such as China and South Korea. Internet kiosks and internet gaming centers are two variants of cyber café, and they are rising in popularity, owing to their convenience and their fast internet connection speed.

There are several factors that affect the cable internet speed in cyber cafes. The hardware, the ISP, and the Internet Management System used by the cafés are some of these factors. Typically, the hardware in cyber cafés includes the routers, network cables, crimping tools, and RJ 45 jacks. The internet management system is important too, as it can affect the connection speed. A few of the most popular ones used by cyber cafes today are iDevWorks SurfStation, Cyberleader, and MyCafeCup.

The ISP is regarded as the backbone of a cyber café, as the cable internet speed predominantly depends on it. Broadband, Dial-up, DSL, wireless access, cable internet, ISDN, wi-fi, and DSL are the primary means that are used by cyber cafes for internet access. The T1 and LAN internet cafes are particularly popular as they provide the fastest computer speed.

Although most homes have access to fast computer speed, cyber cafes are still the best way to access the internet when you are traveling or you are having a temporary connection snag at home. To determine if a cyber café suits your internet needs, you can test the computer speed by taking a connection speed test.

Internet speed isn’t just for computers anymore. In an article cleverly entitled “YouTube Moves Closer to the Boob Tube” from the New York Times’ Bits Blog, they tell us how YouTube is moving forward with the plans they rolled out in January. Then, they made a version of their site tailored just for the TV screen, called “YouTube.com TV”. This version took away the comments and scroll bars to look more like what you’re used to seeing from your cable setup. But it only worked with certain connections—like with game consoles connected to a TV set, or via TiVo, Apple TV or certain TV’s.

But on Tuesday, they launched a new and improved version that gets them closer to their goal of providing interactive TV. It works on any web browser connected to any TV or computer screen, though it’s intended for large screens, hence the name, “YouTube XL.” Keyboards and some remote controls work with it and it has also the ability to run a series of clips continuously. I can imagine that running in the background of a themed party—like for a graduation party, you could play several clips that have graduates tripping and falling on the way to claim their diplomas.

Currently the regular YouTube service offers some full-length TV shows for viewing from your computer. Some of the most popular include Jimmy Kimmel Live, Weeds, Britain’s Got Talent, and a variety of documentary TV and anime shows. But YouTube XL hasn’t yet secured all the rights from media partners. They’re working on it though. And right now, don’t include ads, but that’s likely to change if TV networks and film studios are going to agree to make their content available on the extra-large screen.