Bye Bye Dialup!

[Chris M.]

Woohoo! The cable internet operative just left and after an admittedly troubled setup procedure, here I am on 600K cable! It`s so fast! I should be able to read a day`s worth of CPF in about 10 minutes at this rate! I can`t afford to stay at 600 for long so after a month it`ll go to 128, but hey- anything`s better than 28.8K!

Anybody want to buy a used dialup modem?

 

[geepondy]

Isn't it such a liberating feeling to move up from dial up? What do you have to pay for the 600k service? I pay $40 for 768k DSL but new subscribers pay $50. I could pay $60 for 1.5 meg but find 768k more then sufficient.

 

[Doug S]

Originally posted by Chris M.:
It`s so fast! I should be able to read a day`s worth of CPF in about 10 minutes at this rate!

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">I don't know if it would help me. I haven't found a way to upgrade my rather sluggish OEM comprehension rate.

 

[Chris M.]

600K will cost me GB£25/month, which is about $38-ish. 1 meg would be £35/month which is about level with what you`d pay for it. 128K is £15, which is a whole pound less than the awful dialup service I was on plus the cost of the second fone line - the main reason I switched when they offered it to me. The dialup charge doubled at the start of the year, and there was no way I was sticking with it for any longer than I needed to!

I don`t use my internet connection for too much that requires large downloads mainly because of limited system resources (no sound

) so the 128K will do me fine.

-

Anyone know of a good brain upgrade? I think mine`s still at 14.4!

 

[Charles Bradshaw]

Chris;

Welcome to the wonderful world of broadband internet.

 

[Chris M.]

I just downloaded a 100Mb+ Mpeg video in about 15 minutes (while doing other things too!), and viewed an ~80Mb WMF in real-time. Both were files I never throught I`d ever be able to download.

I need a bigger hard-drive! This thing only has a 3 gig one in it, and I`m now down to my last half gig of space

 

[Daniel Ramsey]

yeah I wish I had broadband so there can be access to the XBOX live gaming, especially HALO.
only thing available to me is sattelite.

 

[SurefireM6]

Once you go Broadband, you'll pull your hair out if you ever have to use dial up again. I get 1.5mps for $40/month. It downloads about 1 meg every 5-10 seconds depending on network congestion. You'll need a bigger Hard Drive now!

 

[B@rt]

Originally posted by SurefireM6:
You'll need a bigger Hard Drive now!

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Sad but true...

 

[K A]

I have 3mbit download on my cable here in Kansas.

Though Cox is apparently starting to introduce a 30gig/month / 2gig/day limit.. anything more than that and you get a nastygram. Technically you are using a residential service so I can see their position on all this. Though they advertise sending videos through email (hard to do with a 5mb mailbox!) and other such things.

 

[Rothrandir]

3mbit or byte?

a byte is 8 bits.

 

[Charles Bradshaw]

I have 2 Maxtor 61 Gig and 2 Western Digital 60 Gig 5400 rpm ata100 hard disks in my computer system, and have room for 2 more eide devices (total of 8). I am running Win98SE and Mandrake Linux 9.0 Powerpack Edition. I have things spread over the drives, just in case one dies.

 

[x-ray]

Chris M.

Now your on broadband, make sure you have a good firewall and your antivirus software is up to date.

Since switching to broadband Norton Personal Firewall shows my system being attacked by various trojans, port scanners and other nasties roughly three times an hour.

 

[Chris M.]

Yeah I was going to ask that next - anyone reccomend a good firewall/virus software? I`m not keen on anything Norton-esque as they keep spamming me about Systemworks 2000 about three times a day every day.

But others are welcome!

Currently my Antivirus strategy has been to screen all incoming mail and reject those blank ones with attachments that scream VIRUS at me. and I rarely stray into unknown and hostile-looking web sites. They start throwing popups at me, I leave before going any further. But those evil b*stards can get in other ways too can`t they, so I`d better plug that hole ASAP.

 

[x-ray]

Zone Alarm is a free, well featured firewall that has received many good reviews.

Also look here for many freeware & shareware anti-virus & security programs.

 

[Chris M.]

Thanks! ZoneAlarm installed and within seconds it blocked something. The help screen called it "internet noise" but whatevert it was, it didn`t get here!

I`ll look at some of the antivirus stuff later, but now I think of it, I seem to recall at work we have a decent program that has a home/office license agreement, meaning I can install a copy here and be allowed access to virus signature updates. The reasoning behind that is that often people will take their work home so it`s sensible to have your home computer protected as well as your work one. I`ll check into that though.

 

[x-ray]

Thanks for the advice Gun Nut, I normally do a system scan once a week.

Did a little more research and it appears it was just a remote system performing a mass port scan over a wide block of IP addresses looking for ports opened by a specific trojan (ie any already infected system)

The most common port scans seem to be looking for the "Backdoor Sub-seven" trojan.

Thanks for taking the time to warn me of the danger

 

[K A]

Originally posted by Rothrandir:
3mbit or byte?

a byte is 8 bits.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Sorry for the long time between responses. All connections are listed as bits. Look at dialup modems.

28.8k, 33.3k, 56k, etc. That k refers to kilobits.

Same applies to any high speed connection. My cable modem's downstream pipe is 3megabits/sec while my upstream is a pitiful 256kilobits/sec.

 

[Stefan]

I just switched to broadband myself. 1.5Mbps down, 640k up. Cost is under $30 for first 6 months.

 

[Anarchocap]

Originally posted by x-ray:
Since switching to broadband Norton Personal Firewall shows my system being attacked by various trojans...

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Trojans are things that allow others to hijack your system from the inside. If you have a Trojan, or Norton's is blocking one, there is a good chance it was mailed to you. I suggest you do a full drive scan with Anti-virus software very quickly.