Reader Question: Slow downloads problem

Q: Hello, my normal internet speed is 50kb/s. But Now when I download programs, It’s always very slow from 3kb/s- 9kb/s. How can I fix this problem?

~ Mitchell 

A: Mitchell,
I have to assume you really do mean to use a little “b” (“bits”; a “B” is “bytes”) which tells me that you are on a dial-up Internet connection.
I also have to assume you only get this slow down when actually downloading files.

Okay. My answer is two parts.
1) If it is at all possible, get off of dial-up. Dial-up technology was fine for the era when it was used (1985-1998) – teletype, e-mail, and text-only websites. Look to http://www.broadbandreports.com/search to find a ‘high speed’ (aka “Broadband”) provider in your area. Or, maybe, look at satellite. (Frankly, I would not use dial-up, except to send an SOS.) 3kbps, even 3KBps, is ridiculously slow… slow to the point of un-usability.
2) There are two factors which determine speed: your ability to receive, and the server’s ability to send. File servers are (almost) always set to use a low speed.. “low” meaning 300KB’s or so (800 x’s faster than your getting) as well as use a different protocol (FTP). If upgrading your service is simply not doable, for some reason, about the only thing you can do is use a download manager program to break up the file into several parts, and establish multiple ‘requests’ to download those parts simultaneously. (Firefox does this automatically) I have not used a download manager in over a decade, so I am unfamiliar with the current crop, and don’t have any personal recommendation, but CNet Editors give this one, Internet Download Manager, five stars.

by techpaul

Related: This article has some good tips for dial-up users: Browse the Web Faster on a Slow Internet Connection

To see what your bits-per-second are, click here, http://www.speedtest.net, and then click “Begin test”.

Quote of the week: “The real art of conversation is not only to say the right thing at the right time, but also to leave unsaid the wrong thing at the tempting moment.”

Reading reco: NEW Online Photo Sharing Service that is Drag and Drop Easy

“There are numerous ways to post and share photos (or pictures) on the internet; however, the processes  to share your photos can be quite confusing.

If you are looking for an online service that makes photo sharing fast, fun and easy, then take a look at.. (more)”

Copyright 2007-2010 © “Tech Paul” (Paul Eckstrom). All Rights Reserved.

---

>> Folks, don’t miss an article! To get Tech – for Everyone articles delivered to your e-mail Inbox, click here, or to subscribe in your RSS reader, click here. <<

---

Share this post :

Speed Up Your PC – Free!

When my computer was fresh-out-of-the-box, and all shiny and new, it was speedier than it is now. It had a spring in its step that seems to be lacking now. Can you relate?

There are reasons for this ’slowing down’, of course. Some of them are just ‘facts’, and there’s not much we can do about them, and others we can (should) remedy. Today I’ll list and review the basic PC steps, which will optimize your computer’s performance, and provide you with the links to my more detailed How-To’s, as well as some great free tools.

image courtesy of istockphoto.com

Tip of the day: Rejuvenate your PC.
A primary cause for PCs ’slowing down’ is simply that there is more stuff (files) on your hard-drive now, and the more you put on there, the more there is for your computer to keep track of (index). You have added applications (programs), Updates, and all your files, and the volume on your hard-drive has grown– probably quite a bit!
[note: to function properly, you should always have at least 10% keep some “free space” on your drive. Say, about 4 GB’s.]

Clean off the junk. As you use your machine, and browse the Internet, you will pick up scraps of files (temps), and you will put things into the Recycle Bin, etc., and I recommend that once a week you use the Disk Cleanup Tool to “take out the trash”. My article on this tool is here.

Get organized. As you machine writes data to the hard-drive, which it is doing a lot, it places things in the first available block of space to save time. The first available space is not necessarily the best or most logical place, though, and we need to come along after and put things in better order. The tool for this is a “defragmenter”, and it should be run at least once a month. I wrote an article on how to set this tool to run automatically, here.

Make space. You may also want to make more space on your hard-drive, and do some “serious cleaning”, by going into the Add/Remove Programs area of your Control Panel and uninstalling any programs you never use anymore.

Today’s free downloads: Believe it or not, some people just prefer not to use the tools built into Windows, and insist on using specialized “3rd-party” tools to do the job (imagine that).
* A top-rated (free) cleanup tool is CCleaner.
* A top-rated (free) disk defragmentation tool is the Auslogics Disk Defrag.
* A top-rated (free) program Uninstaller is Revo.

Copyright 2007-9 © Tech Paul. All rights reserved. post to jaanix

Share this post :

Word Trick Makes Letters Merrier

It is the Holiday time of year. (Is it just me, or did 2008 pass-by rather quickly?) Today I’m going to demonstrate some tricks to make your Season’s Greetings letters more joyous, and your docs more visually interesting.

Tip of the day: Add some festivity to your documents with fonts and color. MS Word has a lot of features and options built into it that allows for some very creative elements to be added to your correspondence, and is not at all limited to cold, “professional” documents. I’ll use Word for this demo, but you can do this in most text editors, and e-mail composers.

Today I’m going to use a hypothetical holiday greeting letter to show how to add some fun. By default, Word sets the font to Times New Roman at 12 “points” in height. I have typed in my text, to get things started, and will demonstrate using this letter’s “opener”. As it is a header, I have “centered” the text. As you can see, this font and text does not quite convey the joy and cheer and “best wishes” I am hoping to express. In fact, this may as well say, “Memo from Giganti Corp.” Yawn! So first thing I’m going to do is ‘tweak’ the font style, and make some word bigger (louder), to express a less formal tone. I “highlighted” Season’s Greetings, and used the Font drop-down arrow and selected a cursive font– Lucida Handwriting (explore Words various fonts, and find the one you like best). I set the point size to 36. I repeated the process on the second sentence, but set the type smaller.. only 18. I think you’ll agree, this is much more “friendly” than the default’s look. But this is just not Festive enough! Let’s use some color and improve things some more. I have again “highlighted” season’s greetings to select this font, and then clicked the Font Color button on the Formatting toolbar (If this is not showing, click here to read how to customize your toolbars). I then clicked on the little red box in the color-picker. Now season’s greetings is red. I want to alternate letters in green, so I hold down the Ctrl key and use my mouse to “select” every other letter. I didn’t really like the greens available on the color-picker, so I clicked on “More Colors”…. … and selected a green that contrasted nicely with the red– as the box in the lower right corner shows. This is the result of these steps. Much more jolly! But, something’s missing… dpress.com/files/2007/11/9.jpg”> Let’s add one more thing– a picture of a candy cane. I went on the Internet and found a Royalty-free graphic (though a piece of Clip Art would do just as nicely) and…Voila!I could ‘go crazy’, and get carried away with adding things here… but I hope you will be able to see by this little demonstration — using only two of Word’s functions — that you are limited only by your own creativity, and that it’s easy to personalize and ‘spice up’ your documents.

Copyright 2007-8 © Tech Paul. All rights reserved. post to jaanix

Share this post :

Using Your Keyboard Instead Of Your Mouse*

I do pretty well, but I am not a fast typist. This is due to the fact that I just never seemed to get the hang of touch typing (read: never made the proper effort in mastering it). I use a bizarre self-invented method of two-handed hunting/pecking and common key memorization that astounds observers.

The reason I am as fast on a computer as I am is my use of keyboard shortcuts to navigate, edit, and control the machine. (A brief aside: I have tried voice recognition, but just cannot get used to talking to my computer– it makes me feel foolish.)

In the Realm of the Geek, one measure of your skill is how much you can do without touching your mouse. You may not know this but there is almost nothing you cannot do using only the keys on your keyboard. Using keyboard shortcuts is much faster, and gives me more granular control over my selections.

Tip(s) of the day: Use some common shortcuts to maximize your efficiency (and Geek Quotient).
I will start by pointing out what a quite a few of us simply were never told (unless we’ve been using Windows for many generations). You may have noticed (in some programs) that there’s a single letter underlined in each menu choice (and that this is standardized across all programs), such as the “F” in the File menu, “E” in Edit, and the “o” in Format– and this carries to submenus as well.

These are “Alt shortcuts”– hold down the “Alt” key and hit F, and the File drop-down menu opens; press the down arrow one time, and the Open dialogue opens; use the up and down arrow keys to select your file and hit Enter, and your file opens. All without touching the mouse.
One more important Alt shortcut is Alt+Tab: this cycles through your open program windows.

You may have also noticed a weird key located on the lowest left, between the “Ctrl” and “Alt” keys, that has the Windows logo on it. Believe it or not this “Windows” key actually serves a purpose and does things.

A single tap opens your Start menu (again, the up/down arrows will allow you to select [highlight] your choice of the options). Combine it with other keys to: Winkey+R, opens the Run tool; Winkey+M, minimizes all open windows (sometimes handy for when the boss walks by); and Winkey+E opens Windows Explorer.

For navigating, the tools to use are the arrow keys. To move around in a document, a single click on an arrow key moves it one character; this is not a fun way to move whole sentences or paragraphs, so add the Ctrl key to move by whole words (or other blocks of characters) with the left/right arrow keys. And jump paragraphs with the up/down keys.
[Bonus tip: A Windows feature called Mousekeys allows you to mover your cursor with the arrow keys on your number pad. Turn it on by pressing Left SHIFT + ALT + NUM LOCK]

To highlight (select) the text, add the Shift key. Say I wanted to delete this whole paragraph, I would hit Ctrl+Shift+up arrow, and then either Delete or Backspace.. or just combine Ctrl+Backspace, and erase a sentence-a-press. Ctrl+A selects all.

The Page Up and Page Down, Home and End keys can speed your scrolling.

“Command shortcuts” are typically done with the “Ctrl” key, and you probably already are familiar with some of them: Ctrl+C is the Copy command, Ctrl+V is Paste, and — my favorite — Ctrl+Z is the Undo command.
A few others are: Ctrl+P followed by Enter will print your current page/document, Ctrl+S will Save it.

These are “universal” commands and can be used no matter which program or application you happen to have open. Most programs have their own set of shortcuts built in as added features, and if you use them a lot learning these can be a real boon. As a for instance, Microsoft Word has a whole slew of shortcuts (and the ability to record “macros”) to reduce the number of steps you need to accomplish tasks. If you spend a lot of time in Word, I suggest a search for “Word shortcuts” will be a big benefit to you as there’s a lot of published guides out there. I have only presented a very short list of the shortcuts available!

Today’s free link: While not everyone is a Word user, most people are web browsers (how else did you find Tech–for Everyone?). The official Microsoft list of Internet Explorer shortcuts can be found here.
Today’s free download: 10 Finger BreakOut is a real arcade game, in which you are escaping from invaders, shooting and trying to hit balls, but don’t worry, by playing 10 Finger BreakOut you sure will be learning to type. Improve your typing skills with this free typing tutor – typing game.

Copyright 2007-8 © Tech Paul. All rights reserved. post to jaanix

Share this post :

If It Ain’t Broke, Don’t Fix It*

There is something wonderful in this simple philosophy. It certainly is an aggravation saver, and I believe it is a good, honest, tip for a happier life. It is applicable in all aspects of our daily lives — including our tech gadgets.

Some people (me), though, have some malformed gene, or mis-wired section in their brain which renders them constitutionally incapable of keeping their mischievous little fingers off of a perfectly functioning device. These people have a strange compulsion to try to “make it better”. They just have to open it up and look at what’s inside…
A highly Scientific Study (that I just made up) has proven that a full 9-out-of-10 of these personality-types not only fail to “improve” the device, they fail to get all the pieces back inside, much less back in their proper places.

The modern name for these people is “tweaker”. The most ‘famous’ tweaker was probably Tim [“the tool man”] Taylor, a character made famous by Tim Allen on Home Improvement. (I loved it when he “improved” the kitchen garbage disposal by powering it with a chainsaw engine.) His motto: More power!

Yes, “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” is a very good Rule. For that 90% of tweakers who only succeed in disassembling the object of their interest, it ought to be a Law. However (you, Dear Reader, were expecting a “however”, right?), tweaking can be a good thing. Tweaking sometimes leads to Invention. Successful and repeatable tweaks are called “optimizing”. And who can argue against optimizing? Not me. A great deal of Tech–for Everyone is about optimizing your PC.. such as today’s tip.

Tip of the day: Optimize your computer with the latest device drivers. Most of my readers should be aware of the existence of the small programs that allow the software on our machines (primarily the OS) to interact with the hardware, which are called “device drivers”. If you’ve ever added a new device, you (typically) had to put in a CD and install the “driver” to get it operational. My readers probably also know that, like other programs, drivers get “updated”, and improved, occasionally. Did you also know that by seeking out, and installing the latest drivers, you can have a faster machine? Or, that your device may suddenly have more “features” and capabilities? Today I’m going to show you a method to use that I consider the first step, and tomorrow I’ll describe the more aggressive and effective approach, as well as how to “undo” a driver update if things should go wrong.

The first step is to create a System Restore point, to give yourself a fallback position. I reco doing this whenever you make significant changes to your machine. (To see my series on the System Restore tool, click here.)

Then you need to access your Device Manager tool. There are a couple of ways to do this, but I use Start >right-click My Computer >Properties >Hardware tab >Device Manager. Now you will see a list of the components on your machine, as shown in the example below.

Some, in fact most, of these items you do not need to worry about updating. The items that typically will give you the most improvement are: graphics, sound, printer, network (or modem) adapter, and (sometimes) monitor.

Begin by selecting the device you want to update the driver for — I am going to use for demonstration the sound on a laptop computer — and ‘expand’ the hardware list by clicking on the “+” sign next to the proper category, in my example that will be the “Sound, video, and game controllers” category.

Next, double-click on the device name to open its Properties dialogue window. In my case that’s “ESS Maestro PCI Audio”, and then click on the Drivers tab, which will now open a window that looks like this.

Now click on the Update driver button, which launches an automated process called the “Hardware Update Wizard”. Accept the default radio button setting (“Automatically”) and click “next”.

Now Windows will go out and “search” for a “better” driver than the current version, and when it finds one, will help you install it via a couple of “Next” clicks. Do this for all the devices (device types) that I listed above.
Unfortunately, the  most common result of the search returns this window.

This is because Microsoft has built into the search parameters a complex formula of what constitutes “better”. To them, better does not just mean “newer” (ie, a more recent version number), but whether or not the driver has been tested and approved in the Microsoft labs (for a fee), and whether or not the driver’s author has shelled out the dough to buy a digital “certificate” (for another fee).
Since this is a simple driver, and not a new miracle accounting program, or other retail piece of code, most authors skip these expensive steps… and so the Update search will disregard these drivers as if they didn’t exist. Tomorrows post will deal with this issue.

But doing this process can and does produce results, and it is the method I reco as the first step in a faster/better PC. New drivers are released all the time, so I do this every so often.

To read Part 2, click here.

Today’s free link: I have reco’d the popular Mozilla Firefox web browser here before, and I think it’s only fair to tell you of another — Avant uses the IE 7 rendering engine, but advertises itself as the “fastest browser on earth”. I like it for its built-in security features, such as tracks erasing, and its rss reader. Take a look at the Avant homepage, and then give it a try.

Copyright 2007-8 © Tech Paul. All rights reserved. post to jaanix

Share this post :

Speed Up Your Camera — Kill the Logo

Digital cameras truly are a modern marvel. They’re quick, highly portable, easy to use, and produce instant results. You can use one pretty much any time, anywhere.

And with digital images, you don’t have to hide away in a dark closet and handle noxious chemicals to crop and edit your prints. Now, we eliminate red-eye, and fix contrast, etc., with the click of the mouse.

As I wrote in Digital Cameras and You, the convenience and quality of digital cameras has all but done away with 35mm film.

Tip of the day: Speed up your digital camera’s boot time by disabling the splashscreen.

Almost every digital camera displays some kind of company logo when you turn it on. This is wasted time and energy that does nothing but slow you down.. and might even make you miss your shot. If your make/model allows it, (and most do) turn this “feature” off.

The exact method will vary from camera to camera, but typically the option you are looking for is in the General Settings area of the main menu.
The phrasing may be “show” or “enable”, and you want to un-select this. And, it may be labeled “welcome screen” or “splashscreen”, or even, “startup screen”.
(If you just cannot locate the menu option, consult the manufacturer’s Website.)

This quick settings change, will give you a faster power-up, and allow you to be more responsive in your picture taking.

For those of you shopping for a new digital camera, you might want to read my article, Digital cameras– which one’s for you?

Today’s free download: (repeat) One of the best free programs for working with your digital images– resizing, cropping, eliminating red-eye, color-adjusting, etc.– is Paint.NET.
You can also find helpful tutorials here.

Copyright 2007-8 ©: Tech Paul. All rights reserved. post to jaanix

Share this post :

Quick tweaks improve your monitor, speed

In just a few clicks, you can improve the appearance of items on your screen, make things easier for your eyes, and get peppier performance out of your PC.

Making adjustments to settings, and turning various things on or off, is known as “tweaking”, and sometimes “optimizing”. And being a Geek, I love to tweak my machines until they’re running like a Indy 500 car. Today’s quick tip will take you all of 45 seconds to do, and it will give you noticeable results.

Tip of the Day: Turn on font smoothing, and turn off special effects.
The settings we’re going to tweak are all found on the Appearance tab of your Display Properties: right-click on a blank area of your Desktop and select “Properties”
 
On the “Appearance” tab, click on the “Effects” button.

Here we’re going to turn one item on, and three off, by placing or removing checkmarks.
1) Turn on the ClearType font smoothing feature by placing a check in its checkbox, and using the drop-down arrow to set it to ClearType. This will make reading easier, and reduce headache-causing eye strain.
2) Turn off the “bells-and-whistles” special effects that, while ‘modern’ and ‘cool’, really only slow things down quite unnecessarily. (aka “waste system resources”)
* uncheck “transition effects”
* uncheck “shadows”
* uncheck “show windows contents while dragging”
3) Click OK, and OK again.

That’s it. You’re done. Easy, right? Right. Should you change your mind someday, undoing these changes is just as easy.. just place a check again. (But I very much doubt you will!)

Today’s free link: Loyal fans of this series know that I am obsessed with advising folks to make backup copies of their computer files in case of a failure; and that I wrote that one option was to use a “online” storage solution (as one of your two locations)(read Online Storage for Data Backup).
There’s a new service out called BackBlaze that is worth checking out. Click here to read a review of the “World’s easiest online backup” (and download link).

Copyright 2007-8 © Tech Paul. All rights reserved. post to jaanix

Share this post :