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Bruce Kratofil, of BJK Research, is the NABE webmaster.
Windows on the Web
The Need for Speed
How fast is your connection to the Internet? That's become an interesting topic around here, for a new cable modem service just got installed. As the installer from the cable company was finishing up the installation to one of the backup computers here (no one else installs software or changes configuration on the real computers here but me -- after he left I re-installed everything on the real computers) he did one last thing - a speed test. To do that, he went to a web site called Bandwidth Place, at http://bandwidthplace.com/speedtest/ to take a speed test. Basically, this site measures how fast it takes to download data, from their server somewhere in Texas. There is a speed test for both dialup connections, and for broadband such as DSL, cable or T1 lines.
The test is just an approximation, and is going to be affected by other things than just your ISP (such as a bottleneck further up the line.) But running the test occasionally will certainly give you a guess as to how fast you are going. I'm happy to report that my connection is typically between 2 and 3.2 megabits per second, which is really fast, especially for what Cox Cable is charging. While this is "residential service" from a home office, there are no restrictions on business use, other than the fact that I can't host a web site, or run any other Internet server, from here.
There are a couple of other places you can test your speed, including DSL Reports.com at http://www.dslreports.com/stest, Cable Modem.net at http://www.cable-modem.net, and CNet at http://webservices.cnet.com/bandwidth/. Of course, what's the use of speed if there's no interesting site to visit? So check out some of these:
ZoneLabs: One of the few places where I can find fault with the new cable modem service is that they downplay, if not ignore completely, the need for a firewall. If you have an always-on connection, you need a way to keep the bad guys out. One of the best personal firewalls is ZoneAlarm from Zone Labs at http://www.zonelabs.com. Their firewall is free for private non-commercial use, and they have Zone Alarm Plus and Zone Alarm Pro available for commercial users, starting at $39.95 a license. It is far superior to the free firewall (actually, half a firewall) that Microsoft built into Windows XP.
Tech Central Station: http://www.techcentralstation.com. Their motto is "Where Free Markets Meet Technology" which is a pretty good description. The site looks at technology and science policy from something of a libertarian perspective.
Google News: http://news.google.com. Google has started a news site run by computers. A notice says at the bottom "This page was generated entirely by computer algorithmswithout human editors." This means the choice of news stories and headlines may sometimes be a little off, and the sports headlines almost always include a story about cricket (I guess computers like it.) But what is really useful at the Google News site is the search engine. This is a specialized application of the Google search engine that searches 4,000 news sites continuously. This is where you want to go to search for articles about a breaking news story. Since the Web is so big, it can take weeks for the regular search engines, including Google, to find a new page. Since this one looks at a limited number of sites, it finds the new pages quickly.
National Association for Business Economics
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