Posted on

Why I Chose Verizon FiOS over Time-Warner Cable

When I first moved into my apartment in Kew Gardens, I got all of the utilities set up and prepared for the very important step of choosing an internet provider. I then found out that I had exactly one choice for a provider of high speed internet and that was Time Warner. I called them and got the best deal that they had at the time for internet access and television, and signed a two year contract with a guarantee for no increase in price.

Continue reading → Why I Chose Verizon FiOS over Time-Warner Cable

Posted on

My Obsessive Verizon LTE iPad Testing Continues

I confess I am obsessed with trying to figure out why Verizon LTE is so sucky on our two brand-new iPads.  Yesterday, we were at the dentist’s office in Jersey City and I asked Janna to pull out her iPad to see what kind of service levels we were getting.  Our dentist is one block away from our home where I was getting two Verizon LTE bars and 1.7Mbps down and 1.47Mpbs up.  At the dentist’s office, the iPad was screaming at 25.94Mbps down and 10.35Mbps up with four bars of Verizon LTE active!  Amazing!  An outrage!

Continue reading → My Obsessive Verizon LTE iPad Testing Continues

Posted on

From 2400 Baud to OpenDNS

I’m going to date myself but bear with me. When I was a kid, long before the age of always on internet service providers, I would get up extra early before going to school to use my 2400 baud modem to connect to Bulletin Board Systems. Two important things to bear in mind here — one of them being that only one person could be using the system at once — hence why I would get up so early. The other thing was that everything was incredibly slow.

Continue reading → From 2400 Baud to OpenDNS

Posted on

Slower is Never Better

One of the great temptations when playing music is the natural want to slow down the tempo and play a song to give the illusion of mastery in performance.

Continue reading → Slower is Never Better

Posted on

Lighting Up Facebook Lite

As we creep past the august 9/11 anniversary and find heavy hearts and dulled minds still held in suspension by the failure of our sovereign nation to defend itself from foreign invasion — we can look up to the stars and try to enjoy the new Facebook Lite that went live for everyone yesterday. 

Continue reading → Lighting Up Facebook Lite

Posted on

Scary High-Speed Lectures

This year’s Open Ed conference brought to light a strange, new, phenomenon of students listening to prerecorded video lectures at double speed in order absorb the information faster. In theory, that sounds like a neat idea:  Listen to a lecture in half the time and you can listen to twice as many lectures in the timespan it would take you to listen to one live lecture.

Continue reading → Scary High-Speed Lectures

Posted on

Courtyard by Marriott VPN

I recently stayed at a Courtyard by Marriott hotel — the Spa King rooms are wonderful — and each room is provided with free, wired, Internet access.

I was astounded at the slow speed of my Internet connection when I first started using the Marriott provided backbone — but I washed off the slow by not expecting much for free.

Continue reading → Courtyard by Marriott VPN