OT: Little help, please

On Thu, 22 May 2008 01:31:03 -0400, tony cooper
wrote:

I use ’em, but I don’t know what makes them tick. Computers, that is.
My son has cable internet through the same provider that I do. When he clicks a web page to open it, it’s extremely slow. When I click, the pages zip open. When he opens an installed program – Photoshop, for example – or an image on his computer, the computer responds instantly.

This leads me to believe that it’s the internet connection, not the computer, that is the problem.

Isn’t there a way to meter the speed of the connection? Or the download, or whatever you call it? Is installing a utility to do this required?

He’s had a Brighthouse/Earthlink techie check it, but the techie says all is well. What my son would like to do is be able to say that "My system works at…., and my Dad’s system – connected to you – works at…., and please correct whatever makes mine slower." Rather than say "Mine is slow", he’d like a numerical comparative.
Suggestions, in simple language, appreciated.

Tony, on my monitor, in the bottom right hand corner
is a icon which, if I hold the cursor over it, shows the speed in Mbps.
In the launcher is also a facility to measure it, even with a graphic. Mine is wireless broadband but most probably if searching for it, you will find something similar with your’s. Search under additional services or something to the effect, in the launcher.

Dave

tony cooper wrote:

I use ’em, but I don’t know what makes them tick. Computers, that is.
My son has cable internet through the same provider that I do. When he clicks a web page to open it, it’s extremely slow. When I click, the pages zip open. When he opens an installed program – Photoshop, for example – or an image on his computer, the computer responds instantly.

This leads me to believe that it’s the internet connection, not the computer, that is the problem.

Isn’t there a way to meter the speed of the connection? Or the download, or whatever you call it? Is installing a utility to do this required?

He’s had a Brighthouse/Earthlink techie check it, but the techie says all is well. What my son would like to do is be able to say that "My system works at…., and my Dad’s system – connected to you – works at…., and please correct whatever makes mine slower." Rather than say "Mine is slow", he’d like a numerical comparative.
Suggestions, in simple language, appreciated.

There is an internet site that will tell you your connection speed. I’ve used it in the past, but have no idea how I found out about it. Perhaps a few minutes on the internet search machine (Google, I believe it’s called.) will yield a link.
—
Graham Waiffers

The poster formerly known as Roger Thaat, Watson deMeneux or Jack Skwaht.

On Thu, 22 May 2008 14:23:40 GMT, Graham Waiffers
wrote:

tony cooper wrote:

I use ’em, but I don’t know what makes them tick. Computers, that is.
My son has cable internet through the same provider that I do. When he clicks a web page to open it, it’s extremely slow. When I click, the pages zip open. When he opens an installed program – Photoshop, for example – or an image on his computer, the computer responds instantly.

This leads me to believe that it’s the internet connection, not the computer, that is the problem.

Isn’t there a way to meter the speed of the connection? Or the download, or whatever you call it? Is installing a utility to do this required?

He’s had a Brighthouse/Earthlink techie check it, but the techie says all is well. What my son would like to do is be able to say that "My system works at…., and my Dad’s system – connected to you – works at…., and please correct whatever makes mine slower." Rather than say "Mine is slow", he’d like a numerical comparative.
Suggestions, in simple language, appreciated.

There is an internet site that will tell you your connection speed.

There are many. And I have Googled and found them. The problem is that many of these sites require you to download something. NetMeter, for example. It’s not a good thing to download several "meters" without knowing if they are going to be useful.

Asking here for a recommendation might lead to someone recommending a site that not only works, but provides useful and understandable info. An actual user’s recommendation is better than a Google link to the site.

I’ve
used it in the past, but have no idea how I found out about it. Perhaps a few minutes on the internet search machine (Google, I believe it’s called.) will yield a link.

Well, you’ve been helpful. Ummm hmmm.

—
Tony Cooper – Orlando, Florida

tony cooper wrote:

On Thu, 22 May 2008 14:23:40 GMT, Graham Waiffers
wrote:

tony cooper wrote:

I use ’em, but I don’t know what makes them tick. Computers, that is.
My son has cable internet through the same provider that I do. When he clicks a web page to open it, it’s extremely slow. When I click, the pages zip open. When he opens an installed program – Photoshop, for example – or an image on his computer, the computer responds instantly.

This leads me to believe that it’s the internet connection, not the computer, that is the problem.

Isn’t there a way to meter the speed of the connection? Or the download, or whatever you call it? Is installing a utility to do this required?

He’s had a Brighthouse/Earthlink techie check it, but the techie says all is well. What my son would like to do is be able to say that "My system works at…., and my Dad’s system – connected to you – works at…., and please correct whatever makes mine slower." Rather than say "Mine is slow", he’d like a numerical comparative.
Suggestions, in simple language, appreciated.

There is an internet site that will tell you your connection speed.

There are many. And I have Googled and found them. The problem is that many of these sites require you to download something. NetMeter, for example. It’s not a good thing to download several "meters" without knowing if they are going to be useful.

Asking here for a recommendation might lead to someone recommending a site that not only works, but provides useful and understandable info. An actual user’s recommendation is better than a Google link to the site.

I use this one:
http://www.speakeasy.net/speedtest/

"tony cooper" wrote in message

I use ’em, but I don’t know what makes them tick. Computers, that is.
My son has cable internet through the same provider that I do. When he clicks a web page to open it, it’s extremely slow. When I click, the pages zip open. When he opens an installed program – Photoshop, for example – or an image on his computer, the computer responds instantly.

This leads me to believe that it’s the internet connection, not the computer, that is the problem.

Isn’t there a way to meter the speed of the connection? Or the download, or whatever you call it? Is installing a utility to do this required?

He’s had a Brighthouse/Earthlink techie check it, but the techie says all is well. What my son would like to do is be able to say that "My system works at…., and my Dad’s system – connected to you – works at…., and please correct whatever makes mine slower." Rather than say "Mine is slow", he’d like a numerical comparative.
Suggestions, in simple language, appreciated.

—
Tony Cooper – Orlando, Florida

Tony,

Try http://performance.toast.net

We use Brighthouse here in Dunedin, Florida and their wiring tech used this site when we were connected. It does NOT require a download of software, but to do the actual test you will need to download something (text, img, large image, etc). They also have a host selector to try different connections (Earthlink’s customers will likely have a very good speed connecting to an Earthlink host, but you can test against a Yahoo host as well.)

They also have an upload test.
Scott in Dunedin

P.S. The slow performance is likely to be IE plug-ins or toolbars on your son’s computer. Initializing the browser means they all run their own initializations and check for updates. I disable/uninstall everything but the basics.

On Thu, 22 May 2008 10:59:29 -0400, tony cooper
scribbled:

On Thu, 22 May 2008 14:23:40 GMT, Graham Waiffers
wrote:

tony cooper wrote:

I use ’em, but I don’t know what makes them tick. Computers, that is.
My son has cable internet through the same provider that I do. When he clicks a web page to open it, it’s extremely slow. When I click, the pages zip open. When he opens an installed program – Photoshop, for example – or an image on his computer, the computer responds instantly.

This leads me to believe that it’s the internet connection, not the computer, that is the problem.

Isn’t there a way to meter the speed of the connection? Or the download, or whatever you call it? Is installing a utility to do this required?

He’s had a Brighthouse/Earthlink techie check it, but the techie says all is well. What my son would like to do is be able to say that "My system works at…., and my Dad’s system – connected to you – works at…., and please correct whatever makes mine slower." Rather than say "Mine is slow", he’d like a numerical comparative.
Suggestions, in simple language, appreciated.

There is an internet site that will tell you your connection speed.

There are many. And I have Googled and found them. The problem is that many of these sites require you to download something. NetMeter, for example. It’s not a good thing to download several "meters" without knowing if they are going to be useful.

*sigh*
http://www.speedtest.net/
http://www.speakeasy.net/speedtest/

No downloads required.

Results 1 – 30 of about 2,100,000 for online speed test

Asking here for a recommendation might lead to someone recommending a site that not only works, but provides useful and understandable info. An actual user’s recommendation is better than a Google link to the site.

Have you scanned for viruses? Have you scanned for malware? Have you applied all critical and recommended updates? Do you have a clue?

I’ve
used it in the past, but have no idea how I found out about it. Perhaps a few minutes on the internet search machine (Google, I believe it’s called.) will yield a link.

Well, you’ve been helpful. Ummm hmmm.

And you’ve been every so gracious to someone trying to help you on a off topic subject. Real sweet of you, fuckwit.

On Thu, 22 May 2008 10:59:29 -0400, tony cooper
wrote:

There is an internet site that will tell you your connection speed.

There are many. And I have Googled and found them. The problem is that many of these sites require you to download something. NetMeter, for example. It’s not a good thing to download several "meters" without knowing if they are going to be useful.

I use Speakeasy speedtest and AFAICT it doesn’t install anything on my computer: http://www.speakeasy.net/speedtest/
—
BettyB — www.flamingo-code.com
"I have noticed even people who claim everything is predestined, and that we can do nothing to change it,
look before they cross the road." – Stephen Hawking

On Thu, 22 May 2008 01:31:03 -0400, tony cooper
wrote:

I use ’em, but I don’t know what makes them tick. Computers, that is.
My son has cable internet through the same provider that I do. When he clicks a web page to open it, it’s extremely slow. When I click, the pages zip open. When he opens an installed program – Photoshop, for example – or an image on his computer, the computer responds instantly.

http://performance.toast.net/

All this does is measure the speed of your connection.
You don’t say whether you’re all on the same machine, same account etc..

I’ll assume you set up different accounts for every member of the family.

Kids step in it much more than adults. Which could explain the web browsing speed, I’d run a virus scan from all accounts.
A good FREE scan is
http://housecall.trendmicro.com/
Depending on your drives size, it may take 4-? hours. It won’t be fast. It scans every byte on your drive, or you could just download one of their demos for a FREE month of usage. and scan the drive on your own. Much better than tying up a connection for 4-xx hours or more.
I’m using their Trend Pro demo right now. Way more overkill than a scan. The midsize Internet Security 2008 is more than enough for daily usage. But the Extras in the pro version are good for registry, and cookie cleanup. Also Trend seems to be collecting all the Best of the web virus, malware programs for FREE download. They now also have spybot S&D. A must have if you have any doubts if you’re previous scans missed something.

But the main thing might be take a look at all the knick knacks in the tray
[bottom right of the screen] colorful icons.. I show 17 of them in my tray.
That’s 17 programs running concurrently. Each program steals and uses CPU cycles. [slows things down]. Another place to look is RIGHT CLICK on the task bar. Select task manager, go to processes tab.
at the bottom it says show processes from all users.
If you can selectively select which user, go for it.
I show 97 processes for my single user. Way more than what you get with an out of the box OS. so mine is SEMI slow. Some programs no longer finish running because of all the overhead.

You being older, are probably also more cautious, or use the machine much less. So way less overhead than a teenager that’s distracted by every shiny object.

And you can never go wrong by having a good virus program on 24/7 [may really slow things down] I’ve gone thru several virus programs in the past month. And I’m pretty sure I’ll be back with trend for an 11th year next month. —
more pix @ http://members.toast.net/cbminfo/index.html

On Thu, 22 May 2008 01:31:03 -0400, tony cooper
wrote:

I use ’em, but I don’t know what makes them tick. Computers, that is.
My son has cable internet through the same provider that I do. When he clicks a web page to open it, it’s extremely slow. When I click, the pages zip open. When he opens an installed program – Photoshop, for example – or an image on his computer, the computer responds instantly.

This leads me to believe that it’s the internet connection, not the computer, that is the problem.

Isn’t there a way to meter the speed of the connection? Or the download, or whatever you call it? Is installing a utility to do this required?

He’s had a Brighthouse/Earthlink techie check it, but the techie says all is well. What my son would like to do is be able to say that "My system works at…., and my Dad’s system – connected to you – works at…., and please correct whatever makes mine slower." Rather than say "Mine is slow", he’d like a numerical comparative.
Suggestions, in simple language, appreciated.

There are several places you can use to test your connection speed. One that I don’t see mentioned is this one:
http://www.speedtest.net/

You just check on one of the pyramids in the picture (one that is closest to you would be best) and the test does an upload speed test, then a download speed test, and gives you the results. It takes about 30 seconds or less to do.

Talker

On Thu, 22 May 2008 01:31:03 -0400, tony cooper
wrote:

I use ’em, but I don’t know what makes them tick. Computers, that is.
My son has cable internet through the same provider that I do. When he clicks a web page to open it, it’s extremely slow. When I click, the pages zip open. When he opens an installed program – Photoshop, for example – or an image on his computer, the computer responds instantly.

The simplest method requiring nothing is just to load the same web page or download the same file on both pcs; large jpeg or small video on both machines and see how long it takes. The file does not matter, you just throw it away; it’s a test. Don’t repeat with the same page on the same pc, as much of it will be already be in cache.

I’ve used NetMeter for years to check what’s going on with internet traffic. Works fine, it’s free and you can use it any time to see what’s going on http://www.metal-machine.de/readerror/

Slow page opening could be due to different security or router settings on the pcs or a problem with the firewall. I just upgraded to AVG8 which includes anti-spyware and a link scanner which have slowed things down measurably. If the pc hardware is different that may also affect net speed. For more help, try any of the many computer forums around (google computer forum!)

Assumed that you have exactly the same contract with the provider as your son.

Starman*