Anything and everything to do with those fast connections.

Speed is the best thing about broadband. The worst part is when people aren't educated about the dangers of it.

Great way to start.. Well here's some articles I found dealing with the dangers of broadband.

The Dangers of Broadband

Dangers of Online File Sharing

Hidden Dangers lurk for Broadband Users

Got Broadband? You're Under Attack

Gee, maybe we better go back to dialup and AOL

I'd suggest to everyone that they be more conscientiously protective of themselves. One should not use the excuse of not having broadband as a means of protection. Just as there is more potential abuse of security with broadband, that's offset by that you can immediately download (Relatively Large) needed software and components to either patch or offer more better security. So yes, there is a downside, but with that very thing offers a means to overcome any perceived downside and so is actually an overall upside.

Oh and yes Gweep, I suggest you check out Dslreports also..

You probably know http://security.symantec.com/sscv6/default.asp?langid=ie&venid=sym
I also disable File Sharing and turn off all Network as well as turning off DSL when not in active use. If you can access my computer without direct access. More power to you

So are you saying that I should try to access your computer without directly doing so? Hmm, more power to me.. Hmm... Yeah. Actually I didn't know and thanks.

I really dislike Cnn's online video feed that they require you to have a subscription with them or a real one pass..

And MSNBC is Windows only
The BBC http://news.bbc.co.uk/ is pretty good

I thought I read somewhere that they only served to people in the uk?

The link is to the International Edition. I have no problem with video or audio

Kris,
I suggest you download Winamp and try out their streaming video section now It's not bad

I almost forgot about winamp and their streaming.. Wait how do you know?

After trying it, I must agree.. Heck I'm thrilled with the radio aspect of it, now all those video channels ahh! Just finished watching fight club on there, a simpsons show and some kind of live german speaking show. It's rather amazing.. All that with winamp.

Right now streaming
Sarah Mclachlan - Silence

As for the news sites wanting you to register. Set up a throwaway email address for that. Yahoo and Hotmail have them for free. I use them, as do many here

And all the paid porn too!

Porn there is porn on the net?
Well I never.
It won't rub off on me will it?

Well rubbing something may be involved.

Thats why I wear glasses. The doctors all say it is good for the prostrate. I figure mine will be walking around three months after I'm dead.

What? There is pron on that there winamp media library.. Hmm I didn't know..

Yet I must say, the quality and time involved now is a lot better. Before there was always the expectation, but now it's just there. Ahh, naked news, such a nifty idea!

I cannot say enough good stuff about bittorrent.. It's amazing! I have used other p2p programs in the past, but rarely were they fair in up/down ratio or all that fast. Plus feeing secure that you are getting what you intend to get. Especially since my power went out and my tivo missed a few shows. I'll not discuss the legality aspect of this, as I was merely trying to watch a few shows I would have watched anyway if unforeseen circumstances hadn't occurred. This would have been great when I missed the season premiere of SG Atlantis.

Anyway, I say to any and all, try bittorrent and it's many clients out and see for yourself. Personally as of right now, I recommend Azureus

I am not happy. My DSL is currently running 16 KBs with occasional bursts of 21 KBs. It's been wonky for several days
Tech Support says there is nothing wrong with the line and no maintenance is being done.
Things like this are why I quit RoadRunner
And yes, I checked all wires and connections

I blame it on user error.

So do they. Verizon came today to check the phone lines. No problem found
Next week the DSL tech is coming. I still think it's the modem. Bah!!

The other week when we had a bad storm, my speed dropped by half and wouldn't connect until the storm passed. After a few days the dsl tech people came and replaced like lots of bridges and other 'stuff' on the lines, they said that I was just too far from the office to get the 1.5/384. Which the guy now says is around 17,000 feet. Which doesn't take into account that my setup was switched from interleave to fast when all this happened earlier. But they switched that back and it's working great at the 864/160 speed, but as I look at the stats db margin of greater than 15db, I know it will support more.

So do I just live with the 864/160 which is pretty fast, or do I call them and ask that they switch it back to 1.5/384?

Let me preface this by stating that I'm a Mac user I have a G5

I have been having DSL problems. The thru-put has been seesawing wildly. From 180 KB s to 30 KB s. I've complained to Verizon. The kept telling me the line is fine, ignoring my statement that it might be the modem
Today the DSL Tech came. He tested the line and said it was fine then witnessed my speed stick at 8.9 KB s. He said the problem might be caused by my browser, since I was using Firefox and Safari not IE. Then, maybe it was the modem.
After he left I called Verizon and got a human. I'm getting a new modem. With luck before New Years

My replacement DSL modem has arrived and been connected. I am now doing replacement DSL modem things

Meaning the new modem is up to speed?

Yes, I am no longer limited to 10 KB s

I am glad ya got her done. And that she is doing the job.

Yes, I'll have to inform Wesley of this right away!

Our connection is not that good but it seems to work OK. Thanks "T".

http://mediaportal.sourceforge.net/
Media Portal


Overview:

Media Portal turns your PC in a very advanced Multi MediaCenter / HTPC.
It allows you to listen to your favorite music & radio, watch your
video's and DVD's, view, schedule and record live TV and much more. You
get Media Portal for free/nothing/nada/noppes and best of all it is
opensource. This means anyone can help developing Media Portal or tweak
it for their own needs!

Features:

General

* Flexible XML based skinning engine - Create your own skins, or
choose one of the available skins !
* Extendable via plugins. Media Portal can easily extended with
extra plugins. Plugins can be overlay windows, modules, tag readers,
players,...
* Time, Date
* Dynamic keymapping. You decide which keys you want to use for
which actions
* Remote Controller support (using an external program like girder)
* Switch between graphics & LiveTV as background when browsing the
menus

My TV

* Record, watch, and timeshift Live TV
* Get programme information while watching live TV
* Advanced recording scheduler:

o record Once
o record now
o Daily
o Weekly
o Mon-Fri
o Every time this program appears on this Tv channel
o Every time this program appears on any TV Channel

* Support for multiple tuners
* Timeshifting, Watch, Pause, Rewind,FF,RW Live TV
* Video Recording
* Advanced TV Guide based on XMLTV
* Scheduler to manage all your recording schedules
* Recorded TV section: Manage all your recorded tv programs. See
what has been recorded, delete programs, check which programs you
already watched and offcourse select and play a recorded program
* Support confirmed so far: Hauppage PVR 250, PVR 350, PVR USB2,
ATI TV Wonder VE PCI, ATI TV Wonder NTSC PCI, ATI All-In-Wonder 7500,
8606-40 MSI TV PCI, Terratec TerraTV+, Compro PVR(Gold and non-Gold),
Terratec Cinergy 600. More to come hopefully ! Let us know if your card
works...post here on the forums !

My Radio

* Listen to your favorite radio stations
* Auto tuning
* Supply nice logo's for each radio station
* Supply a friendly name for each radio station
* Internet radio stations
* local radio stations using the FM tuner of your capture card
* support for external radio tuner applications

My Music

* All music gets stored in Media Portals music database
* View your music by artists, albums, genres, top100 or plain songs
* Sort your music in many ways like
tracks,genre,filesize,artists,album,...
* Use visualisations from Windows MediaPlayer 9
* Load , create & save playlists (.m3u, .pls, .b4u)
* Automaticlly gets album art & info for all your albums
* Automaticlly gets artist art & info for all your artists
* View by list, icons, and big icons
* shuffle,repeat, FF,RW,pause,...
* Music overlay : will show what song is playing together with
visualisation,albumart, artist,title,album etc on every module in Media
Portal

My Pictures

* Watch your pictures/photos
* Slideshow support with nice transitions
* Zoom in/out, rotate pictures (rotation is remembered next time
* pause,previous/next picture
* delete picture
* background music, either songs from my music, or radio from my
radio
* Auto thumbnail generation
* Sort in Name, Date, Size
* View in List, Icon or Big Icon display

My Videos

* Play any movie your PC has a codec for (divx, mpeg, matroska,...)
* All your movies will be stored in Media Portals video database
* View your movies by actors,genres,year,title,
* Sort your movies by actors,genres,year,rating
* Automatically retrieves video art & info from www.imdb.com
* Stacking/Unstacking if your movie consists of multiple files
* Internal DVD Player with Menus!
* External Player (Zoomplayer/MPlayer/etc) option
* On Screen Display(OSD) for : Pause, Rewind, FastForward, Stop,
Mute, Bookmarks, Switching Audio Streams/Subtitle languages...
* Internal DVD player with menu's ( you can also use an external
DVD player )
* Internal movie player you can also use an external media player )

My Weather

* Show the latest weather information
* Support for multiple cities
* Current temperature, 3 Day Forecast
* Temperature (in C/F)
* UV Index, Humity (%), Wind (mph/kph), etc

Settings

* Screen Calibration
* UI Calibration
* My Music options
* My Pictures options

My Programs

* Launching external programs like:
o Games
o Emulators
o Email application
o Internet Browser
o IRC client
* Basically you can launch any program you like including
parameters

My News

* Adding RSS news feeds
* Showing RSS news feeds

My Recipies

* Download recipies from the internet (there is a standard
databse/file format for recipies) and import them in MP
* Browsing and showing of recipies

I love broadband.. Soon I'll be watching the rest of season 8 of Sg1. Tomorrow I'll watch the rest of atlantis.

Where?

On my laptop.. Via Torrent. Box and Spy. Haven't finished yet, but so far it's great.

What URL(s)?

They are semi-directly right in front of you..

Can they be in front of me?

In fact, they are in front of everyone.

He speaks true

That's what I love about have such a fast speed connection. I mean, I get it in my head I want to watch a old movie from my childhood. And boom in a short while I have it. The movie happened to be Flight of the Navigator. It didn't do so well in sales but it was memorable enough for me. Then again, another movie named Krull I tried to get. Sadly the torrent was dead.

Also given the quality of streaming music out there via internet radio or something like winamp's music/video, I really don't see the need for anyone to download anything like anymore. Of course you'd want to download for use in a portable like an iPod or whatever, but for use on a desktop. I don't see it when broadband is available. Even though we are getting bigger and bigger hard drives, it is very possible to have enjoy all that media and have a very small drive, thus no need to waste any more space.

Something else.. Before when I had dialup, I used to open several windows so as to have them loading while I did something else. Perhaps read slashdot, fark, here.. Whatever. But having such a fast connection, there is no point anymore. I noticed this when I started reading some slashdot articles and I was going through and opening them in new tabs. I stopped for a second and was like, why am I doing this. The window had already loaded within a few seconds and so what is the point? Also something else, I used to be able to click on a link, then see something else and click on that link and open in a new tab. Now I can't do that anymore. By the time I click on that link, then right click on a new link to open, it's already loaded and I have to go back.

Plus I really disliked google on dialup. Reason being, whenever I searched for something, then immediately changed my search term it would revert to the old search term. Unless I typed it really fast, or I waited a few seconds for it to auto-revert. Most time I'd be in the middle of typing a new term and it would revert. So many times I cursed the greatness that is google search all the while hope it help me find what I was looking for. And keeping things updated like windows and an antivirus is so much easier.

Of course I'm saying things that have so been said before. While more speed and faster access would be appreciated, right now I am so happy with what I got. I mean, if everyone could just taste broadband for a month or two they would realize. Right now I am at work using dialup. I can use the same things I could before when I had dialup, like read posts at this place, read slashdot and so on. But so much is missing. It's like going to school and having no recess. Or, no desert after dinner. Or.. You get the picture.

another reason for broadband
news article

Music fans don't have to be in Austin, Texas, to hear hundreds of new songs from the South by Southwest music festival.

For many years, SXSW, as it's known, has provided on its website a library of free MP3s of bands participating in the conference. This year, the festival is making it even easier to listen by providing a huge BitTorrent file (2.6 GB) of more than 750 songs. The songs can be downloaded for free using the BitTorrent peer-to-peer file-sharing application.

Sounds like a great deal

Will have to get that.. Thanks for the notice Trallyus.

Well umm, I'll think about you when I listen.

No.. It's all true.

He scares us all.

I scare myself.

BOOOO!!!!!

looks like someone's been playing too much Resident Evil

Your avatar scares me... It's like he is looking right at me.

he does have that power, you know

To me, he looks like he is tempting me.

the question is...do you want to be tempted, Kristopher?

Hmm, is that a proposition?

I think it is

To me he looks like he is wearing no pants and there is something going on just below the bottom of the picture that we aren't able to see. There is a look in his eye that seems to say "I know something you don't know" and I'll bet that something is going on below eye level.
Who is that, by the way?

I think he is rubbing his man boobs and flashing us below that picture level. Or maybe he is crapping his pants. Who knows..

man, it's Anderson Cooper

Or so that is what he wants us to believe..

Aha - or maybe he wants you to think LIKE that...
chew on that.

Now he looks like he is coming on to me.

he is

Well tell him to stop and look somewhere else.

[I was blinking, not winking..]

Looked like a wink to me

Well you're right.. It was a wink to you, but that's getting off topic.

This Anderson guy is seriously taunting me and I don't know how much longer I can hold back.

You can give him a huge hug no one will think different of you . No need to hold back here at Harolds.

Do you think a kiss on the cheek would be pushing it?

Itd only be pushing if you put tongue into the first kiss.

You say first kiss, so then a second or third would be acceptable if using tongue?

Man, the only one allowed to kiss Anderson is me

What you don't know wont hurt you. Now my screen is all dirty..

-_-

What has Erica been telling you?

.

..

http://nuspectra.com/vbcam/index.aspx

What is it with these DOT posts?

I think they're trying to get rid of the unread post thing/bug/whatever that happens occasionally?
(And you have better eyes than me, I thought all those dot posts were blank)

Or.. I just wanted to do something out there like dotting a dot. ..

Wouldn't that just be a colon?

A colon turned on it's side? That's so, so.. So crazy.

I think the . means no comment LOL

or like we say at work when something happens "I didnt do it" which means, the person saying it must've done it, so that means the person making the DOT post must have done it! LOL

....I'm trying to think...OH broadband bonuses..well letsee ummm.. I know one advantage USED to be that I could push a single button on my cable modem and have internet disabled temporarily, which came in handy for security when my computers were idle, but now with this arris telephony modem they gave me, I cannot do that no more There is a button on the front, I tried pushing it, but it don't do nothing, so I can't do that no more

anyway Kris, you better watch out there, looks like u could be robbing the cradle up there LOL with those earlier posts with u & Romulan_Sela hehe

I just went back and looked at the previous posts and at her profile to see her age. At the time I didn't realize she was that young. Hmm.. It's all your fault. Somehow, all your fault! Na-Na-Na-Na-Na I can't here you!

I was kind of out of it at the time so forgive my spelling mixup of hear and here. Though I was talking to Jim, not her unless Jim is a her..

If given the choice between the two, I'd take the embarrassing route rather than the illegal one any day..

so your saying same sex couples are embarrassing?

I dunno, I'd have to think about it, I think I'd rather take the illegal option, ya don't have to do illegal activities, there's always romance and flirting

I dunno, I never dated anyone that young even when I was that young. LOL I've always liked older women for some reason The younger ones just seemed....sooo....I dunno, not very intelligent...would be a nice way of putting it Intelligence to me is like top priority over everything else.

Just embarrassing when the other is Jim.

Also when I were young, I found others of the same age rather pretentiously snooty and asinine to the point of absurdity. Perhaps that was just my own experience. Those older knew everything, the younger knew nothing. Pretty much everyone sucked.

yeah same here..

I think thats why I like older better.. least with older I could have an intelligent conversation...but there's always exceptions to that.. Before kurlylox and I met, I dated a woman 10 years older then me, and she had a real problem with the age difference. not so much the age, as how I looked, she thought I looked too young to be with, so what did she do? cheat on me with someone even younger yet.. (shrugs) will never understand women..

but one thing was always certain, the ones worth their salt are always married, the single ones are just..well...nutts.. makes me glad I am married now, even though we don't get along the best, its better then dating 25 year old teeny-bobber wanna-be's, or 30-40 year olds going thru mid-life crisis. The one time I dated someone my own age, lied to me about not being married, then slept with me once and disappeared, then later she says "well I just wanted you for sex" (sighs) I think thats why I ended up getting married the 2nd time, got tired of it all. the single women made my first wife look wholesome, never again am I getting a divorce I don't care how bad things get, learned my lesson the first time. Instead, I'll just run away, and live in an all-male colony the rest of my life

I mean, our 5th year wedding anniversary is tomorrow, and the first thing she says is "I got exercise class".. so, what, u don't want to do nothing for our anniversary?.. just aggrivated me. its like, gawd, not even for our anniversary its like, forget it I give up...

Teeny boppers? Heh.

isn't that what us old folks call 'em nowadays?

I dunno, sometimes I wonder about these kids today.. perndragon is 24, and I think she's getting further away from moving out on her own then she was when she was 12. LOL

I don't understand kids no more, when I was 17, heck when I was 13, I wanted as FAR away from my parents as humanly possible.. These kids today, I dunno what it is with them, the older they get the longer they want to stay at home...its like, common pern don't u want a place of your own? I mean lordy... her fiance is the same way, he makes more at his job then kurlylox and I both do combined, yet he feels he doesn't "make enough 2 live on his own yet". they argue constantly about what their future kid(s) should and should not do, what their wedding will be like, etc etc etc, just about everything fiance's talk about while they live in that fantasy world they live in in their minds, EXCEPT finding a place to live...its like, ummm, yer NOT living here right? then she says "well we can't live together until we're married" when we bring up the fact that they have to start looking for a place BEFORE they get married.. Its like they want to wait until after their married to even start looking. kurlylox and I just look at eachother and say "ummm chapel of love?" LOLOL!!