Showing posts with label Download. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Download. Show all posts

Friday, October 9, 2015

Internet Speed Tests

Hi All,

It takes bandwidth - think lots of fiber optic cables and such - to get your videos, chats, pictures, Instagram stuff and more to your house.  But how fast is my computer you might be asking?

Good question...there are lots of internet speed tests out there on the web.  Some might ask you to download software in order to perform the test...I prefer not to download software due to the spam/virus/malware threat that software downloads can create...

So...you might want to do an internet speed test using any of these free speed tests...
AT&T Speed Test
Test Your Broadband Speed
SpeakEasy Speed Test 
TestMy.net
Top Tips to Speed Up Your Internet Service

Enjoy the sites - hope your upload and download speed are really, really fast!

Regards,
Stu




Monday, June 22, 2015

Publications.USA.gov

Hi All,

Just a quickie post today about a US government site called Publications.USA.gov.  What is the site about?  Simple, it's a federal website where citizens can order government publications. 

Specifically the FCIC (Federal Citizen Information Center) has been "a trusted one-stop source for answers to questions about consumer problems and government services. "  Publications.USA.gov has replaced the old Pueblo, Colorado website.  For more information about the organization, click on this link. 

Users can search for publications by using drop-down menus on the homepage.  Categories include Animals, Cars, Computers, Education, Family, Health, Housing, Money and Travel among others.  Material can be ordered in printed, pdf, e-reader or online format.  Material also comes in Spanish and English.  Finally, users can search for publications using a text search which is also on the homepage.

Instead of using the drop-down menu's at the top of the page, users can choose categories at the left side of the homepage...(same categories are listed as in the drop-down menu).

Features publications are listed on the right side of the page (and are hyperlinked).  Examples of featured publications when I was writing this entry included 'Men: Stay Health at Any Age', 'Buying a Used Car', and 'How to Fix Mistakes in Your Credit Card Bill'.  

Note: not all publications need to be ordered.  In fact, many of the publications can be viewed online directly on the site by the viewer.  Advantages: You can see the publication directly and then you can decide whether or not print them out on your printer....

The 2015 Consumer Action Handbook is available on the site as well - which is a very, very popular publication!

And...users can sign up for email for free email updates on nearly topics (including benefits, grants, financial aid, health and nutrition, money, and taxes. Users can sign up for free email updates or to access subscribers preferences by clicking on this link.

Site users can order publications by catalog item number as well - click link for more information.

Finally, in order to display the variety of publication topics available on the site, I did a deep-dive in the the list of education publications.

Preparing For College
Examples of publications include:
Choosing Your Student Loan
Choosing a College: 8 Questions to Ask
Funding Your Education
My Future My Way: First Steps Toward College

Preschool
Helping Yor Child Become a Reader
Helping Your Preschool Child
Toddlers Get Ready to Read: How Parents Can Help Their Toddlers Get Ready to Read

K-12 Years
Choosing a School For Your Child
Extracurricular Activities: The Afterschool Connection
Imagine! Introducing Your Child to the Arts
Parent Power: Build the Bridge to Success

And on and on it goes...what a great free site from the federal government!

Enjoy the links and the publications.

Regards,
Stu

Thursday, October 10, 2013

Thoughts on Websites


Hi All,

What do Yahoo!, Google, Amazon.com, About.com, Bartleby.com, Google Groups, Google News, CNN, Ebay and Download.com have in common?

And you can't even use the title of this blog post to help you since I purposely tried to make it vague and 'confusing'.  Give up? 


Well, these are the 'Top 10 Best Websites' according to a website called 100bestwebsites.org. Click on the link to visit the site. Some of the sites on the list you might be familiar with and others you might not have heard of, but one thing you'll realize: this is a very eclectic and varied list!  Happy searching!

And while the top 10 on the list aren't much of a surprise, 11-20 include the following: Craigslist, Reference.com, Wikipedia, Beliefnet. Anywho, Weather, Search.com, Hotmail, NIH and CNET round out the top 20.  Personally I was surprised to see Beliefnet and NIH in the top 20.

What about the bottom 10 you ask? Interesting question and the bottom tenth of the list is filled with sites as varied as Classical.net, Blogger, NYTimes.com, Earthcam,com, BBB.org, Intelihealth, LiveJournal, BBC Faith, ArtsJournal, TicketMaster and Gutenberg.net.  Surprises?  You bet.  Have I visited all of these sites? Nope - but the list is definitely interesting for those who want to visit popular sites that they haven't visited before. 

BTW, 1-2 sentence summaries of each site is included on the list.  Neat way to learn about sites you've never heard of before. 

100BestWebsites.org is updated frequently and there is no registration required.  The site is free and they don't accept compensation from any of the sites listed.  Click on this link to learn about their 21 criteria to judge website quality.  Again, interesting stuff, but you'll probaby want to to explore various websites first...like #35 Sciam.com (Scientific American), or #56 ArtForum or #77 (Pogo - games)...

One beef I have with the site...no pictures and the sites should be organized by subject.

Enjoy and go forth and search, search, search!

Regards,
Stu