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| Choosing an Internet service provider. |
October 26th 1997 |
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To begin I must admit that this is a difficult subject to write a short essay or paragraph on. I do have to
assume some knowledge and I have to also ask you to take my word in some other places. Anything more in-depth would
either be a lengthy series of articles, or even a book.
Choosing an Internet service provider I feel is worth while subject. I talk to so many people who are at a
disadvantage, and for a lack of a better explanation, being "ripped off". Service and capabilities vary
so much from ISP to ISP that I sometimes find it hard to believe that we are all on the same network.
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| October 19th 1997 |
Kill Filters For News groups |
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Unfortunately spamers (someone who advertises or posts or EMails irrelevant information to millions of individuals)
are taking over The news groups(Usenet groups). There is still a lot of good information of be found and the news
groups can be one of the most valuable sources of files and information the Internet has to offer. Valuable information
can be found, but who has time to dig through the world's largest electronic box of "Cracker Jacks" to
find a prize? The answer is kill filters! Kill filters can be found in many of the best news readers such as Free Agent by Forte . Filters can be found by right
clicking the mouse over a given field and following the on screen options. Then there is the option of killing
a certain poster, article type or keywords etc. It takes no more then a minimum of experimentation, and we can
once again call the Internet "the information superhighway"
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| proprietary equipment |
October 12th 1997 |
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In the days when I did more hardware one of my difficulties was the upgrading and trouble shooting of proprietary
equipment. I classify proprietary as follows: Something that is designed for a manufacture's or company's benefit
with out regards to industry standards. For example, New computer users often fall pray to manufactures who put
together computer systems in hopes that they have a customer for life, as upgrades are only possible through the
company in which the computer system was purchased.
Bear in mind that most companies will be proprietary to an extent. In this respect computer systems are like
auto mobiles. Compaq is an excellent example of this practice! Beware the purchase of something as simple as a
new CD ROM drive As you will need the special Compaq mounting rails that can only be purchased from Compaq. The
systems boards do not have a bios installed (chip that defines the system settings and the hardware before boot)
As most system boards do. The bios is on the hard drive and if formatted you need Compaq's "special"
CD with everything on it. If this CD is lost good luck! I am shore that Compaq will charge you dearly for the privilege
of buying a copy!
So whom else do we look out for? I'd have to say that almost every company is proprietary to some extent. There
are exceptions like Micron. These systems are to my knowledge the absolute best. They adhere to standards well
and use the very best of all hardware! I have yet to see any component on these machines that is proprietary in
anyway. Micron computer systems are a little more expensive but I can not over emphasize how much better spent
this extra money is. With this little bit of knowledge go out and research! Try not to buy what you really don't
want.
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