So anyway Comcast says they are putting a cap (limit) on the amount of data transfer they will allow per month at 250GB's. This isn't new news. It's been circulating for a few weeks. I wondered what this would do to people who downloaded movies and stuff. I am a power user, usually on here a minimum of 8 to 10 hours a day fiddling around, and I got to thinking, how much data transfer do I use? Anyone know of any app that can realistically monitor that? I'm sure that if Comcast implements this the other biggie ISP's will follow suit, unless there is a major backlash, which I don't mind telling you, I'd love to see, especially after their recent throttling escapades got them in trouble with the FCC. They provided the media with the following figures: customers would have to do one of the following: send 50 million e-mails; download 62,500 songs; download 125 standard-definition movies; or upload 25,000 high-resolution digital photos. I think people are gonna say "well anyone using that much needs to be controlled. The problem I have is, when the monetary savings come in they might just say "because of increased customers the current limit is no longer relevant and we are going to lower the limit to 150GB's" or some such thing. Either that or we are going to see a tiered system, which probably will cost more for the lowest tier than the $15US I'm now paying monthly for this crappy 1.25MB/s connection I have. Whatever the future holds I'm sure we will be getting less for more.

Just about 2 minutes ago Google started allowing downloads of it's new browser "Chrome" I think I'll wait a day or so before trying it myself. How about you? do you think you'll give it a go?
http://gears.google.com/chrome/?hl=en

NetLimiter will monitor your usage, the monitor version is free:
http://www.netlimiter.com/download.php

It can show you your per-app or overall usage. I've been using it for a while, here's my stats since my last Windows install:
--> http://i34.tinypic.com/255ly5u.jpg


So I'm not too worried about using 250GB in a single month. Although that cap is bulls**t, if you ask me. To quote myself from another thread:

So they're now only allowing people to use 10% of what they're paying for. 5% if you're on a 16Mb connection.


Are you paying $15 for 1.25MBps or Mbps? 1.25MBps (10Mbps) for $15 isn't a bad deal at all ...

Reminds me of a thing I read about the cost of texting. When you tally up the amount of data your sending and the cost per bit, you're paying the equivalent of $1700US a month for your texting service. I'll check that link out thanks.

Edit: It's Mb/s

Google Chrome. It's nice. I like it. But I want to customise my tool bar. I'd my favs
to be in the same area as they were in explorer. I like how it has the spell check,
but it is quite laggy in the bookmark/favs menu. I have to work out how to tweak the
registry for this one. This's all in 2 mins of installation. I think I'm going to like this...

http://www.google.com/chrome/eula.html

Anyone having trouble downloading try this link.

It would be nice if "Incognito" mode would go through Tor.

All in all ... I'll be sticking with Firefox. I've become reliant on the vast number of extensions I use.

Ya I have always hated Firefox but now that I've been using it since they quit updating Deepnet, I am getting the add-ons figured and am kinda liking it. The best thing though is the IE Tab add-on that lets me even do my updates in Firefox. Now I feel like I'm totally free from ever having a need to use IE again. I wish that now that I have Yahoo set as my default mail service, I'd love to figure out how to open my mailto: links in Firefox (which they do) without IE opening with it simultaneously. I realize Chrome is a beta but they are gonna need a lot more features before I take it seriously (I lied and downloaded it today).

I too hated Firefox when it came out ... I used plain-jane Mozilla for so long before that. When they stopped updating Mozilla, I gave Firefox a whirl and we've been making sweet sweet love ever since. <3

The Internet and cell phones are two largest scams in America right now and have been for over a decade. Instead of pushing the technology figuring out how to do more with less, they keep using the same s**t and see their expenditures decline as usage increases. Obviously, the answer to that is to find an "acceptable" way to keep people from using their service. For cell phones, that's in the form of "minutes" and for the Internet, it is in the form of a bandwidth cap.

What are the solutions to this? I hate to say it but the answer is probably government control...like the roads. The Federal Aid Highway Act of 1956 basically acknowledge that the roads are critical for national defense--the same argument could be made for the Internet. I think that the private sector has really dropped the ball on the Internet and is doing nothing that favors the consumer. At bare minimum, we need an agency that audits ISPs for consumer fairness. For instance, if one town gets 2 Mb/s Internet for $20/mon and 8 miles down the road, it costs $40/mon for a 128 kb/s connection, something needs to be done about that. The Internet has really passed the point where it can't be treated as a luxury...but as a necessity. Prices like that are simply unacceptable.

Perhaps the best solution is to federally sponsor research into Internet 2.0. That is, an infrastructure to carry us into the next 20+ years. Internet 1.0 is limited to 4.7 billion routers, switches, and clients due to IP Address v4 limitations. There is already motions to adapt v6...and all I can say to that is it will be more catastrophic than the switch to DTV because almost nothing out there currently supports it. If you can't view this page, you're network will need to be updated: http://ipv6.google.com/

I know those statements are quite mixed up but do ponder them. The future looks bleak for the Internet as a whole.


About Chrome, I have no reason to ditch IE7. XD

netmeter does it too
http://www.download.com/Net-Meter/3000-2155_4-10435551.html

i am using the google chrome beta right now. pretty simple, very fast. i like it

I'm not liking Chrome too much as a whole at this point. I like the look in vista but it needs more customization as well as optimizations for the DOM handlers. I noticed it decided to squish HWA over to the left side vs the content section in the middle take up most of the screen. I realize that it's in beta but it's got a ways, I like some of their ideas though about the main page when you open it up and everything. I currently have a similar system just with bookmarks I have in my marker's bar up top, the mini visual is a nice touch. I've realized that I can't live without my Ad-Block though, the pages are just too clean to put up with ads in a different window.

I have 7mbit and my limit is 20GB, then I get charged $2.95c per GB after that. I always go around $100 over....

You all know me by now, and I'm a bit of a conservative, except by Ford's perspective (he's to the right of Ghenis Khan!)

What I find interesting in this "transfer limitting" approach to managing availibility of bandwidth, is that the techonlogically cheap bandwidth that is available across fiber today exceeds the capacity, at least in N. America, that is actually being used.

The biggest cost associated with interconnectivity is the actual laying of copper or fiber. The Marconi, Juniper, Nortel, Cisco, et all switches cost less, much less, than the actual cost of laying inexpensive fiber. New module cost within these switches is offset by the uptake in client services. We have gone from a single 1GB window, to 64 window and even higher channels without changing the fiber at all. There is no technological limit as of yet reached that would require a fiber infrastructural change.

I started working with Fiber Optic Networks during the 1980's, and at that time 1Mb/s was concidered to be the max for a single window. We now have 10GB/Window, and over 64 windows available, PER FIBER PAIR!

The reason I said it is interesting is that there is a major push by service providers, some of which are also connectivity providers, that YOU and BUISNESSES offload your DATA STORAGE to the Internet. Whether this be BACKUP (in which case I'd overrun the 250GB/month on a weekly basis), or the SHARING concept, (In which case you could very well be overflowing it on a monthly basis), it remains that most of these services are "FREE", but by RECHARGING for the throughput that these APPLICATIONS require, they are actually increasing thier bottom line by making you dependent on them.

Don't get me off on the SECURITY or PRIVACY issues associated with these things.

The services that are being offered may be a ploy to get you to depend upon high bandwidth usage just so they can raise there bottom line. Conspiracy?

I do think so. Thus ends my random rambling on tues/wed.

There was another on line data storage firm that lost a lot of data just the other day. And that wasn't the first time. It seems to me a company going for online storage needs a back up in which case why bother with online storage anyway?

No content blocker

Opera remains.

I was just laughing at 2 associated press stories.

Review: Google Chrome lacks polish under the hood
By PETER SVENSSON, AP Technology Writer

Google polishes product line with Chrome browser
By MICHAEL LIEDTKE, AP Technology Writer

My favorite lines out of the two stories combined?



It's been out one day, is totally featureless and is already being touted as a Firefox killer. By the way, my old browser Deepnet could input addresses and search terms both in the same address bar for more than 4 years. I wonder why they are calling that such a major innovation in Chrome. And a button on the tool bar could take me to a new interface with 5 news search engines to choose from and all my RSS feeds without opening a new instance of the browser. Ya I'm liking Firefox, but Deepnet was a cool browser.

I think I'm gonna be hype sick before the week is out with this Chrome crap.

Why would anyone want to make a browser in the first place? What exactly do they get from it? Internet Explorer was released to provide means to update Windows which they got sued over and no longer do. Except that one instance, what do Google, Opera, Microsoft, Apple, etc. get from making a browser? Is it just a fiscal blackhole?

What do they get?
For one thing, stickyness. By default all these browsers will take you to a associated home, search, favorites, etc., sites, thus exposing you to the advertising. This is where they get thier money, on the clickthroughs on their sites. It's the same for all the toolbars and other dodads, etc.

A second thing, code dependency. From the underlying APIs, to the plugins and developer packages, they build a specific resource pool assosiated with thier specific browsers, thus increase thier market penitration in other application areas.

A third thing, name/market recognition. If you can do something differently and get others to follow suit, you increase your marketing possition for other products.

Ya, what Gerritt said. Google is wanting it's own browser so it can interface more easily with some of it's on line services such as their office suite which they want to compete with MSOffice. But they are offering it as an on line service instead of a program to download and install on your system. I believe they also have a Photo editing suite also that's currently on line, that works with the browser.

Google already has Toshiba in their ass pocket. XD


But yeah, that makes sense. Ever IE I ever seen defaults to "Live Search" and msn.com home page (I prefer "about:blank" so no, spank you). I obviously change it every time and say no to all the damn toolbar offers so those little adverts completely missed my attention.

I find it hard to believe that those little, optional things can justify the massive expenditures in producing good web browsing software though.

You have to understand that the original Mozzila, or Opera browsers were not major undertakings. Or massive expenditures.
I remember a time of STML before HTML. I also remember the original w3.org and the internet before commercial postings.
All great things!