Your internet connection, web sites and services.
Internet and Web
Is It Normal to Get 20% Less Than the Advertised Bandwidth Speed?
Episode 1779
Paul fromPaul is spending up to $75 a month for internet access. He's getting a notice for an alternate service for $60 a month, called WOW, and they are offering an Eero router to boot. They also promise 80% bandwidth speeds, or 800MB down. Leo says it's about right to have a 20% loss over time. But he gets a warning from his alarm service that it goes out. Leo says that Paul is using Ooma, and it could be that there's a thruput issue when balancing your ISP and your internet phone service, which your alarm uses.
NFTs Are All the Rage, but Are They Worth Millions?
Episode 1779
NFTs, or Non-Fungable Tokens, are all the rage in the digital world these days. One example is a digital artist named Beeple, who has sold digital artwork and made a pretty sizable sum: $69.3 million; the third-highest auction price achieved by a living artist. It's not the work of art itself, since that was a digital JPG, but the ownership of the art itself. It was the first digital item sold by Christie's, and they accepted payment in digital currency: Etherium.
Happy Pi Day
Episode 1779
Today, March 14th (3/14), is Pi Day! Pi is the symbol used by mathematicians to represent the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter. So have some Pie!
It's also the 15th anniversary of Amazon Web Services. S3 was the first service, and these days, just about everyone runs their storage and app traffic through Amazon S3. Leo says we can call it the official birthday of the Cloud.
Johnny Jet ... Summer is coming
Episode 1778
Johnny joins Leo to talk about how summer is coming and travel is roaring back to life. The big deal is if the vaccines will block variant Covid strains and if people will continue to follow mask protocols. Johnny hasn't been on a plane in over a year, and he's hopeful since the FAA is reporting the largest amount of air traffic since March of 2020. Internationally, it may take a bit longer. In addition to buying plane tickets, now is a good time to make car rental reservations for the summer.
How Can I Stream My Church Service?
Episode 1778
Troy fromTroy is going to be doing live streaming of his church service using the OBM project. But he is having trouble understanding how to manage multiple streams at the same time and be able to manage the ads that are put in the stream. Dubbed Content Delivery Network (CDN). Leo says that Vimeo is a good option. If only audio matters, check out IceCast and ShoutCast. But he'll have to host it himself if he goes with Icecast. Troy will also need a converter in the streaming software to put it into the IceCast format. Leo recently moved to a new hosting service to handle all that.
Residents Leaving San Francisco
Episode 1777
People are moving out of San Francisco and into the mountains. 178% more residents have fled the city of the Golden Gate in favor of greener pastures (and cheaper rent). The report also noted that fewer people have moved into California than moved out, and that those fleeing the state has dropped precipitously.
France and Spain Levy Tax on Big Tech
Episode 1777
This week, France and Spain passed a measure to levy a 3% tax on big tech's ad revenue. Google responded by raising their ad rates by 2%. The lesson here is that when taxes go up, the company will just pass that rate along to their customers.
Johnny Jet, It's all about timing
Episode 1776
Johnny Jet joins Leo to talk about timing when booking a trip. Many airlines that offered vouchers last year when flights were canceled, well those vouchers are going to be expiring soon. So it's a good idea to check your expiration dates and then book a trip to use it or lose it. Then, if you can't travel because of restrictions, you can refund or rebook for a later date. The same is true with cruises. It's also important to remember that when traveling outside the country, you will need a negative covid test to return.
Can I Edit Email I've Already Sent?
Episode 1776
Kevin fromKevin can't edit his emails in Gmail. Leo says to try choosing "edit and resend," because if he's already sent it, he can't just re-edit a sent email. It's a better idea to save the email as a draft, and then edit it before he sends it off. After the fact, he will have to Edit and Resend. He could also copy it or forward it and then edit it that way.
Why Am I Getting a Password Error With My iDrive Backup?
Episode 1775
Alan fromAlan uses iDrive for his cloud backup, and he's recently started getting a "password mismatch" error. Leo has had similar issues, and he thinks it's either security software or ad blockers that is causing that kind of issue. Sites are trying to find out more about you, and the blockers on our system and browsers are fighting against that. That prompts the page developers to try and bypass it. Leo suggests turning off wifi on your mobile device and see if you can do it. If so, you know there's something in the network router that's blocking it.