Category: Windows Vista

Using Skype with Cellular BroadBand Modems

Paul

If your like me you will want to make sure you have the best possible speed and connection with your broad band modem. Here are a few articles to better help with you get the best possible speed with a broad band modem like a Cricket modem:

Some other things to consider are:

These will start to make it better for you to use a modem and get the best possible speeds from the modem.  You have to realize what your coverage area is.  There are many factors in regards to your modem speed but that is something that you will have to figure out how to get better speeds.

How do you use Skype with your Cellular broad band modem?

Somethings to remembers with your broadband modem is you won’t have a good connection no matter how hard you try.   Most cellular carriers don’t want you to us it with VOIP(Voice of Internet Protocol).   So you will have to pay close attention to how you use the bandwidth and what you are doing while making a VOIP call.

The good thing about Skype is, it comes with some very useful tools to better watch your bandwidth and to help get the best possible connection.  You will want to make sure not to have it be a super-node, to do this you go to:

Tools then;Options

My settings for Skype with Cricket<

As you can see I checked off use port 80 and 443 as alternative incoming connections, I also like to see all the technical information and bandwidth usage per call.  I made sure to use Socks5 to prevent skype from becoming a super-node. I also have it set to not automatically start up when I load windows.  To do that all you have to do is go to the General tab and un-check start Skype when Windows start.   You can use any port you want as long as you use the same on the SOCKs5 setting also.   I just made the port up it can be 0 to 4 numbers long.   If you want to understand what ports are this little document will greatly help you figure out which ports are good to use.  Some other things to remember when you use Skype for long periods of time is if you need to call someone you should try not to use the internet to much for that takes bandwidth also.  It is better to have Skype use all the possible bandwidth you have available.

BREAKING NEWS : Microsoft issues 961509

Paul

Microsoft as issued an new security advisory about the possible way someone might be able to take your sensitive information using an invalid digital signature:
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Microsoft is aware that research was published at a security conference proving a successful attack against X.509 digital certificates signed using the MD5 hashing algorithm. This attack method could allow an attacker to generate additional digital certificates with different content that have the same digital signature as an original certificate. The MD5 algorithm had previously shown a vulnerability, but a practical attack had not yet been demonstrated.

[via Windows Technet]

Although Microsoft has stated in the advisory most companies are using the SHA-1 algorithm.  Some are still using the MD5 and should stop using it immediately.   Microsoft says there is none in the wild but you can be bet on it someone will do it sooner or later.  Certificate Authorities should stop using MD5 and go to a much stronger better Algorithm. This is what Microsoft is saying and they aren’t providing much information for the end-user on how to prevent from using MD5 certificates on your system. You can remove the MD5 certificate manually if you are a system administor and want to protect the computers at the office.  Please don’t do this unless you know what your doing, you could very well break your system if you did something like this.

Upcoming CES 2009 — Juicy Stories

Paul

So we are getting close to CES or Computer Electronics Show to some.  This is going to be a very interesting year, due to the depressing economy.   So I wanted to talk about some of the upcoming announcements at CES so people could get ready for the upcoming 2009 Show:

  • Skype will announce free US and Canada calling to cellular numbers or land lines.  This will undoubtedly be an Ad supported service and have a limited amount of minutes per call.  This will be good for people on the road who need to make a quick call here and there without having to pay for anything.  They have given some of the tidbits out already but I can’t wait to find out what else they will announce at CES.

  • [ad#cricket-1-1]Windows 7 Beta — People seem to think they will release the beta the same day they announce just like they did at the PDC(Professional Developers Conference) and also give it out to people at CES.  Although that might work to a point it will be very hard for people to get in the BETA.  There is a list brewing of people wanting to get onto the beta in the Microsoft Connection Community Site.  I can’t wait for next month but I am sure it is going to be nice.

  • Windows Live Beta — Here is another Microsoft product that might also be combined with Windows 7, it is a possibility and might be intergrated into Windows 7 for some but I am not sure what will happen all to much.  I am sure they will announce something about this at CES and only time will tell.

  • IE 8 Beta — Although this isn’t something unexpected.  It however will be interesting to see how they throw this one out to testers because they will undoubtedly test it on Windows 7 and they will be sending these out in the same time.   I think they will be also intergrating this into Windows 7 Beta release as if it will be on the new system.  I do not know what they are going to do but I am sure something will happen.

[ad#ad2-left]This is just a small bit of possible out comes, and there is still more to come.  I wanted to point out that these are not confirmed and should be considered as a rumor nothing more nothing less.  Don’t put to much money on what will happen to much.  We do know that the Betas are probably going to come out due to Microsoft announcing these to be out by the first of year.   Only time will tell for what will happen in the coming year though.  I can’t wait to find out what happens.

Getting better speeds from your Cellular broadband!

Paul3 Replies

If your like me and you want to get better than expected speeds from web pages loading.  It sometimes frustrates people that the speed of web page loading is slow to some people others like me always expect it to be slow.   This is the downside of having a mobile internet, because of the locations of the cell towers and if there is any interference to or from the tower.  This is always going to be a problem with this technology, if something is going on the network it will undoubtedly slow you down.    So what can you do to speed up the web page loading and other web site functions.   Here are some great list of available ways to get a little more speed from your modem:

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  • Google Gears — This is one of those little extensions that will Run JavaScript in the background to improve performance.  Although this is something you can use on all your website but if you like to go to certain websites alot for games or online interactions, who use JavaScrip will speed up your internet experience.

  • FasterFox —  This is for Firefox only.  What it does is : Prefetch Links, Page Load Timer, and Block Popups. This starts caching some of the pages to better help with web browsing.  Although this is good by itself.  I find that it is better to use this with some of the other programs.

  • RabbIT—  is a web proxy that speeds up web surfing over slow links by doing: Compress text pages to gzip streams. This reduces size by up to 75%, Compress images to 10% jpeg. This reduces size by up to 95%, Remove advertising, Remove background images, and Cache filtered pages and images.  This is pretty good for web access and seems to work well with Broad Band modem.

[ad#tmi-left-1]These are a few that I found to better help people who have cellular broadband to get a boost of speed from there service.  Although this might not work on all networks due to the restrictions of some of the network policies this will at least help out with some.  I’ll be trying this out on my Cricket modem later this month to see if it is good for that service.

Pctv HD Mini Stick and My thoughts!

Paul

Pctv HD Mini Stick

  • Includes mini-remote control and high-gain telescopic antenna

  • Compact size HDTV tuner for easy travel and storage

  • Instantly turn your PC into a personal digital video recorder

  • Record your favorite shows to your hard drive or direct-to-DVD

  • TV Standards – ATSC (HDTV up to 1080i, SDTV) and ClearQAM (HDTV up to 1080i, SDTV) Inputs

Price: Click Link to See the Price

Just saw this and couldn’t resist talking about it.  This would be great on the road.  If you use this on a laptop, then you would have some really good channels as you travel on the road.  No more having to watch movies on your laptop.   You can now see the current events as you travel around the US.  With the Digital change over Coming Feburary 17, 2009.  You’ll want to have a way to watch TV, this would be one way.  Right now Amazon is offering it for 112.22 but that could change so check the link out to find out how much it is.