Computers 101

Q:
My cable company bragged about how much faster a cable modem was compared to dial-up, so I went with them. It was faster, at first, but sometimes it seems as slow as my old phone line connection. What gives?

A:
Sure cable modems have the potential of reaching speeds of 3Mbps, but keep in mind that you share a wire buried underground with everyone in your neighborhood. Think of it this way: your car can do about 120-160 mph, but in rush hour traffic you probably end up doing about 30 mph. The more cars on the road, the slower you end up going. Similarly, as more people use cable modems in your area, the slower your connection gets during peak hours.

You are not guaranteed a certain amount of bandwidth for your personal use—you must compete with everyone else online at that time. Most cable internet providers allocate certain amounts of band width for different areas. If you live in an area with many cable modem users, then expect occasionally slow connections.

If it really gets bad, I guess you could get together with your neighbors and bug your cable company until they give you all extra capacity.

That would be a whole lot nicer than sneaking around at night cutting your neighbor's cables (not that you'd ever do that ;-)

~ David

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Tip of the Day

I burned a bunch of pictures to CD-R then sent it off to my mother-in-law. She eagerly popped it into her computer in anticipation of seeing pictures of her grandkids, but then couldn't figure out how to view them. This is no longer a problem thanks to a free Windows XP Power Tool called CD Slide Show Generator.

Now when I burn pictures to a CD-R using XP's built in CD burner I can tell it to add a picture viewer. When the disk is put in the drive the pictures automatically come up as a slide show. The disk will even play on computers with Windows 98 and ME, but you need XP to make one.

"OK, you have us drooling, so what do we do?"

First, you need to download the program file from the MS PowerToys for XP website...
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/pro/downloads/powertoys.asp

Over in the right-hand column under "Download" find CD Slide Show Generator and click the link. Even with a slow modem it should only take a few minutes. Once downloaded, install the program (if you need any help with this, visit our Downloading Guide). Once installed, don't go searching around trying to find a program to run—it's now a built in feature of XP's CD recording wizard.

Now we're ready to burn a slide show CD. If you don't know how to use XP's CD burning program, head over to our CD burning tutorial and scroll down to "Burning with Windows XP"...
http://www.worldstart.com/tips/file-management/howto-burn-a-cd.htm

The burning process will proceed as usual until a screen comes up that asks, "Do you want to make a picture CD?" and it tells you about the picture viewer feature.

Choosing Yes will add the picture viewer to the disk. That's it—one little button click will make this picture CD into an autorun slide show. The rest of the burning process will finish as usual.

What if you want to add more pictures after burning? No problem, just follow the normal procedure for burning CDs again. Even with a CD-R in the drive, XP's burner allows multiple sessions when you are burning data. This time, however, you won't be asked to add the picture viewer because it's already there.

Pop the finished disk into any computer with Windows 98, ME, or XP and the slide show will start right up.

At the top of the screen is a gray navigation bar that allows you to start, pause, or close the slide show. You can also use the forward and back buttons to manually change the picture (the left and right arrow keys on your keyboard will work too).

One last thing... to print the pictures, open them in imaging software, or save them to your hard drive, just use your normal methods. All the files remain as JPEGs, just like any data CD full of picture files.

It's a simple program, so you can't adjust how often the slide changes or anything, but hey, what do you want for nothing?

~ David

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Amanda's Cool Site of the Day

The Joy of Shards

I love mosaics—whether in tile or stained glass, they are absolutely lovely. If you like mosaics, you are going to love the Joy of Shards. At this site you can learn about mosaics and how to make them yourself with their step-by-step instruction section.

Check out the spiffy Tour section, where you can view mosaics from Italy, France, Spain and the UK with virtual tours. This section is not to be missed, and is utterly fantastic.

With beautiful photos, and easy to understand language I think you are going to love this site.

Mosey on over!

http://www.thejoyofshards.co.uk/

Do you have a cool, non-commercial site that you want to share?
Send it to Amanda at amanda@worldstart.com