Cahc 2009

Archive for August, 2009

Unbelievable amounts of material are on the Net: programs, documents, pictures, megabyte after megabyte of swell stuff — all free for the taking. You can download it all. Don’t. Go ahead and take whatever you’re likely to use, but don’t download entire directories full of stuff “just in case.”
Your Internet provider sets its charges based on the resources a typical user uses. A single user can use a substantial fraction of the provider’s Net connection by sucking down files continuously for hours at a time. Providers typically “overcommit” their Net connection by a factor of three or so. That is, if every user tried to transfer data at full speed at the same time, it would require three times as fast a connection as the provider has. Because real users transfer for a while and then read what’s on-screen for a while, sharing the connection among all the users works out okay. (The provider is not cheating you by using this method; it’s a sensible way to provide access at a reasonable cost. Although you can get guaranteed connection performance if you want it, the price is horrifying.) If users begin using several more connections than the provider budgeted for, prices will go up.