Speedy Net
Q. What is the best program to accelerate dial-up Internet?
Carlos Milach.
milach@vetorialnet.com.br
Q. I have heard that there are some commands that boost the modem. I have an Intel 56k modem but it is not working as compared to Lucent.
Fazal Karim.
fazal790@hotmail.com
A:
Answers to the above questions. (Also see Net Basics on page 69 in hard copy on how to boost your dial-up connection). Several programs promise to speed up your connection, get your downloads to arrive faster, making Internet surfing a speedier process. Some are such a great benefit that you should download them right away, while some don't really make much of a difference. Here is a brief rundown on the various types of Internet accelerator programs out there.
Readhead Browsers
Browsing the Internet is not always the most efficient way to read data. A read ahead browser helps make your time online more efficient-it guesses which site you will go to next, and downloads pages in advance. By the time you finish reading the page you can see, your browser companion has fetched the next few pages. If it guessed correctly, the page should load much more quickly when you click the link. This type of Net accelerator is best if you tend to follow links-truly "surfing the Web." People who go straight to a page from their bookmarks, or who tend to access pages from search engines, might not notice much of an efficiency boost. In fact, downloading and storing information that you don't need can actually slow your computer down.
Download Managers
A Download Manager assists people who frequently download large files from the Internet. If you use your Web browser to download a file, you have to start the process over if your connection gets interrupted. Since this is a frequent occurrence for local dial-up users, Net users need help with their downloads.
Programs like FlashGet, GetRight and Go!Zilla, enable you to resume your download where you left off, even days later. If your connection is slow at night, you can pause your downloads, go to bed, and resume them the next day-or the next week-when the Net might be less congested. The other advantage of the download manager is the ability to speed up the download process.
GetRight, for example, checks the Internet's most popular download sites for extra copies of the download you want. It may find an exact copy of the program you are downloading at any of the hundreds of Tucows mirror sites, or at an FTP site run by a university somewhere. It tests each of those sites to find out which is the quickest at the moment, and redirects your download to that new site.
FlashGet opens up several simultaneous requests for your file. The Internet site thinks that many people are asking for the file, and sends it out to each of them in pieces. Your computer picks up all of those pieces, and assembles the whole program. Since your information is spread over several connections, the entire process can be completed in as quickly as half the time.
Q. What is the history of bugs? Are there any bugs built in any OS?
Nabeel.
paknabeel@hotmail.com
A:
In computer technology, a bug is a coding error in a computer program. (this includes the microcode that is manufactured into a microprocessor.) The process of finding bugs before program users do is called debugging. Consequently, no bugs are built into a programme or an operating system. The programmers try their best to remove all bugs before the software is released. However, the larger the code the greater the chance of many bugs going unnoticed. To remove bugs found after release, software updates are released which patch the buggy code with rewritten clean code.
American engineers have been calling small flaws in machines "bugs" for over a century. Thomas Edison talked about bugs in electrical circuits in the 1870s. When the first computers were built during the early 1940s, people working on them found bugs in both the hardware of the machines and in the programs that ran them.
In 1947, engineers working on the Mark II computer at Harvard University found a moth stuck in one of the components. They taped the insect in their logbook and labeled it "first actual case of bug being found." The words "bug" and "debug" soon became a standard part of the language of computer programmers.
Q. What is the process of submitting websites in top search engines? How can we get our site in the top 10 listing?
Muhammad Hussain.
hussainyousaf@hotmail.com
A:
There are two ways to submit to search engines and directories, manually or using an automated submission tool. Here is a summary of both methods.
Manual Submission - Use the Add URL form from the search engine site itself. This way, you have absolute control over where your site is submitted. However, this process is a very time consuming and labor intensive activity. Some search engines bury their Add URL form so far down in the site that one wonders if they are intentionally trying to thwart potential applicants.
Automated Submission Tool - Fill in the data once and the tool automatically submits your URL to multiple engines. It is a fast, easy one step process and you only have to fill in the data forms once.
Search engines use a ranking algorithm to determine the order in which matching Web pages are returned on the results page. Each web page is graded on the number of the search terms it contains, where the words are located in the document, and other criteria that changes frequently.
All search engines have a different method of ranking. That's why you might rank number 1 on one engine and number 25 on another. Robots look for relevance and rank results on a secret ever-changing algorithm. Some look at TITLE, some look at META tags, some look for link popularity. Search engine optimization means optimizing the website for the best possible positioning based on the page's keywords and description.
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