www.ozspeedtest.com

It appears to work very well, and has links to a number of mirrors run by ISPs and web hosts. So, chances are, if your ISP is in the list you can conduct a test without actually adding to your usage.

I’m using Internode, and I moved us onto a new plan the other day. We unfortunately can’t get ADSL2, but our new speed is, I must admit, very nice:

Test run on 04/07/2007 @ 08:44 PM

Mirror: Internode
Data: 15 MB
Test Time: 20.39 secs

Your line speed is 6.15 Mbps (6146 kbps).
Your download speed is 768 KB/s (0.75 MB/s).

Mmmmmmmm.

To start off, I’m going to be writing a few articles aimed a bit more at the non-technical people. I’ll be writing about The Alternatives.

It strikes me how so many people stick with the status quo when it comes to IT, even though in the vast majority of cases there are far superior offerings available with much better value for money – some of them free.

For example, so many people continue to use Internet Explorer when Firefox and Opera are available. And in Australia, so many people buy Internet access and phone services from Telstra and Optus without even knowing about all the smaller companies that provide much better customer service for a cheaper price. Or without understanding that VoIP really will save you over 50% of your phone bill.

People need to be educated.

So that’s what this next series of posts will aim to do. The first one is out: What are the alternatives to paying for software? Are they worth it?

In summary:

• del.icio.us is pretty cool
• digg is a bit of a waste of time
• What does Technorati actually do again?

To anyone who hasn’t taken advantage of social bookmarking sites yet, I’d strongly recommend checking out del.icio.us. As someone who uses multiple computers every day (work PC, home PC, and laptop), I warmly welcome an easy way of sharing my many bookmarks. A Firefox extension plugs right in and makes bookmarking as easy as it has always been.

To anyone who hasn’t come across the concept of ‘tagging’ before, del.icio.us lets you tag your links to enable you to quickly find them later. For example, I might tag a link on Firefox vulnerabilities as “browser, firefox, security”. This way, I can see at a glance all the links I have saved in these categories. New ‘categories’/'tags’ are created each time I save a new page with that tag. A common tag is something like ‘toread’ when one comes across something that looks great… but that they don’t have the time to delve into at that point.

‘Keywords’ is another good term to use to describe the tag idea, actually.

As far as the social side of del.icio.us goes, I haven’t really looked into it that much yet. There is a ‘network’ feature, where you can subscribe to links saved by multiple other people that you like, and the front page of del.icio.us also shows what’s hot right now. You can also see how many other people have saved the links you’ve saved, and each time you save a link del.icio.us uses previous saves to recommend the best tags to you.

As for digg, all it really consists of is people finding good stories, posting them, and then other people “digging” them if they like them. The most popular current stories are shown on the digg home page, thus giving them more exposure for the limited time that they’re up there. Stories range from all sorts of things such as images of the sun to 31 ways to tie your shoe laces, and from Firefox memory usage to the new CEO of Pepsi.

If you have a lot of spare time on your hands, then digg sure is a way to come across some interesting stories. If you don’t have that time though, I’d recommend spending it on something a little more productive.

Over the next short while I’ll be posting more about the sites I’ve been coming across recently. There’s so many great free things out there that people either don’t hear about, or couldn’t be bothered trying because they don’t know how to use them. I’m going to talk about and document some features of these services, to hopefully steer more people towards using them.

- First, install the Messenger Plus plugin if you don’t have it already (if you haven’t got it, you’ve been missing out on all the functionality it adds to an otherwise quite boring Messenger interface! )
- Next, install StuffPlug, a plugin for Messenger Plus

Once you’ve installed and restarted and everything, open Messenger and sign in. Click the new Plus menu, then Preferences. Select Plugins on the left, click StuffPlug and then Configure. The second option from the top is the one you want to select…and there you go!

Barry Welford pointed it out on Cre8asite this morning.

The presentation covers the creation of the Internet in 1989 till when the New York Times is taken offline in 2014. It covers the creation of the Google Grid in 2006, and Google and Amazon’s merging in 2008 – creating the challenge to Microsoft, Googlezon.

Microsoft will fade away into history, and Larry and Sergey will be the world’s richest businessmen. Everything will be done online, and every person will have instantaneous access to the Internet wherever and whenever they want. The New York Times will “become a print only newsletter for the elite and elderly.”

On a related note, all this change brings us more towards the paradox of our time in history. As “we build more computers to hold more information to produce more copies than ever, but have less communication…”

And, as a sidenote, Googlezon domains have already been registered in most spaces – damn, I was beaten to it .