TRYING TO STAY LOGGED ON

hamburger- Welcome to A2K. When I was using dialup, I had a program that would "ping", so my ISP "thought" that I was active- that kept me from being cut off. I can't recall the name of the program- but I'll search around and see if I can find it!

I never had this problem, so I'm so sorry that I can't help you, but I wanted to stop in to give you a big welcome to A2K :-)

I found the download- but I can't recommend it. It is called "Alive and Kicking", and it worked well. the problem was, subsequently it was discovered that the producer, "Auriate" was introducing spyware into the program.

I would suggest that you go to one of the download sites, like ZD net or CNet, and look for a program that prevents ISPs from dropppig a connection.

hi, phoenix: thanks for your interest and reply! since it's weekend i've had no problem today - no commercial users, i guess. my keyboarding skills remind me of signs that were hung in the rearwindows of the little renault cars in the 60's: "please don't honk; i'm pedalling as fast as i can!" .....well there is hope for an old dog, i hope... signing off, hamburger

Old Dogs especially welcome here- From one old dog to another!

hi gezzy and phoenix: sure nice to make new friends quickly! glad you like it in canada gezzy. we've been here since 1956(came from germany) and are happily retired in the "limestone capital of canada" (ebeth can supply more details). but i do wish it would warm up just a bit! signing off now and going to listen to the RATPACK on the internet - cool vibes! hamburger

There are lots of problems on the internet tonight. The virus has struck!

"can i keyboard offline and zap the comments into the box after going online?"

burger - I used to be on the horrid aol, and was routinely disconnected several times a night. Because of this, I used to use my word processing programs to type in while offline, and then transferred my writings (by "cutting and pasting") to wherever I was posting to online. I used either Wordpad or Notepad on my computer to type in. You should have these somewhere on your computer if you have Windows.

"Cutting and pasting" means

1) to highlight everything that you've typed by dragging your mouse across it (set the blinking cursor at the end of what you've written, hold the right mouse key down, drag the mouse upwards and to the left to the beginning of what you've written, let go of mouse button). This should highlight everything you've typed.

2) while everything is still highlighted, hold down your "CTRL" (control) key on your keyboard and tap the "C" on your keyboard. This stores everything that you highlighted in your computer's memory.

3) now that everything you highlighted is stored in the computer's memory, you can transfer it anywhere you want by simply holding down that "CTRL" key again and hitting the "V" on your keyboard ONCE.

You can test it easily with any text you want. You can hold the right mouse key down and drag it across what you are reading right now and see that this text is highlighted. Hitting "CTRL" "C" will store it in the computer's memory. Hitting "CTRL" "V" while in your word processor (or anywhere you are allowed to type) will unload what you have highlighted on to that page.

When you store something you've highlighted using "CTRL" "C", it will stay in the computer's memory until you "CTRL" "C" something else, which will write over what you had in it originally. Re-booting your computer clears the contents.

Cutting and pasting using CTRL-C and CTRL-V should work on your computer, I've never had a computer with Windows where it didn't work.

Sometimes when I find quotes or even entire articles anywhere on any webpage that I like and want to keep a copy of, I simply use this tool to copy them to my computer, by highlighting them, then clicking on CTRL-C and CTRL-V.

And welcome to a2k, I hope I haven't made things even more confusing.

Hamburger, just set your e-mail client to poll your account(s) every 5 or 10 minutes for new e-mail while you are online. Also, make sure you have disabled "Auto Disconnect" for your dial-up connection. If you need help, eiter PM me or post a question to this thread ... but those two tips should help.

Also, The 'Net itself has "Been Under Attack" the last day or so ... some wonkiness is just about inevitable. See: Internet Under Attack Just click on the colored words, and the article will open in a new page ... you can close the article when you've read it and you should be right back here. Also, down at the bottom of all of my posts are links to this Website's FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) Page and to A2K's own Help Forum ... both good places to look for answers. Just let me know if I can do anything to make this site or The Web in general less confusing for you ... I'll be glad to try to help, and so will lots of other folks here. Everybody was a newbie once.



timber

Timber- Things may be back to almost normal today. I checked my bandwith speed, and it looks so much better than last hight!
Link to Bandwidth Speed

Be sure to check all of your connections to the internet. Sometimes, I put myself off when the phone line falls out of the computer socket!!

Phoenix:

I've spent almost 36 hours trying to get into my brokerage account. Finally this a.m. at 7:30am, things are back to "normal".

Hope it stays this way!

New Haven, you hit on the number one overlooked trouble-shbooting tip there is: Is the damned thing plugged in?[/u]
Step two is "Is it plugged in correctly, and to where it should be plugged in?"
step three is: "Is what it's plugged into hooked up correctly or powered on?"



I know I'd save myself a lot of frustration and vocabulary if I used the 1-2-3 approach more consistently :wink:



timber

timber - i found that your suggestion to get email checked more frequently worked for me when i had a similar problem a couple of years ago. of course, i couldn't remember it when hamburger asked me about it - i'm glad i told him to ask you guys!

My poor headache! 36 hours of worry that someone got into my brokerage account and did evil things to my stocks!

For those interested, a good "SpeedTest" is at www.numion.com


It looks at thru-put - up AND down, and reads back sort of an average of both, giving you an ideas of how well/fast you are actually able to surf-the-net. What it does is ping out and retrieve the banners from a number of websites ... you can select US, individual countries, or world-wide. The number of banners retrieved over a given period of time (default is 30 seconds) is used to rate your speed, and to compare your speed on a chart of the last "X" # of hours for The Internet in general. It seems to be pretty accurate. NOTE: It is NOT "Download" speed; it is "Throughput ... both Up and Down.

Both www.pcpitstop.com and www.dslreports.com (you have to register, but its free and they're cool) have fairly reliable speed tests which break apart and separately list upload/download speed. PCPitstop offers a lot of tips and tests and tweaks that are of use, as does DSL Reports, both are very worthwhile.

Not speed-test, but a Browser check, is Fred Langa's excellent www.browsertune.com


Just thought I'd toss that in.


And yes, The 'Net seems OK as of yesterday afternoon/today ... but monday could be a bit rocky as machines affected over the weekend come on line with Start-of-Business. The rapid spread of the SQL worm causing the problem is due to folks who don't bother to update their Operating Systems and their third-party security software. We live in a world full of idiots ... try not to help them. Update your operating system frequently, and get, use, and constantly update security software.


timber, who still doesn't use "Preview" often enough, and had to correct those links ... sorry.

hamburger, when you sign into A2K, make sure that you check in the box that says something like "Remember my log in".

G'day Hamburger, and welcome!