Posts Tagged ‘tips’

The Awesomeness of the Awesome Bar

Friday, March 26th, 2010

I have a “take it or leave it”/”if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” attitude towards most software upgrades, but the newest version of Firefox brought something with it that really caught my fancy — The Awesome Bar. While the name may seem kind of lame, I must admit that it really has changed my browsing experience for the better.

The Mozilla site describes the details on this page, but my description when I try to convince people of its greatness is that it allows you to re-browse to sites based on content and context. When it comes to typing URL’s into the address/location bar, we have had URL autocomplete for some time now, but that just covered the specific text of a URL – the Awesome Bar has moved us beyond that.

Here is an example of what makes it magnificent (now resorting to synonyms for awesome):

It is March. That means only one thing. March Madness.  We have a little annual office pool here at Indra’s Net. This year I have named my bracket The Gleam (note on that below) . We run the pool via Yahoo and I like to check in on that page frequently during the three weeks of the tourney. Call me lazy or OCD, but I don’t like bookmark clutter – I don’t really want to waste time setting up a new bookmark for my team and then have to delete it in three weeks, or worse yet, forget to delete it and leave myself with a stale bookmark. Fortunately, my lazy/neurotic life is made easier with the (You-know-what) Bar. Check out this screenshot:

It’s a bit fuzzy, but you can see that by simply typing “Gleam” into the address bar, I am then one click away from getting to my bracket page. Truth be told, it was actually the top result after typing in just a “g”. That’s pretty convenient and tidy if you ask me. Some other quick examples:

  • I recently enjoyed a video of the 1978 AFC Championship game on Youtube. To find it again, I just typed “AFC” in the address bar, which saved me the steps of having to go to Youtube and re-search.
  • My wife and I are currently shopping for a new water heater – typing in “heater” in the address bar brings up a long list of pages that I have already visited on the subject and I can then resume my information gathering wherever I like.

If you read the Mozilla page and check out the video, you can see that there is a lot more that you can do as far as customizing and enhancing your experience of awesomeness, but I am sufficiently impressed by the basics of the bar for now. And, for the record, I do realize that other browsers have similar functions and other folks may find them Awesomer, but I am a Firefox user and can only speak from my experience with that browser.

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Gleam note: If you have read this far and are curious, I got the name from this NFL films video over at Hulu. Check out Schottenheimer’s speech at 3:40 – that has to be the worst pre-game speech from a coach that I have ever heard. Talk about the Elway Magic all you want, but I think Marty doomed the Browns with that speech before the game even started.

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Getting the most out of your email with Indra’s Net

Wednesday, October 28th, 2009

As a support representative at Indra’s Net, one of the more frequent calls that I take has to do with customers who are having trouble accessing their mail with us.  Some of the time, this can be due to a temporary period of high load on our mail server, but often these problems arise because the customer has their email program set up in a way that will reduce efficiency.  We have recently made upgrades to our mail server that will help prevent the server from getting overloaded.  but there are a couple of changes that you can make to the settings in your email program that may also help improve your email performance.

(please note that this information is mainly for people that have their email programs set up for POP access…not IMAP).

  1. A lot of people have their mail program set to check our mail server every minute for new mail.  If you adjust the settings in your mail program to automatically check our server every 5 minutes or longer, it will help reduce the server load and improve the efficiency of your mail checks.  You can always manually click your “Send / Receive” or “Get Mail” button between automatic checks if you need to.
  2. Have your email program take the mail off of our server once it is checked.  A lot of the load on the server comes from people not knowing that they are storing mail on our server.  The only reason that most people need to store mail on the server for a period of time after their email program checks is if they have multiple computers or devices (Blackberry, iPhone) that also need to receive a copy of the mail.  Even if you do have multiple devices, we recommend having your email program remove the mail after 3-7 days (whatever you are comfortable with).  If you do not have more than one device checking mail on the server, then you can set your email program to remove the copy of the mail after a check is complete.  This will only remove the mail on our server.  It does not effect the mail that you store locally on your computer.

Here is how you get to the settings in question on the most popular email programs:

- Outlook 2000 – 2007: (Removing mail from the server) Go to the Tools, Email Accounts, View or change existing, then Change on your account.  Go to More Settings, then look in the Advanced Tab.  For the automatic check setting, go to Tools, Send / Receive, Send / Receive Settings, Define Send / Receive groups.  Adjust the automatic check settings under the All Accounts area.

- Outlook Express: (Removing mail from the server) Go to the Tools, Accounts, Properties on your account, then look in the Advanced Tab.  For the automatic check setting, go to Tools, Options, and the setting is under the General tab.

- Mac Mail: (Removing mail from the server) Go to the Mail menu, Properties, Accounts area, Advanced Tab.  For the automatic check setting, go to Mail menu, Properties, and the General area.

- Mozilla Thunderbird: Both relevant settings are located in the Tools, Account Settings, then Server Settings area in the left column.

If you need further assistance making these changes, please feel free to call one of our support representatives at 303-546-9151.

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DSL Tip: When in doubt…reboot!

Friday, September 25th, 2009

The concept of rebooting away a problem is the cornerstone of all computer troubleshooting, but nowhere is it more true than in the area of DSL connectivity. If you find that your DSL connection is down, the first and best thing to do is to reboot your DSL modem. This will solve at least 90% of all DSL connection problems right away.

How is this accomplished? It’s pretty simple, actually. All you need to do is unplug the modem’s power, wait about 30 seconds, and then plug it back in. Wait another 45-60 seconds for the modem to run through its startup and you will hopefully be reconnected. The toughest part of this procedure can sometimes be finding the DSL modem, as it can get lost in a web of cables, hubs, routers, switches, etc. I spoke to a subscriber just a couple of weeks ago and we spent about 20 minutes on the phone running through a multitude of possibilities until we finally tracked down the DSL modem and rebooted it, which did indeed resolve their issue! One other note on rebooting – please make sure to avoid hitting the Reset button on the back of the modem, as that will erase the modem’s configuration, which we do not want to do unless absolutely necessary.

What if rebooting the modem doesn’t resolve the issue? Well, at that point you can definitely call our Support Staff at 303-546-9151 and we can help you investigate the issue further, but here are a few things to look out for. You can get some valuable clues from the lights on your modem. Unless you have a really old DSL modem like a Cisco 675/678 or an Actiontec 1520/1524, your modem will have lights that are labeled DSL, Internet, and Ethernet. Here is how the lights can help you:

The most important light is the DSL light. Under normal conditions, the light should be solid green. If the light is blinking at a regular rate, then there is almost certainly an issue with the phone line, because a blinking DSL light is the modem’s way of telling us that it does not think that it is plugged into a phone line with DSL capability on it. In this situation, we will want to consider any issues related to changes in phone service, phone filters, phone jacks, or possible Qwest outages.

If the  DSL light is solid green, move on to the Internet light. Under normal conditions, the Internet light will be solid green with some occasional twinkling. If the light is red, that is a solid indication that there is an issue with the modem’s configuration, most likely due to an incorrect username or password. If the Internet light is off, we will again want to look at possible phone line issues. In either case, give us a call and we will investigate with you.

Finally, if the DSL and Internet lights both look normal, you will want to look at the Ethernet light. Under normal conditions, this light will be a solid color (usually green or amber) with occasional twinkling. If the internet light is off, this means that there is a problem on your local network and that your modem is unable to communicate with your computer or router/hub/switch. You will then want to investigate any issues on your network that would be causing this lack of local connectivity.

Hopefully, these tips will prove helpful. As always, feel free to call us at 303-546-9151 if you need any help with your connection.

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