iPhone bandwidth: orders of magnitude – 2009 • 17 Nov 2009
I did a bandwidth test the other day with the iPhone SpeedTest tool. I wanted to compare the speed using (standard) GPRS, using 3G and my own Wi-Fi. The results were all a power of ten apart:
Don’t send me a video, send me a link • 29 Jan 2009
I know, there are so many ‘funny’ videos you just have to share with your friends. So you send them an email. But for god’s sake, not with a 5MB movie in attachment! For all you know, he/she might not even be able to play that MOV/WMV/XVid movie anyway. Don’t send a movie, send a link!
Dag van de download • 18 Dec 2007
Met deze actie willen wij een statement maken: stilstand is achteruitgang. De toestand op de Belgische markt dient te veranderen. De gebruikers willen van de datalimieten af, meer concurrentie en betere tarieven voor hun breedband-internet.
Dag van de download
Dreamhost has better performance now • 17 Oct 2006
Ine mentions that Dreamhost has become a more reliable hoster. I am actually tracking Dreamhost performance, and I can only agree.
Database war stories: DB vs _square_ files • 05 May 2006
I’ve been following the Database War Stories of O’Reilly Radar: how companies use text-based alternatives to classic relational database systems in order to cope with huge volumes. Check out the stories of Findory/Amazon, Google File System, Flickr and Second Life. Anyway, this seemed like a good moment to share some of my database war stories. Let me take you back to the early nineties.
Youtube bandwidth: terabytes per day • 04 May 2006
Youtube seems to be losing some of its early adopters: Coolz0r quits the service, while Nathan even embarks on a grassroots activism mission to ruin the company (by getting its most popular uploaders banned – I have mixed feelings about that one). The issue is: to protect themselves from lawsuits, Youtube is taking the approach of deleting videos and even users upon first suspicion of (copyright) problems. They already received an ultimatum from NBC in Feb, then a proof to Jason Calacanis that it was ‘not a real business‘.
Bluehost vs Dreamhost • 14 Apr 2006
As you might have read in my Migrating to WordPress article, I am now the proud owner of both a Bluehost and Dreamhost account. These two shared hosting providers have similar strong offerings for a similar low price, but they’re nevertheless different. Let’s compare both:
Double Wifi: municipal wifi with protection • 13 Apr 2006
I have written about FON before (they provide a business model for sharing one’s bandwidth through Wifi). They use a custom firmware for the Linksys WRT54G routers. I have the feeling that current Wifi routers (or access points) cannot offer a good balance of security/flexibility. Opening your own network for everyone is currently too dangerous. There’s Wifi trolls that gobble up your bandwidth and there’s hackers that scan your ports for vulnerabilities. My idea is that now you would need 2 Wifi zones, one behind the other, each having different security and different policies. With access points costing as little...
IVI: Internet voor Iedereen • 12 Apr 2006
If your (Belgian) parents or grand-parents want to buy a cheap PC to get started on the Web, tell them to hold back for a couple more days. The Federal Government – through FEDICT – has set up a program to sponsor a complete package of PC + software + broadband + training for a sharp price. The title of the project: IVI or “Internet voor Iedereen” – the launch is planned for next week, April 18th.
Broadband in Brussels • 17 Feb 2006
(post seems to have disappeared when I migrated to WordPress
I have what is proving to be an expensive habit: I’m subscribed to over 30 podcasts (including e.g. Diggnation at 300MB/week), I regularly download software to try out, I use BitTorrent on a regular basis, I buy stuff on iTunes. All that adds up to more than my allowance my ISP subscription gives me (20GB per month). Most of the months I pay an extra €8 per 10GB.
Binary confusion: kilobytes and kibibytes • 04 Feb 2005
When I created my Bandwidth Calculator, easily the most popular web tool I ever made, I came across the following problem: in computer technology there is a habit of using kilobyte (kB) as 1024 bytes (as KB), megabyte (MB) as 1024*1024 (1.048.576) bytes. Most of you might think this is correct, but it’s not. The International System of Units (SI) (that defines the kilo, mega, giga, … and milli, micro, nano prefixes) uses only base 10 values. A kilo is always 1000, even for bytes. In order to find a solution for the IT ‘contamination’ of using kilo for 210...
It’s the latency, stupid! • 01 Nov 2004
While working on some bandwidth-related stuff (my bandwidth calculator), I came across an excellent article on “latency vs. bandwidth” by Stuart Cheshire. It was originally written in 1996, so focuses a lot on modems, but Fact 1, 2 and 4 are still valid.
When I created my Bandwidth Calculator, easily the most popular web tool I ever made, I came across the following problem: in computer technology there is a habit of using kilobyte (kB) as 1024 bytes (as KB), megabyte (MB) as 1024*1024 (1.048.576) bytes. Most of you might think this is correct, but it’s not. The International System of Units (SI) (that defines the kilo, mega, giga, … and milli, micro, nano prefixes) uses only base 10 values. A kilo is always 1000, even for bytes. In order to find a solution for the IT ‘contamination’ of using kilo for 210...
