March 2009

Beginning in April, Little Apple Technologies customers will be able to pay your service fees online through our web site. (This will not affect autopay - if your account is on autopay it will remain that way.) Please expect an e-mail notification with instructions when this feature has been implemented.

Little Apple Technologies is now buying and selling used computer equipment.

LAT will buy used computer equipment if it has salvageable components that we can recycle. We also rebuild and sell used computer equipment. A list of available equipment will be posted on our web site and included in our newsletters.

If you have used equipment that you’d like to get rid of, please call to discuss it with a technician prior to bringing it in. We’ll be able to give you a good idea on the phone of whether we’ll be interested in buying it and how much it might be worth.

When considering Internet options, someone may consider high-speed wireless Internet or satellite Internet. These are two different technologies. Wireless Internet is transmitted from a land-based tower to a receiver antenna at the user’s location. Satellite Internet is transmitted from a satellite in space to a satellite dish at the user’s location. Little Apple Technologies provides wireless Internet, not satellite Internet.

Satellite Internet is generally available anywhere with an unobstructed view of the southern sky. Disadvantages to satellite are high latency, or delay (ping times >250ms), asymmetrical data rates with a much lower upload speed, and weather-based service disruptions. Some satellite services utilize a phone line for uploads, so the user needs a phone line. With two-way satellite, even greater latency can be expected with a round-trip ping of 500ms. Some satellite providers cap usage at 3GB/month and charge for additional bandwidth. Satellite does not effectively support video streaming due to constant rebuffering and other applications such as VoIP telephone service and gaming due to high latency. By Federal Government standards satellite Internet is not considered a broadband solution.

Wireless Internet generally requires line of sight to a land-based access point. Wireless Internet has a much lower latency, or delay, is much less affected by weather, and offers more overall throughput of bandwidth. Wireless has the advantage of being either symmetrical or asymmetrical, being highly scalable while utilizing various frequencies. Wireless broadband can support all applications while offering the entire bandwidth for balancing upstream and downstream traffic. LAT offers unlimited usage of bandwidth and typically has latency of less than 100ms. High-speed wireless Internet is considered a broadband solution by the Federal Government.

If both technologies are available, wireless Internet ranks much higher for reliability, usability, and supportability of various applications.

A Web browser is a software application that enables a user to display and interact with text, images, videos, music, games and other information on the World Wide Web or a local area network (Wikipedia.com).

Internet Explorer is the most commonly used web browser because it comes standard with Windows®. Because more people use IE than any other browser, most web sites are designed for compatibility with IE. However, there are alternatives to IE that may reduce your risk of getting viruses and spyware. 

Mozilla Firefox is the most popular alternative to IE and runs a close second in use. Firefox has the best cross platform capability – in other words, it functions well on PCs and Macs. Due to its popularity, most web sites are designed for compatibility with Firefox. Firefox has a lot of useful added features, or plug ins. Some of our favorites are Cool Iris, Simple Mail, and Forecast Fox. Firefox also includes business utilities and is customizable by the user. Firefox is LAT’s browser of choice.

Opera is the closest to standard compliant and has some neat features, but it also has compatibility issues. Users can set up to nine choice web sites to appear in thumbnails to provide a “speed-dial” effect. The magic wand feature uses one button push to access a password key. Opera is also very fast, but it may not be compatible with some web applications.

Google Chrome is very fast and is great for technical people or power Internet users. It’s not very straightforward for the non-technical user. Chrome also sets thumbnails for most visited web sites, and does it automatically.

Safari is the standard web browser for Macs, and some people who use Macs also like to use Safari on their PC because it’s familiar to them. Safari is a good, stable browser, but not as widely used as some of the others.

Please send us your favorite tech tips for inclusion in future issues.

An artist, a lawyer, and a computer geek are discussing the merits of a mistress. The artist tells of the passion, and the thrill that comes with the risk of being discovered. The lawyer warns of the difficulties. It can lead to guilt, divorce, bankruptcy. Not worth it. Too many problems. The computer geek says "It's the best thing that's ever happened to me. My wife thinks I'm with my mistress. My mistress thinks I'm home with my wife, and I can spend all night on the computer!"

Send us your favorite tech joke and we'll share it in a future issue.