racoma.com.phJ. Angelo Racoma on technology, economics, writing, problogging, and getting things done

According to the US FCC, consumers only get about 50% of their subscribed Internet connection speed (PDF report). Yugatech points out that in the Philippines, what matters more is the nominal amount of bandwidth that consumers get. This is because most consumer accounts here are in the 1 to 2 Mbps league. Half of that would be about 512K to 1 Mbps.

Perhaps if you were subscribed to a 10 Mbps account and only got 5 Mbps, that won’t be too noticeable, if all you do is browse the web and send email. However, if you’re fond of downloading media, like music, videos, and the like, then you will surely feel shortchanged. And if your subscribed bandwidth were low enough, to start with, then 50% will surely be something to complain about.

This is why companies advertise their connection speeds as “up to XXX Mbps.” Look at the fine print. Your subscription plan will usually say that quality of service can be affected by congestion, losses in transmission, and the like. Some companies, like Bayan DSL, even advertise their speeds as “burstable,” meaning it’s not a consistent speed, but you can get it during off-peak hours.

It’s even worse when you do get the advertised speed, but the latency is just too much that each item downloads slowly into your browser or software. This is the case with most 3G or even HSDPA connections locally. You do get the advertised speed, but that’s on a per-file basis. You sometimes have to wait for each item to get through the pipes because of the high latency.

Personally, I can say that 90% of my computer use involves web browsing, email, and social networking. The other 10% involves the occasional download of applications and media. And I usually schedule my media download at off-peak hours, when I can just sleep over it and expect the big download to finish when I wake up. Of course, not everyone might have the same habits. You might want your media right here, right now. And so you might want to squeeze out as much as you want from your broadband subscription.

What connection speed are you comfortable with? And do you actually need that much speed at any given time of the day? If you do have a broadband subscription, do you get 100% of the advertised or contract speed?

You can usually check with speedtest.net if your actual throughput is as fast as the claimed speed.

For almost a decade now, I’ve been a loyal AVG user. I liked how AVG was lightweight, free (for personal use), and had daily updates. It wasn’t bloatware like McAffee or Norton, and it was a decent enough antivirus software.

Through the years, though, one would notice that as software becomes more sophisticated, it becomes more bloated, too. Perhaps it’s because of the big size of the virus definitions (or the heuristics engine). Or maybe because it’s due to the popularity of low-powered netbooks.

Thus, as I reformatted and reinstalled Windows 7 on my old-school Asus EeePC (the 8.9-inch 900), I tried to look for alternatives to AVG. I read that Microsoft’s own Security Essentials, which comes free with any genuine installation (however you may define that). Then another good option was Panda’s Cloud Antivirus.

Panda calls it collective security. And because all (or most?) of the processes occur in the cloud—either on Panda’s servers, or shared across the network of users—it also has a smaller resource footprint.

Wanting to try this out, I’ve uninstalled AVG on all of my Windows computers, including netbooks and laptops, just to see how it fares. At this point, I’m mostly online, and most of the computers I use are always online, save for the netbook, which I take almost everywhere I go (which means there may not necessarily be a wireless connection).

As I see it, a cloud-based antivirus program has a few pros and cons.

Pros:

• Light resource use: Panda Cloud Antivirus uses about 15MB of system memory during idle state, and about 60MB during active scanning. Also, being on the cloud, scanning essentially happens offsite, so your computer doesn’t have to contribute precious processing cycles just to see if your files have some badwar.e


• It’s on the cloud, so you don’t need to download virus definitions frequently.

However, there are a few cons to a cloud-based setup like this. I can think of a few.

• What if you’re not connected? Granted, viruses usually come in emails and links. However, what if someone plugs in a USB flash drive onto your computer, and it’s offline? Panda does have basic on-site scanning, but you might need to be connected to be assured newer virus will get caught.


• Is this an intrusion of your privacy? You’re essentially sending bits and pieces of the files you access while Panda is active. To the security-conscious, this might constitute a breach of privacy.

Still, the biggest come-ons of Panda Cloud Antivirus are its small size, quick scanning, and the concept of sharing the load. I’ll give it a try for a few weeks, and I’ll report what I find out.

When LG launched its KU250 three years ago, their marketing mantra was 3G for the masses. True enough, 3G-enabled phones were quite expensive back then. The KU250 phone aimed to break this barrier by offering a phone that could be used for mobile browsing and also computer-tethering (connecting the phone as a 3G modem) for just above PhP 6,000.

Fast forward to 2010, mobile manufacturers have realized that social networking applications are the killer apps for mobile, and that WiFi has become commonplace, even in developing countries. And so, Nokia has come up with the C3, somewhat a lesser-featured sibling of the E72 and E63.

The Nokia C3’s biggest highlights are the QWERTY keyboard and WiFi connectivity. An additional feature would be the built-in social media applications, which enable mobile use of FaceBook, Twitter, Gmail, Yahoo! Mail, Google Talk and Yahoo! IM, among others. This makes it easier (and cheaper) for mobile netizens to manage their online presence and communicate.

Perhaps the best feature of the Nokia C3 is its price. Nokia announced it at about 90 Euros in February, 2010. Locally, it’s available at official retailers at PhP 7,290. Nokia ran a one-day promo that gave buyers a PhP1,000 discount last July 31. At PhP 6,290 for a WiFi-enabled Nokia phone with QWERTY, the promo sent people lining up for their C3 at retailers, even up to closing time. The promo seems to be a success.

My only gripe with the Nokia C3 is that it runs on the Symbian Series 40 (or S40) platform, instead of my favorite S60 platform. This means that the installable applications will be a bit more limited than if it were running S60 or even S90.

Still, with a price like that, the C3 gives more users the opportunity to stay connected through more means, in this case WiFi. Dubbed “Blackberry for kids,” The Nokia C30 is sure to be a hit with mobile phone users who want a shift from the usual candybard with numeric-keypad form factor, or those who prefer a physical QWERTY keyboard to a soft on-screen keyboard like those on the iPhone and Android phones.

I’ve been a loyal Google Chrome browser since it came out with the first public Beta. I’ve been using Chrome on all my Windows computers since. I like the simplicity, speed, and now the availability of plugins. I like the small footprint, and the fact that each window or tab is its own process. In short, it just works. I know there are limitations, but it seems that Chrome has started becoming more mature in many respects.

Recently, Google announced that Flash support is now built-in with the latest stable release. I guess this is necessary, because Google applications mostly work on Flash and dynamic HTML.

What browser are you using, and why? Are you one of those persons who can use just about any browser you find on a computer? Or do you need to use your preferred browser to be productive?

I’ve always wondered what those air ionizers do to your car cabin’s air. I read these were supposed to rid your auto of bad smells, like smog, smoke, even foodstuffs. I got a few items fro BudgetGadgets.com a few weeks back, and this air purifier refresher was one of them. I got it for about $8, and shipping was free.

I’m still trying to figure out what an ionizer is expected to do. So far, I do think that the car has retained its “new car” smell even after almost ten months of use. Any inputs on this?