Thread: Questions of a physically ill user- someone please reply

I have a 45 day old connection-home 500 c. I'm quite a computer idiot I bought a computer only recently, so Im just learning to use it. I would appreciate if someone could answer a few of my queries. IM SORRY THAT THERE ARE TOO MANY QUERIES,SOME OF THEM BASIC STUFF. I stumbled upon this site and its really good work, thank you administrator and users. but i really dont have the energy to sit and find my answers among the posts here. I apologize for this.

Im chronically ill and and can't go out of the house due to my sickness and fatigue. I'm almost paralysed, so the internet is the only contact with the outside world, but since im new to it except for checking mail and orkut earlier. Therefore i find it difficult to sit and search for answers as i get mentally and physically exhausted soon. Even typing this much has been a tremendous task. I hope someone would spoonfeed me and help me out.

USAGE.
1. How do i check my usage without accessing the bbservice.bsnl.in site, since that site does not work often and I have doubts about its accuracy of details. How safe is it to try some of the other usage checkers that have been mentioned in some of the posts here? Do i need to download some software for that?

SPEED.
2a. Im not sure of the speeds that Im getting downloading. The bsnl speed tester on the dataone website shows speeds of 1100kbps at times during the day and upto 1600kbps at night, but I have often noticed that during regular browsing of even mail and yahoo i dont get satisfactory speeds,during the day or at night...i mean i have to wait a while before the page opens which is irritating, so i presume the speed is inadequte for broadband standards. The speed that i got on checking with some site mentioned in one of the posts here is 1100kbps, but on browsing my speeds are not good. what should I do?

2b. When I downloaded things like divx and spybot I noticed that the download window showed that the rate of download varied between 60KBps at the start of the download and falling soon to 10-20-30KBps. Is this adequate speed for this plan [home 500 c]. Downloading a song of about 5mb takes about 5 -10 minutes. Is this normal?

2c. When watching youtube, i often find that it takes a lot of ttime to play the videos, but not always though, but other video sites like googlevideo are really slow. This gives me doubts about the speed and if something is wrong?

2d. This speed of upto 2mbps mentioned, is it the minimum and constant? Or is the minimum 256kbps? KB or Kb or kb? MB or Mb or mb?

CONNECTION.
3. There is an extension telephone line that is connected to the main line before it reaches the splitter. From the splitter it again branches to my modem and another phone. Will this really affect the speed at all times, even when both phones are not in use? I have noticed that when there is a call on the phone the speeds of some downloads of songs and stuff reduce to 10KBps from 30KB as shown in the dialogue box shown during a download.

4. The main line is connected to the wire that comes to the splitter by just winding the exposed wires together. This was done by the bsnl technician. Will this affect the speeds? There is no noise on the phone.

TORRENT and LIMEWIRE and DOWNLOADING.
5. How safe is it to use Limewire? What are the risks that i run with regard to getting spyware and viruses and worms? I had downloaded it but later unistalled it.

6. I read a mention of torrent here and went to the bit torrent site and installed it, but that made browsing very slow that i could not open another page with torrent on, so i got scared and unistalled it! How safe is it? Is the slowing of the browsing normal when torrent is downloading something? Even when torrent was on, surfing was miserably slow. Later i saw that my modem internet LED was blinking after i switched on the computer and modem and the LAN of the computer was showing an increasing number of packets received and sent, though during this time was not browsing. Later the usage on the Bsnl site showed that 1mb was totally sent and received during that time,though i had not accessed any site during that time. After i uninstalled bit torrent and DNA that came alongwith it, this problem stopped.

7. At present I use the internet only to check mail. How else can I use it? How do I download movies and music videos and songs safely? Any sites that are recommended? How do i use torrent? i don't know anything about torrent.

8. Since there were advertisements that were popping up even though pop up blocker was on I downloaded spybot search and destroy and scanned. It revealed a few cookie trackers and some microsoft registry change something, so i let it fix all except the microsoft one. But after i installed spyware on the comp, Im not getting access to many sites after searching on google when i click on the search results, which displays "could not find this page" , plus the system seems to have slowed down. I used to access and save the files named "get video" from the temp internet files and use the flv player to play videos watched on youtube, but now I dont see anymore big files in temp internet files after i watch the videos and so im unable to save them. I unistalled spybot too, but its still the same. Would unistalling it cause all the previous spyware to return?

9. My norton antivirus is being updated automatically, but it does not show any virus or threats on scanning. Should I use another antivirus? Will it cause trouble with norton already running?

10. What is os?

11. How do i use a download manager to download? I don't know anything about it too. Can i use it to turn on the comp at night after 2am and download automatically and switch it off after downloading? Will i have to keep the modem on all night then? Is switching it on called booting? What is reboooting?

12. I really dont know how to and what to use the internet for. Can someone tell me what else can i use it for other than just checking mail and googling and surfing? I mean what can i download and what are the programs that maybe useful to me? Any sites recommended? I find it difficult to even download a song for downloading. How long does it take to download a movie? What are direct downloads? I understand some guys download upto 20gb a night, like someone had posted here. What do they download? Is it really possible?

hey brothahbrothah, wassup? Firstly let me congratulate you , you have broken the forum record of asking the most amount of questions in a single post .. just kidding..
i'll answer a few of them, i'm sure the others would help you out too!!

your speeds could be due to that telephone inbetween your line and splitter.. try setting up all your telephones after your splitter..also changing your DNS servers to opendns will help increase browsing speed.. OpenDNS | Providing A Safer And Faster Internet you can find tutorials on how to do so in there..limewire is safe,only thing make sure you download the right files, it does have a lot of viruses, but it wont get into your pc unless you download it, sometimes if you are searching for a song, it might give some results of the song in like 5kb or 1kb.. which is impossible, so you should be smart to know that a song would not be of such small size..for torrents you can download µTorrent - The Lightweight and Efficient BitTorrent Client and then search for torrents in Torrents Search Engine
0S=operating system.. like windows,linux,mac etc..

for info on DNS settings- Prashanth Speaks-Technology and Life: HOW TO CONFIGURE DNS SERVER IN YOUR MODEM OR ROUTER
for info on telephone line setup - Prashanth Speaks-Technology and Life: Frequent Disconnection in DSL connection

superprash thanks for replying..

Hai dude... welcome to IBF hope i can give some input...

USAGE:
bbservice wont work properly only on first and last week of the month.
now they have updated bbservice and it looks good and u should rely only on bbservice.. yaa.. ss.. some softwares are there to montr ur usage.. say DU meter... but finally u should en up with bbservice only..

SPEED:
>r u so far from ur local teleph exchange? if so.. then ur speed will be low.

2mbps means... 1024*2 = 2048kbps.. and we ppl are getting max of 1800kbps... i.e 1800/8 = 220KBps.. (1Bit = 8bytes)

CONNECTION:
>check ur teleph line.. it should be main xchange box to splitter(only one line.. no ph connection from xchange box).. from splitter adsl line and teleph line.. if u r using two phones.. then u should add ur own splitter after the adsl splitter. i.e from adsl splitter.. 1.adsl line 2.another splitter .. from here u take 2 teleph lines.

/*There is an extension telephone line that is connected to the main line before it reaches the splitter */

this is 100% wrong.. thats y u r getting slow connection.

TORRENT
>once u setup ur teleph line correctly.. then it would come fine... let us know once u r getting good speed.. then we will talk about torrent.. u can download movies..songs watever u want...

>yes.. that 1mb is to keep ur line alive.. just informing to the server that u r server is active.. always switch it off once u have done..

>some tims youtube will not store temp int file foler... instead it will store in temp folder.. once u close the window it will get deleted.. u cant copy it from temp (not temp int file folder)

>i feel avast is a good anti virus..

>yes u can schdule ur download manager.. first get the full speed.. then will talk about..

no one is cant download 20GB from 2-8AM. max 5GB..
which lang movie u prefer????

first u need to do 2 things.. change the teleph line... get the full speed.. then will start talk about torrent..

os is nothing but Operating system.. eg windows xp...

cheers dear...

you have already got the answers to many of your questions.i am assuming you know how to open your modem home page(usually 192.168.1.1 type in address bar of web browser).if you have read superprash2003 post you must have learn it by now.in modem's settings look for some status page.in there look for values SNR & Line attn for upstream/remote & downstream/local.for a stable connection SNR values must be above 10 & usually its value is 25(downstream/local) & 18(upstream/remote).more the SNR valuse better will be the connection.similarly line attn shows how far are you from local exchange.farther you are more will be the value & less will be the speeds.usually values are 29 & 15.lesser the attn values better the speeds.

Thanks a lot guys for taking time to read through my long post and reply.


First let me get that connection right...this will take me a few weeks as i have to be well enough to get out of the house to buy the wires and stuff. Once that is done I will do the rest.

I prefer english movies and a select few hindi movies like masoom by sekhar kapoor and others like satyajit ray.

I stay about 4km from the telephone exchange.

Will configuring the DNS server cause any problems? Do i need to change the password at the bbservice site and in the modem? I have saved the blog by superprash on all the topics mentioned here, though Im yet to read through them.

Since im unwell, these things take me time, so pardon my slow pace.

Torrents Search Engine - this site has quite a lot of torrents, im sure you would find most of what you need in that website, incase you cant find,just google it..Configuring DNS servers cannot cause any problem, inface it will increase your speed and make your browsing a lot faster..

Hey welcome man, you got almost everything here you asked.There are some basic tips here,

1.use everything scheduled to avoid over download(mean 8am-2am)
2.use utorrent for torrent downloads,it has inbuilt download scheduler and torrent search tool.
3.use a good download manager(I use IDM(internet download manager)),it utilizes your full bandwidth to download,creating multiple connections for a single download.IDM als has its scheduler.
4.remember to disconnect your modem(preferably reboot your PC) at 2AM and 8 AM to avoid access download.

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See my post located below for more,

http://www.indiabroadband.net/bsnl-b...service-2.html (BSNL Broadband- Excess Billing & Deficient Service)

Anything else,I am here always.

To answer one of your question.

You can use any download monitor software if you want to check your usage yourself rather than depending on bsnl portal. i would suggest you to try netmeter to try first, as it is free to use and highly dependable too.