Cable Modem Presentation ––
Cajun Clickers Computer Club

• Terry Stockdale, Clickers member since 1994.
• My website is http://www.terrystockdale.com
• Computer hobbyist & consultant.
• My opinions and biases are my own, and you will undoubtedly hear some of them.

• Cox High Speed Internet – current deal, ongoing pricing, freebies, and referral "Free month" – give the referral form to the installer or do online within 30 days
• Cox as an ISP – what do you get –– 7 emails, each w/ 10MB webspace, no servers, lots of speed
• My articles on cable modems and networking, at http://www.terryscomputertips.com
• My recommendation for initial service.

Your setup data

1. Mail: pop.east.cox.net and smtp.east.cox.net
2. Any computer name, or blank
3. Any domain name, or blank
4. Email address – whatever you set up
5. DHCP – get an IP address and DNS automatically

The big speed advantage of cable modems is speed. There are currently three options, which vary by speed and price. The middle option gives a maximum speed of 4 megabits/second down, 384Kb up

Epiphany – The "always on" Internet connection, if you leave your computer on, changes your way of computing.

The usual, but firewalls are much more important:

• You must run an anti–virus program
• You must keep the anti–virus signatures updated
• You must run a firewall program. Good options are:
  • Trend Micro PC-cillin Internet Security 2006,
  • Panda Software's Platinum 2006 Internet Security and
  • the Sunbelt Personal Firewall.

• Tweaking your Windows settings to maximize throughput
• Use normal settings until you know all is well with your system and connection
• Windows XP is much more efficient than Windows 98/ME/95 in its network throughput

1. http://www.speedguide.net
2. http://dslreports.com
3. Best changes are the simplest – change one thing at a time
4. DRTCP did it for me – bumped my win98 connect speed from 1.1Mb/sec max to 3Mb/sec max (based on testing with the same speedtest site), using DRTCP.exe, which changes the Default Receivewindow size for TCP
5. DRTCP.exe is found at http://www.dslreports.com
6. Speedtests
7. Download accelerators – Don’t!

Cable Modems |  Basics |  Buying, part 1 |  2 |  3 |  4

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Copyright © 1999-2006 Terry A. Stockdale. All rights reserved.