You may be in for a surprise if you're planning to sign up for dial-up Internet. Although dial-up modems were always installed on computers in the past, many computers are now being sold without them. In order to avoid having problems once you're paying for Internet services, you should check whether your computer has a dial-up modem installed. There are two areas to look for a dial-up modem.

First, look at the back of your system unit, or tower. There should be a port that looks just like the telephone jack in the back of a telephone and in the wall. You can use a regular phone cord to test whether the port is the right size (if it's too big, it's not the right port). You will find one of these three scenarios:

1. There is only one a port, but it is slightly larger than a regular phone port. This is the Ethernet port used for broadband connections, like cable and DSL. If this is the only port you have, you do not have a dial-up modem.

2. There is one telephone port (often along the bottom, but not always) and a telephone cord fits in it snugly. You have a dial-up modem! If you are planning to use a telephone on the same phone jack your computer is using, plug a splitter in the wall jack, then plug in two phone cords into the splitter for each device.

3. There is two ports side by side that fit the telephone cord. You found your dial-up modem! The reason you have two ports is because one is to plug a phone cord coming from the wall and the other is to connect a telephone to use when you are not online. The port marked “line” or showing a picture of a phone jack is for the cord coming from the jack in the wall. The port reading “phone” or showing a picture of a telephone is where you plug a phone cord leading to your telephone. *Note: You do not need to use the "phone" port. Also, keep in mind that if you accidentally plug the wall jack line into the "phone" port instead of the "line" port, you will not be able to connect!

If you do not have a modem, you need to buy one. If you do, the following steps will show you how to check if your modem software is installed properly. 

1. Open Control Panel, then make sure you are in classic view if you have XP or Vista.

2. Open your modem options. On older versions of Windows, you'll see “Modems”, and on 2000 or newer, you'll see “Phone and Modem Options”.

3. Click on the “Modems” tab (skip this step if you have an older computer).

4. Here is a box listing the modem(s) installed on your computer.

5. Beside the modem it lists where it is connected. It will either have “not present”, or “COM” and a number. (On older computers, click properties for the modem in question and look for “Port:” Your modem must be listed as attached to one of the COM ports, or you modem has been removed or corrupted. If this is the case, you must either reinstall, repair, or replace the modem.

If you have a modem both installed in the tower and listed as properly installed, you are ready to sign up for dial-up. Other minor issues could occur once you try to connect, however, you will be better prepared and less likely to have connection issues upon starting your new service.

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Written by Hannah Miller, Online Marketing Representative and Customer Service, Copper.net.

Copper.net is a nationwide Internet services provider that is all-American owned and operated. Call today, 1-800-336-3318 or sign up online at www.copper.net! Check out my blog for more articles! 

Bing.com is Microsoft's new “decision” search engine. Bing's homepage is brilliantly colored with a new background picture with interesting facts from all over the world. But what truly stands out about Bing.com is it's design for the purpose of aiding decision making.

The “Tour Bing” link in the top left corner of the home page is a great place to start for first time users and those who want to find out all the features and shortcuts Bing offers. Since many features are specifically for Microsoft account users, those who do not have a Live account may find it useful to create one. Other first time options are available in the preferences, located in the top right corner. Users can make adjustments to their location, security settings, and result listings.

Bing offers categorized search options on the home page from the left column. When clicked, these categories, such as “Shopping” or “News, expand to more subcategories to further narrow the search.

Any search performed on the main search bar at the top will include related searches, sponsored links, and search history on the left column. Some searches produce related subcategories at the top of the column. Here are a few examples:

• Subcategories for “computer” include: Images, Shopping, and Local

• Subcategories for “Myrtle Beach” include: Weather, Hotel, and Map

• Subcategories for “Nike” include: Coupons, Catalog, and Jobs

Bing offers more than just search results. Many popular searches, most of which are related to buying decisions, have detailed information that will help users make the right choice and save money without spending hours on every website comparing prices and other features. This is a valuable feature for anyone who has dial-up Internet or simply wishes to avoid extended online time. A search for “laptop”, for example, will display a “Shop for laptop” link at the top of the search results. Users can limit the results by brands or prices, view buying guides, and compare laptops on ratings like speed and ease of use. The search results show the image, price, and description of the laptops that match the requirements chosen.

Users can also research and compare businesses, like hotels, restaurants, and stores. The keywords “restaurant cincinnati”, for example, will display “Listings for restaurants near Cincinnati, OH” above the search results. A map of Cincinnati on the left shows the location of each restaurant with a corresponding number to the list of restaurants to the right. Each restaurant lists their phone number and links for the restaurant's website and directions. The name of each restaurant links to a short description including reviews, prices, amenities, and more contact information, etc.

Bing.com offers a variety of shortcuts accessed by typing certain keywords into the main search bar. “Traffic” and “weather” will show local information as the first result. Flights and packages can be tracked by typing flight or shipping number. A sequence of several ticker symbols followed by the word “quote” will list stock information for each symbol in a small table. Basic math questions and conversions, like “how many liters in a gallon” will display the answer at the top of the search results.

Bing has several interactive features that are convenient to users. The websites listed in search results have a hover icon along the right side of the entry which brings up a summary and related links. Images will display their size, name, and a “related images” link when users hover on them, and videos listed in Bing results will begin playing when hovered.

Some users will find Bing.com and its features more helpful than others. Bing's many features will only display for popular searches, and basic information, and it becomes just another search engine when more obscure, unique or research-related searches are performed. Like any other search engine, Bing.com shows search results of related websites, so it is still useful when features aren't shown. As it's nickname, “the decision engine” suggests, Bing.com is most useful for shopping, traveling, and other decision-related searches.

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Written by Hannah Miller, Online Marketing Representative and Customer Service, Copper.net.

Copper.net is a nationwide Internet services provider that is all-American owned and operated. Call today, 1-800-336-3318 or sign up online at www.copper.net! Check out my blog for more articles! 

Most search queries are relatively simple on a search engine like Google. Usually in the first try, a few keywords will answer basic, popular questions. Obscure and past topics, or advanced and genre-specific searches are sometimes hard to find. The additional features on Google are ideal for this type of extensive research.

Google.com has categories to refine searches at the top of the page, such as Images, Maps, and Shopping. The “more” option, has additional queries that may be of interest , such as Finance or Blogs. The “even more>>” link directs users to a page of all the categories and other special features, including alerts that can be sent to your email for specific topics, links to popular resources, like YouTube, and Google tools and downloads, like the google mail and browser. Each item has a short description of how it can be used.

Many research topics have subtopics, categories, and fields that can be explored on Google. A “Show options...” link is available at the top of the search results of every query. When a user clicks here, a sidebar displays to the left of the search results with additional search tools.

The first section is videos, forums or reviews of the keyword(s) queried. The next section has the option to specify the age of article or website. The third section changes the layout of the search results to include pictures or more text.

The fourth section has four options:

• Standard view-the normal view showing the search results of the keywords queried.

• Related searches-common topics related to the query

• Wonder wheel-related topics are displayed on spokes with the keyword(s) in the center. For example, for the keyword “dial-up”, the wonder wheel shows “dial-up isp” and “dial-up speed” as related searches. A sub category (when clicked) becomes the main category and shows more subheadings. “dial-up speed” brings up “dial-up compression” and “56K dial-up”.

• Timeline-shows the graph of search results for the queried keywords over time. Underneath the graph is a listing of results in chronological order. Each decade, year, month, etc., on the timeline graph can be clicked to expand the results over that time period. The earliest search results will query books written on the topic.

There are other search options available on Google.com. The advanced search link on the home page leads to a detailed page that helps a user make specific choices about what type of results should be displayed. The “Topic-specific search engines from Google” section at the bottom of this page shows multiple genres that may be of interest to advanced searchers.

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Written by Hannah Miller, Online Marketing Representative and Customer Service, Copper.net.

Copper.net is a nationwide Internet services provider that is all-American owned and operated. Call today, 1-800-336-3318 or sign up online at www.copper.net! Check out my blog for more articles! 

Bits and bytes are measurements of data, but they differ in their size and what they measure. Understanding what these terms are will help you understand how your computer stores information and how your Internet connection speed effects you. One way to tell them apart is the case in which they are written. When abbreviating bits and bytes, a “b” (small case) is a bit, and “B” (upper case) is a byte, therefore, “kb” is kilobit and “KB” is kilobyte (note: the case of the letters before the b are insignificant).

A bit (b) is the smallest measurement of data that can be stored on computers or transferred by Internet services. Bits represent information with a binary coding system made up of only 1's and 0's (bi means two, i.e., two numbers). When bits are arranged and stored in sequences of 1's and 0's, they are translated by computer programming into words, pictures, and other data.

Usually, when you hear the term “bits”, they are measuring transfer rate, or how much information can be transferred in a certain amount of time. Internet connection speeds are measured this way, for example, “bps” is bits per second, the amount of bits that can be downloaded or transferred in a second. Since bits are so small, most connection speeds are measured in thousands of bits per second.

When measuring transfer rate for Internet connections, 1 kilobit (kb) = 1000 bits, 1 megabit (mb) = 1000 kilobits. Say you connect with dial-up at 34.4 kbps. That means 34.4 kilobits or 34400 bits can be downloaded per second to your computer. Say you connect with DSL at 6 “megs” aka mbps. You can download 6 megabits, or 6000 kilobits, or 6,000,000 bits per second.

A byte (B) is 8 bits strung together. Remember, bits store information based on a binary system and are arranged in sequences. These sequences are in sets of 8 and called bytes. It takes many bytes sequenced together to create documents, images, programs, and commands for your computer. When measuring sizes of files, programs, and capacities of drives, you use bytes. Like bits, byte are often noted in larger quantities, like kilobytes, megabytes (megs), and gigabytes (gigs).

Many people assume a kilobyte is 1000 bytes, etc., but this is not true. When describing capacity (size or storage size of computer elements), bytes are measured by the same binary system that code bits. Therefore, “kilo” = 1,024 (or, 2^10) instead of 1000. A kilobyte (KB) is 1,024 bytes, and a megabyte (MB) is 1,024 kilobytes. A gigabyte (GB) is 1,024 megabytes.

A Microsoft Word document is usually about 30 KB in size. An picture, like clip art is typically about 100 KB, and photos are often much larger. A CD typically has a 700 MB (or 716,800 KB) storage capacity. You can buy computers with a hard drive (main storage unit) capacity of 500 gig (or 524,288,000 KB).

Don't forget, 1 byte is 8 bits. An Internet connection (like transfer rates or download speeds) is measured in bits, and 1 kilobit is 1,000 bits. Storage capacity (like disk space and file sizes), it is measured in bytes, and 1 kilobyte is 1,024 bytes.

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Written by Hannah Miller, Online Marketing Representative and Customer Service, Copper.net.

Copper.net is a nationwide Internet services provider that is all-American owned and operated. Call today, 1-800-336-3318 or sign up online at www.copper.net! Check out my blog for more articles!