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If you live in an area close to the city, you will have the option to signup with a large number of ISP’s. You could always go with the top ISP’s – Telstra, iiNet, Optus and TPG, or you could go with the smaller, unknown ISP’s. Although every ISP will get you connected to the internet, there are a few things to be aware of about the plan before you sign the deal.

The Type Of Service

At the moment, the types of internet connections  you can get are NBN, ADSL1, ADSL2, Naked DSL, Cable, Dialup, ISDN, Satellite, Wireless, and a few other less common types. If you live in a metropolitan area, you will likely be offered ADSL2, Cable or Naked DSL. ADSL2 and Naked DSL is essentially the same thing from a customer’s perspective, but with ADSL2, you require a landline phone (PSTN) and pay line rental. However, with Naked DSL, you don’t need to have a home phone or a landline, which can save you $30 per month straight away. If you live in regional areas, Naked and ADSL2 may not be available to your house, so your next best option is to go with ADSL1 as that is all that would likely be available.

Cable is somewhat comparable to Naked DSL where you don’t need a landline, and with some ISP’s they will offer you a  Cable over the ADSL2/Naked. The other option is to go Wireless, but this can cost a little more, is less reliable, and you would likely have slower speeds. The type of service isn’t something that you will get much of a choice in – your ISP will tell you what the best service for you to get based on what is available to your house.

On Net Vs Off Net

Not all ISP’s can offer you an internet connection to your home, but in most cases, Telstra/Bigpond can. This is where the term On Net and Off Net come into play. If you are on an Off Net plan, the ISP you signup to will be using Telstra’s Wholesale Network that means you are using Telstra’s infrastructure. The good news is you only have to deal with your ISP, and not Telstra. Telstra sells this connection at a flat rate to ISP’s, with the ISP then adding their costs on top such as support, account management or other additional services they offer you. This allows you to choose the ISP of your choice if they don’t offer their own service using their own infrastructure and if you don’t like dealing with Telstra. However, in most situations, choosing an ISP to use the Telstra Wholesale network is usually expensive, especially if you can get a home phone and broadband bundle with Telstra.

Speed

The speed of your service is also another variable that you don’t get much say on as there are many factors out of your control that play a huge factor in the speeds you get. However, the speed of your internet connection is depended on the type of Internet service you choose. All services, apart from the NBN, the below speeds are the maximum speed you can get, but in the majority of cases, it will be much lower depending on your line quality, distance from exchange, or neighbourhood traffic congestion.

*Guaranteed speed

The estimated speed you will get depending on your distance from the Exchange

ADSL2 Exchanges provides a lookup services to calculate the approximate distance you are away from the telephone exchange.

Monthly Cost and Setup Fees

Once you’ve determined the type of service you want, it’s time to determine what are the monthly costs and setup fees are for an ISP you are going to choose. Monthly costs are what you have to pay each month, and setup fees are the upfront fees that you have to pay to get connected. Most ISP’s offer a 12 or 24 month contract, so looking at the total cost for 12 or 24 months, is a great way to determine how much it will cost you.

Rapid Transfer

If you already have an internet connection, and want to change ISP’s because you have found a better deal, there is what’s called “Rapid Transfer” which allows you to change ISP’s in a few hours with only a little downtime. Both your old and new ISP has to support rapid transfer. If either your old or new ISP does not support rapid transfer, it may take 1-2 weeks to be connected, which means you won’t have an internet connection until it’s done. Rapid transfers are usually cheaper as well and have a reduced setup cost.

Product Bundling and Discounts

When looking at the monthly price, you also have to consider other services such as Mobile Phones, Pay TV, and home phones. Usually ISP’s offer you bundles, which in the long run, can save you lots of money. So if you are paying $30 for your home phone, and $50 for your internet and another $30 for your mobile phone each from a different service provider, you may want to consider bundling them up with one services provider. Another option could be to get a Naked connection and use VOIP as your landline. iiNet offers a good deal on this. Usually, if you bundle a home phone with your internet connection, your internet connection is a lot cheaper.

Included Quota

Every webpage you visit, every YouTube clip you watch is a download, and every photo you upload onto Facebook, is an upload. When choosing an internet plan, you must ensure you choose a plan that gives you enough Gigabytes per month. If you accidently go over your allowed quota, either your internet speed will slow down, or you are hit with a large bill.

Excess Usage Charges

Excess usage charges aren’t around much as they were a few years ago, but on some plans they do still exist. If a plan has excess usage charges, my advice would be to not go with them. If you go over the limit, you will be stung a huge fee, and in the long run, you will end up usually paying a lot more money. It’s also risky as if your computer gets a virus and starts downloading things, or your a neighbour breaks into your Wi-Fi network and starts downloading torrents, you could face huge bills. This will just cause you stress. Each ISP also has a different excess usage costs, so make sure you find one that you are prepared to pay.

Shaping

Thus, why it is best to choose an internet plan that shapes your speed. Therefore, if you go over your included allowance, your internet speed will be reduced (shaped), but you will always know your internet bill will always remain the same.

Counted Uploads

You have to also consider if uploads are counted. Most plans today count uploads, so if your included quota is 50GB, you will go over your quota if you download 40GB and upload 10GB. If uploads aren’t counted, you can download 40GB, and upload 200GB and nothing will change as your uploads are not counted. So if you tend to do a lot of seeding of torrents, uploading of YouTube video’s and Facebook photo’s, you might want to consider going on a plan that doesn’t count uploads.

Unmetered Content

Some ISP’s offer “unmetered content” which is content that they don’t count towards your allowed monthly quota. For example, for iiNet Customers, anything you watch on Freezone is not counted towards your quota. Most ISP’s have a range of unmetered content, you just have to find out what it is for them.

On Peak and Off Peak Times

Your included quota may be divided into On Peak and Off Peak. For example, between 8am and 12am might be considered on peak, and 12am to 8am might be considered off peak. Anything you download between those hours use your on peak or off peak data allowance. You have to careful when choosing an ISP that has on peak and off peak times as some ISP’s have offered 500GB of included quota, but you can only use 20GB a month between the hours of 6am and 2am, and the other 450GB only between 2am and 6am. Although the plan might sound good, it really isn’t if you are always asleep then.

Network Limitations

Not all ISP’s give you access to everything. Some ISP’s purposely slow down torrent speeds (as torrents are the main consumer of bandwidth), or they might block ports so you can’t run web servers or use VOIP. Therefore, if an ISP blocks traffic that you need, you need to consider heavily if you want to go with them.

Optional Service Extra’s

The last things you have to consider is what you get with the service.

• Do they give you a static IP address or a Dynamic IP address?
• How many email accounts do they give you?
• How much free webspace do they give you?
• Do they give you any backup space or online storage?
• Do they give you a spare dialup account in case your internet connection goes down?

So if you need any of these optional extra’s, make sure the ISP you go with has them.

Internet Filtering

ISP’s like Bigpond and Optus have an internet filter running, so highly illegal sites are not accessible. So if you need to access these illegal sites on the internet (hopefully you don’t though), or you don’t want to go with a company who wants to filter and censorship you, make sure you don’t go with a company that has an internet filter. However, if you are a parent, it could be worth it. Keep in mind, 99.99% of the sites are still accessible.

Support Methods and Hours of Operation

Apart from the technical side of things, you have to consider the company supplying you with the internet connection. If something goes wrong, how can you get them to help? Are they good at helping their customers? Do you have to spend hours waiting on the phone before someone picks up? Can you call them at 3am in the morning? Can you email them? Can you contact them on social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter? All this has to be considered. There is nothing worse than not being able to access the internet, and not being able to contact them and ask why

Service Reliability

Is the ISP’s service reliable? Some ISP’s have problems day after day; some can work all year round without a problem. Just don’t get scared off on the things you read on the internet. It’s only the people who have problems complain. The majority of people don’t complain because they don’t have problems with their internet connection.

Legal Stuff

You also have to beware of their legal side. When signing up, you have to ensure you comply with their terms of use, acceptable use policy, privacy policy, and terms and conditions. Though, most people don’t read them, it outlines whether or not the company can change your internet plan without telling you, and informing you what happens if you need to leave your contract early and other important information you need to know. ISP’s are slightly different, so it’s best to check and read their policies. As a minimum, make sure you know the following:

• Are you signing up on a fixed contract?
• What’s the minimum cost over 24 months?
• Can they change your plan?
• What notice do they need to give?
• What happens if you want to leave?
• Are there exit fees?
• Can you run servers, use VOIP and download torrents?
• How many calls can you make per month (if you have VOIP)
• What is the service level guarantee?
• If your internet goes out, do they give you refund, to what amount?
• Do you have to sign any wavers ensuring the ISP isn’t responsible for any problems you have?

Fees and Discounts

You also have to take into account any fees and discounts you may get for making changes to your service. For example:

• Are you able to upgrade or downgrade your plan at any time? What are the fees associated?
• What happens if you need to terminate your contact early?
• What happens if you move home?
• Do you get any discounts, or free hardware if you signup to a 24 month plan?
• Do you have to buy your own hardware to use their service?
• What discounts to you get if you bundle with other products?

Company Brand

Most people choose an ISP based on the brand name. Some people love a brand and will go with them, even though they may pay more compared with going with another ISP.

Some people might only want to go with well-known brands. Some people may hate going with the big brands and choose to go with the smaller companies.

So what sort of company brand are you going to go with?

Payment Methods

Paying for your service is also something you have to consider based on your needs. Some companies now charge you extra for them to send you a bill in the mail. Are you happy with electronic bills, or do you want to stick with paper bills and have the surcharge?

How do you want to pay? Through credit card, a cheque, at the post office, or BPAY? Do they offer your preferred payment method?

You have to ensure the ISP you go with offers they way you want to pay.

So what ISP’s can I choose from?

Now you know what to look for, you should be able to find yourself a good deal. To help with your search, Whirlpool’s Broadband Choice will be able to help you.

Over to you…

Remember the old floppy disks we all used to use before USB sticks? Well, they are back in fashion, this time, for a different reason… Music.

Yes, that’s right. People have been making some pretty good tunes out of floppy disks. Here’s a roundup of my favourite Floppy Drive Music.

What Is Love

Avicii - Levels

Party Rock Anthem

Owl City -  Fireflies

Smile Song

Flight of the Floppy Drives

Touhou - Bad Apple

Winter Wrap Up

Through the Fire and Floppies (Flames)

He's A Pirate

In the Hall of the Mountain King

Metallica: Master of Floppys

Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites - Skrillex

Starts Wars

This is Halloween

Want You Gone

Still Alive

Phantom of the Floppera

007 Theme

And the songs that didn't quite make the cut

• Nyan Cat
• Never Gonna Give You Up
• Adeste Fidelis
• Dream is Collapsing on
• Super Mario Floppy
• Funkytown
• Mozzart

A big thanks goes to MrSolidSnake745, and Sammy1Am for creating some of these best Floppy Drive Sounds.

So what do you think of Floppy Disk Music? Did you ever think it was possible back in the 90's?

Thanks to Manoj from Reflection Software Solutions, I have 15 free copies of Crave Invoice Pro (Version 1.7.3.1) to giveaway to readers. To win, simply answer How much does Crave Invoice Pro cost in USD?

The first 15 people to answer correctly will win a free full, non-expiry license key for Crave Invoice Pro version 1.7.3.1. If you know the answer, continue reading for the entry form.

What is Crave Invoice? - It's Invoicing Software

Crave invoice is an invoicing and billing program that allows businesses to manage products, customers, invoices and receipts easily through an application installed on their computer. There are many powerful features built in which include:

• Automatically email recurring invoices to customers
• Customise the templates of invoices, quotations and more to meet your business needs
• A whole range of reports that can be generated at a click of a button
• Easy to learn and use interface

Installing and Configuring

Installing Crave Invoice was a breeze and was no different to other software installs that you have done in the past. Once installed, you will be presented with a setup screen to configure your organisation’s company, tax, and currency details.

Once you’re done with the initial setup, you are instantly on your way to create your first invoice.

Products

One thing I like about Crave Invoice is that it is very easy to use. There is a consistent layout and you are not overwhelmed with options as you are with other invoicing tools. Just click the Products tab and you can create a new product and view your existing products.

This is pretty much all there is to it. For small business this would be a perfect solution, but for larger ones, it might not offer the flexibility that you want such if each product you sell has a unique serial number that has to be recorded. However, for a sporting club or freelancer, it is a perfect solution.

Customers

Adding customers is just as easy and contains all the fields that you need.

Invoices and Sales Orders

This is where Crave Invoice does what it does best – the invoicing.

One of my requirements of good software is that it allows tasks to be done easily and fast. There is nothing worse of having to do 10 or so of the same task and it takes forever to do. Creating an invoice is as easy as selecting the customer’s name which populates their details into the form. You then just have to select the items to be invoiced and few other optional options like adding notes or selecting a payment term. Once everything is filled out, just click on the email button and the software automatically emails the customer. Printing it out is just as easy.

As for creating Sales orders, it is almost an identical step to creating an invoice.

Receipts

Once a customer has paid for the invoice, select Receipts to record the payment and enter the details.

Once entered, you can then print out, or email the receipt to the customer.

Customisation

In terms of features, that’s basically the core functions of Crave Invoice. However, there are quite a lot of things you can do to customise it to your business needs. Here are a few things you can do:

Use it with multiple companies – you are not stuck with just one company name

Use it with multiple users with user accounts and set access permissions – if you work in a team, you can give access to certain parts of the software

Configure automatic numbering – you can easy change the auto numbering sequence for your documents

Add Periods – such as between summer or winter periods

Manage Currencies – working in AUD, USD, Euro or any other currency

Importing Data – easily import your data from an existing database

Advance Settlements – accept payments for the future

Reports Viewer – view a whole range of sales, customers or tax reports

Customising Templates – customise your template design to meet any requirements you have

And there are even more features:

• Manage countries and cities
• Transport and courier information
• Add sales persons
• Add payment terms
• Add units of measurements
• Change product prices in bulk
• Payment Receipts
• Managing expense accounts and expense groups
• Batch printing
• Tax rates

If you think this software will be useful for you or your business, why not try to win a copy, saving you $theanswer!

Thanks to Bitdefender Antivirus, I have a one a year license to giveaway for their award winning software Bitdefender Internet Security 2012.

To win, simply answer the following question:

Explain your worst computer moment?

The winner will be chosen by me based on whoever faced the most hardship, or made good light of a bad situation. To enter, simply enter your details into the entry form after the review.

Review: Bitdefender Internet Security 2012

In the past, I have questioned is Antivirus software really necessary, and have listed a few ways you can live without them. I’ve also complained that they slow down your computer. However, if you ever get a virus, it can be a pain to remove.

Bitdefender Internet Security 2012 is $74.95 per year for a license that can be used on one computer. The software integrates antivirus, antispam, antiphishing, firewall, parental controls and social network safeguards into one ultimate security suite.

There is an abundance of features with the software, and Bitdefender has done a really good job in making it very easy to use and install compared to competitors.

Installation

Installation was a breeze, and strangely enough, didn’t have many clicks. Once you entered your license key, it starts installing straight away.

Once installed, you are instantly protected, but it’s best to do an update and then a full system scan to detect any hidden viruses.

The Full System Scan

The full system scan is not that quick. It took 30 or so minutes to scan a hard drive that has 20GB of files stored on it. However, you would probably only run this once a month as a quick scan and the always-on protection will be sufficient.

I did notice, the scan process estimated time remaining is not accurate. Even though the scan estimated 6 minutes remaining, 25 minutes later, it is still going. As long as the software detects viruses and infected items, that is all that matters.

When the scan finished, those infected files were not viruses (which was good), they were tracking Cookies that were automatically deleted once the scan finished. Nevertheless, deleting these cookies is not hard at all.

Parental Controls

A great feature of Bitdefender Internet Security 2012 is that it offers Parental Control. It allows you to restrict access (or allow access) to sites based on the user accounts on your computer. If a user visits a blocked site, they will be presented with the following screen.

The Parental Control feature is quite advance that allows you to control based on ages, block websites, keywords, computer applications and Instant Messenger chats. However, with every filter, they are not always perfect. For example, I set the child’s age to 3 thinking it will block adult content, but it did not block adult content on Google Image. The only way I could block these images was to add the keyword of the searched term to the block list, or block the google.com/images URL. However, doing this for every adult website is impossible.

Another good feature is that you can receive email notification when web pages or applications are blocked. You can also view the log online if you turn this feature on.

Overall, Bitdefender Internet Security 2012 does get the job done. Now it’s your turn to use if you enter to win a one year license.

The Winner

Congratulations Justin W for your answer:

I was fixing my mums computer which did nothing but show up the blue screen of death which I couldn't understand what was doing it. I tried everything except re formatting it as she still wanted everything on the computer so after about 4hrs going into safe mode and trying to fix and adjust things thinking she installed something that was screwing around with the boot up then finally I went into the bios set up and what she had done was changed it to boot up from the other hard drive without the installed windows but a previous windows with old files. Later after fixing it I showed my mother the bios screen and she said oh yes I accedntly got into this and then I got out of it, to think if she told me 4hrs before I might have fixed it within minutes haha.

Every year, we all wait for what Google has to offer on April Fool’s Day. Last year, Google showed us that we can Teleport, we saw Google Motion, and were introduced to Chromercise. We’ve also seen some Google April Fools jokes become a reality.

This year, there was no exception. Google continued delivering April Fool’s jokes all day. Let’s have a look what Google had in store for us today (in case you missed some).

8-bit Google Maps

If you went to Google Maps today, you may have felt you went back into time when the first colour video game was released. Google showed an 8-bit map of the World.

Gmail Tap

Writing a message on your phone using 26+ keys can be a challenge and time consuming. But thanks to Gmail tap, you can write all your messages with only pressing two buttons. It also provides an option to allow you to send two emails at once – a great improvement over speech to text technology where you can only send one message at a time. Visit Gmail Tap to find out more.

Google Fibre

No, it has nothing to do with the NBN, but it does have something to do with what you eat. So Get Google Fibre today.

Go Ro?

There are millions of mobile devices, but dozens of rotary phones. But those using Rotary phones will have trouble visiting your website. So learn why optimizing for Rotary matters.

Click-To-Teleport

I remember making a comment a while back in a competition by Virgin Mobile (see my comment here). It appears Google has been stalking me – I’m sticking with that, rather than saying it was a co-incidence, but Google has introduced the Click-to-Teleport Extension. This allows you to teleport directly to any business you want to visit. So say goodbye Google’s Driving Directions. Nevertheless, a great way to drive more customers into the doors of your business.

Google’s Advance Search

Sometimes it can be hard to find what you are searching for on Google, so Google added to the Advance Search and called it “Really Advanced Search”. Really Advanced Search gives you so many more fields you can fill out to really find what you are looking for.

Google Street Roo

Exploring the Australian Desert would be a tiring task for people – it’s just too big. But thanks to this great invention, we can now all see the Australian Outback. “The Australian Outback, brought to you by thousands of jumping Kangaroo’s with 360 degree cameras on their heads.” Read the full article on the Official Google Australia Blog.

A new way to multitask

It’s true! When we use a computer, we are only using 50% of our available hands. So what Google Chrome Multitask Mode allows us to do is to browse the web faster with two mouses. So you can get twice the amount of productivity in. Want to try out Multitask mode? Just visit this link.

Google TV Click

Welcome to the new way of watching TV. Forget 3D TV, forget social media integration, and say hello to Google TV Click. Google TV Click allows you to interact with the shows and movies that are playing. It gives you control of the storyline and the actors. TV viewing has just reached a completely new level.

The YouTube Collection

Don’t really like watching YouTube online? The YouTube Collection is all of YouTube on disk and delivered to your door weekly.

Google Racing

It actually looks quite believable, and could possibly be another April Fools reality. But who knows, but maybe in the future, Racing might not involve a driver, but a coder to program a driverless car – the best coder wins. You can visit the Google Racing site here.

Change the Weather

Not a big fan of todays or the next few days’ weather? Don’t worry, Google will let you change it to however it suits.

Jargon-Bot for Google Apps

Being a developer, we have to be able to talk technically to other developers and talk in plain English to consumers, but for many, this can be difficult. But thankfully, Google has just launched Jargon-Bot for Google Apps. The App translates business jargon into plain English. So now, everyone will be on the same page.

Google Voice for Pets

That’s right! We can now call our pets thanks to technology that records audio directly from their vocal cords. If you pet likes sending SMS’s instead, a tiny inbuilt micro-LED emitter can project a keyboard to the floor. The other great feature is that Google Voice for Pets has an inbuilt transcription engine to translate meows and barks into plain English. But for some of us, we will still like the voice translation the other way so our pets do what we tell them too.

So what was your favourite Google 2012 April Fool’s Joke? Did I miss any?