Mark
At the moment, shall we just like very, very briefly talk about how to increase your internet speed if you’ve got a slow line? What’s that all about.
Seamus
Well, I believe that, because there will be a lot more people working from home there will be a lot of people, self-isolating that the internet will get sort of overloaded and get slow for everyone. I mean, it’s pretty terrible in Australia. Anyway, but this is going to put a huge load on the system so there’s a little product called Speedify, which is just at speedify.com and what it can do.
Seamus
Very clever and I think it’s the only product that does this. It can combine two internet connections and use them both at the same time. So, if you’ve got your house internet say you’ve got an ethernet cable coming to the computer. You can use that but then you can add in your phone, as well, hotspot your phone. And obviously this is going to use more data. But, you know, a lot of times now but pretty good data plans mine’s I think I’ve got about 30 gigs of data so I use that sometimes if my Internet’s a bit spotty I’ll combine the two and then it’s either.
I can set it up so it either does both of them going flat out so I’ll get really fast internet or you set up your main one, and then you have the other one as a secondary one so it only comes in. If your main internet gets slow or patchy. So, it’s actually very good if you watching, if you’ve got sort of patchy internet and you watch Netflix or something like that. It makes sure you don’t get any slow speeds so that the streaming video comes through quite well.
Mark
At my place, if you try and do your work over the internet, – as we said before as more and more people have to self-isolate there’ll be more and more people on the internet. And you know what happens then, it slows down to snail’s pace
Seamus
Yeah does. So, this is a sort of a just a band-aid approach and it and you do have to be aware that it uses your secondary, it’ll use your phone data but there are times when you’ll need that. And that’s why I think Spotify is a brilliant solution. Now the other thing that it does it’s a VPN which stands for Virtual Private Network. If you’re working in a work situation, generally speaking, your calls from your work computer to the internet are encrypted, just because you’re in the work area, but when you’re at home, you’re often not. So, a VPN protects your data as it travels from your computer to a website. And normally that’s not protected so hackers can, if they want to hack into that and grab your data as it’s going up to the internet
Mark
OK, so if this works on your phone and on your computer, I will ask very quickly -where I am the NBN although it’s only the cable is only 45 metres from my place I can’t get it so I have to go on satellite which can be very frustrating.
Seamus
Yep.
Mark
But with my modem I’ve actually two different sides on mine, one is a 5g and one is the normal one, so if my computer is on one and my phone on the other – can I combine the two lines?
Seamus
No, because that’s technically one lot coming into your modem. And not totally separate streams or I don’t know quite what the word is. So, unfortunately, no you can’t do that and in the same way, you can’t have an ethernet cable and wireless coming from the same modem. To do that, it’s still the same data coming into your modem and they come in two different ways.
Mark
Well, to use the old Toyota adage – Bugger!
Mark
There are two new Facebook groups talking about COVID-19, what’s that about?
Seamus
There are two really good Facebook groups who have just popped up – there’s one in Cairns and one in Atherton, and they’re just Facebook groups, set up a few people just for the community for people who are either self-isolating or don’t want to go out because they’re, you know, in a high-risk category so elderly people quite often. And the first one, the Cairns one is, if you just go to Facebook and type in Cairns Community Helping Those in Quarantine. And that’s three young women who’ve decided they want to do this for the community. And they’re putting a hell of a lot of work in and putting all sorts of resources into it. It’s really an amazing initiative from three fantastic young women. I’m going to be helping them with a database to get this up and running.
Seamus
And then the other one is up in the Tablelands and that’s Tablelands Unite – Helping each other through COVID-19. And that’s a similar group in the Tablelands just, you know, just getting information, people talking to each other and just behaving beautifully in times of trouble and, you know, unknown – whatever’s going to happen in the future.
Mark
In other words, using Facebook, as it used to be, for social messaging, instead of junk.
Seamus
Yeah
Mark
Is it a private group, do you have to apply to be invited.
Seamus
No, I think the Cairns one is an open page. So that’s, yeah I’m just checking now the Cairns one is an open page; Tablelands one at the moment is a private group so you have to apply.
Mark
Curious, I mean you’d almost have to have a moderator looking after it.
Seamus
Yeah. So, in both of those instances there are people putting a fair bit of work in moderating the site and checking everything and just doing the behind the scenes work.
Mark
So this is an initiative for many centres many, many areas where anybody with internet or access to Facebook if they’re self-isolating, they could set up their own community.
Seamus
Yeah, and it’s also for people who want things, you know like, people who can offer things so some people might have on those spare toilet rolls ?, probably not a good example but it’s just about sharing resources, businesses who can offer online ordering for people or businesses who are giving special discounts for things or businesses who are doing something special to help everyone through this coronavirus pandemic.
Mark
Or if someone is able to prepare a meal, and even if they just leave it at the door for the person as required. That sounds like a great idea
Seamus
Exactly. Yeah, so two really lovely initiatives and really good ideas and you know what Facebook should be about which is you know helping community.
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