Re: Firefound

Dear Readers,

I told you all that I was exploring the use of Firefound , especially for Malaysian users. Well I have used it at 2 different locations to help track my laptop's whereabouts and so far, from the 2 locations it was relatively close in 1 location while in another, it was quite far off.

The 1st location was in an office, so could that have an effect on tracking the laptop? Overall, the location given in the website was 15km off the actual location of the laptop being tested.

The 2nd location was in a residential area, and also used a wireless connection, and firefound was able to name the strongest WiFi signal in proximity to the laptop! This time, the location could be said to be quite accurate, in fact, the street shown in the website was the street that the laptop was actually on at the time.

Please try to understand, I can only give the above example as I do not wish to divulge my locations (for safety and privacy reasons) but hopefully, all of you are able to understand the points that I am trying to make. :)

Of course, I am only 1 person, so if others in Malaysia wish to give this a try, please do so, and you may leave your feedback regarding this service in my comments section.

Thank you very much for reading!

Comparison between Google's DNS and Streamyx's DNS

Dear Readers,

With thanks to manu-j and one contributor there: Stevan Bajić, below you will find a very rough table giving us a comparative performance difference between Streamyx's DNS (202.188.0.133) and Google's DNS (8.8.8.8).

__________________________________

|Domain |Streamyx | Google|

+------------------------+--------------+--------------|

| lifehacker.com | 16 msec | 65 msec |

+-------------------------+------------+------------+

| facebook.com | 11 msec | 69 msec |

+-------------------------+------------+------------+

| manu-j.com | 630 msec | 67 msec |

+-------------------------+------------+------------+

| reddit.com | 6 msec | 67 msec |

+-------------------------+------------+------------+

| tb4.fr | 408 msec | 69 msec |

+-------------------------+------------+------------+

| bbc.co.uk | 13 msec | 71 msec |

So what can we say about this result? We have a competent DNS? Unbelievable, right! But as you can see, Streamyx's is a little inconsistent (look at manu-j.com and tb4.fr) while Google's DNS consistently posts results in the 60-70ms range. Access to facebook.com is very fast though. :) Also, I took the liberty to test 2 websites that maybe most Malaysians find close to their hearts: thestar.com.my and Maybank2u.com.my The results are as follows:

202.188.0.133 “thestar.com.my” 87 msec
8.8.8.8 “thestar.com.my” 70 msec
202.188.0.133 “maybank2u.com.my” 109 msec
8.8.8.8 “maybank2u.com.my” 72 msec

As you can see, Google's DNS is slightly faster in resolving the websites. Please note these are best performance numbers and your own performance may vary. If you wanna try Google's Public DNS out, please visit http://code.google.com/speed/public-dns/

Have a great time surfing faster!

Surfing the web too slow for you?

Dear Readers,

I've not posted anything for months and today suddenly 2 posts in a row! W00t~

I recently found another interesting development to look into for web surfers. An alternative DNS. Do read more about it here: http://lifehacker.com/5418211/google-public-dns-aims-to-speed-up-your-browsing

I am not sure about the actual effect for us Malaysian surfers but I have the intention to test this out and provide some concrete numbers for reference purposes.

Stay tuned~!

Currently looking into FireFound

Dear Readers!

Firefound is a Firefox add-on which:

helps you find your computer (or mobile phone, in the case of Fennec) if it is lost or stolen. Every time your computer's location changes, FireFound sends a secure message to a central server with its current location. You can then log into the server and see your computer's current location.

Neat, huh? But, bear in mind that most of these add-ons were built with American/European users in mind, so I am currently looking into it for Malaysian use. It might be very useful for us, or it could be not so useful :)