Miscellaneous Links
- Test your Macromedia Shockwave & Flash Players at http://www.adobe.com/shockwave/welcome/
- Test your browser plug-ins at https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/plugincheck/
Recently, a significant threat to DNS, the system that translates names you can remember (such as www.raymondsullivan.net) to numbers the Internet can route (66.240.226.139) was discovered, that would allow malicious people to impersonate almost any website on the Internet. Software companies across the industry have quietly collaborated to simultaneously release fixes for all affected name servers. To find out if the DNS server you use is vulnerable, click below.
DNS CHECKER
How to check your cable modem signal levels
- If you have a Surfboard, send your web browser to http://192.168.100.1/
- If you have a 3Com Tailfin (for early firmware versions), send your web browser to http://149.112.50.65/
- If you have a 3Com Tailfin (for recent firmware versions, send your web browser to http://192.168.100.1/
Internet Diagnostic Tools
Different from bandwidth testers, Internet Diagnostic Tools try to test the reliablity and operational status of your desktop computer and network connection. They use several different methods to do this. Also useful to test if your ISP is manipulating your traffic. Most of them are to be considered experimental.
Stanford University NDT server
NPAD Diagnostic Server
M-Lab
ICSI Netalyzr
Internet2 Performance Initiative
Glasnost
Internet Weather/Health Report
These sites try to display metrics on overall Internet performance, monitoring availability and latency between major Tier One backbones. It helps you quickly identify and diagnose problems in your Internet connectivity, application, or Web server infrastructure.
Internet Health Report
Internet Traffic Report
Internet Weather Report
Network Diagnosis
Bandwidth Testers
CNET Bandwidth Meter
Broadband Reports
2Wire.com
Bandwidth Place
The SpeedTest.com
Speakeasy Speed Test
MySpeed
Speedtest.net
Speed test at bendbroadband.com
Speed test at qwest.net
MPS Consulting Text Based Speed Test
Most people feel the need to test how fast their broadband modem is at downloading or uploading. To answer this need, several speed testing sites have sprung up. The problem is, none of these tests measure the actual speed of your modem: what they measure is the bandwidth between your modem and the test site itself, subject to a maximum cut-off at the speed of the modem. The bandwidth between two points on the Internet is determined by the hop in the path which has the least available spare capacity, and if that limiting bandwidth is less than that of the modem, then that is the reading that the speed test will return. This figure might or might not be typical of speeds you could expect to see from other sites, or at other times, depending on where and when the bottleneck is.
If you are fortunate enough to choose a test site where the available free bandwidth on all hops is greater than the speed of your modem, then the test site will indeed measure the speed of your cable modem, which is then the limiting bottleneck.