Announcements

Have you heard of Shell Extension City? If you haven't visited this site, you're really missing out! Shell Extension City (Shell X) is a web site which features short-but-sweet reviews of very cool and totally free software on the Net today. What is ... a shell extension, anyway? The phrase "Shell Extension" is actually a computer term used to describe the integration of an installed program and the operating system. One example of a shell extension might be the program Winzip. Winzip is a popular compression agent for Windows that is used widely on the Internet. Once Winzip has been ... (view more)

Finally! After all the trouble and hassle with the last host, I think I've finally found a permanent home for the infopackets.com web site and virtual-host friends who are sharing this dedicated server. A brief, but very interesting (hellish) ... synopsis entails: Some time near the end of October 2002: It was decided that I needed to get another dedicated server to handle all the traffic that comes through the infopackets web server. October 30, 2002: After being reassured by a "knowledgeable" web-hosting sales representative that infopackets.com and its high demand for bandwidth could ... (view more)

Are you sick of hearing about my mis-adventures yet? I've got more to talk about, and if you want to keep informed about the status of the web site and newsletter delivery, you'll have to read up on it. So, here goes: The current host will literally ... pull the plug on the (current) web server effective November 30th which is at the end of the 30-day "money back guarantee" period. Access to the infopackets web site might be interrupted temporarily until the rest of the Internet catches up to par with my nameserver update. If you don't know what a nameserver is, or if you want to know ... (view more)

Does the drama ever end? No, and it's costing me a bundle. Unfortunately, I have to drop my current web-host because (among other reasons), bandwidth has been capped at 1.5 megabits. According to current server statistics, a 1.5 megabit connection ... isn't enough to meet the demand of knowledge hungry Infopackets Readers and the other web-owners who are sharing the dedicated web-server. And now, the rest of the story (for now)... If you read the last issue of the Gazette , the infopackets web site was originally configured for a 10 megabit connection. According to my current host, the server was ... (view more)

Much has been happening since I last wrote to you about the web server upgrade. If you want to read up on what's been happening, here's Part 1 and Part 2 . A quick recap Due to an increased in the amount of visitors hitting the infopackets web site, ... I had to upgrade the web server. I am now leasing a lightening fast Pentium 4 1.7 GHz Apache Web Server with 512 Meg DDR RAM a 60 gig hard drive. My web server package includes a "T1 Connection" which allots a continuous flow of 1.5 megabits of bandwidth per second at any given moment. The saga continues! Since the server has been ... (view more)

After pumping out that 3-part series on Shopping for an LCD monitor , I've decided to take a break and let you all know what's happening with the web site. I mentioned a few newsletters ago that I had to fork out some serious $$ for a new web ... server. I ordered it at the beginning of this month and have been waiting patiently to register my own nameserver. Nameserver? What did you name your server? Actually, a nameserver is a technical term for a database record which points to the location of a web site. I have two nameservers for my web site and their names are ns1.infopackets.com and ns2. ... (view more)

There's a few things that need to be addressed in this issue of the Gazette. Just last month, I had the server upgraded to match the demand for the ever-growing infopackets web site. For the Month of September, 2002, infopackets had 114,241 unique ... visitors that viewed 275,331 pages. In the last 7 days, infopackets has been averaging between 3,500 and 5,000 unique visitors a day. The server is humming along for now, but I fear that it will reach another limit in the very near future. The next "step up" for a server upgrade is going to cost $650.00 USD a month (or, $8,000,000 CDN ... (view more)

I bet you're just dying to know "what's new in the land of infopackets.com?" Seek the answer to that question no further! Since I developed "How to Install / Reinstall Windows: downloadable Video and eBook Ultimate Guide", the response from users ... has been tremendous. What can I say? First, I'd like to personally thank Microsoft for introducing so many bugs in the Windows Operating System and for making everyone's lives miserable because of it. If it wasn't for their valiant effort, I would not have taken time out of my busy schedule to produce such a helpful guide. Hey, I ... (view more)

With respect to the title of this newsletter: you might be wondering, "What the heck is a poll?" -- better yet, what is a "mail queue?&quo t; Those are definitely good questions. A poll (in computer lingo) is responsible for sending the computer ... a special request -- usually at a specific time frame. A mail queue is a place where emails are deposited on a computer (for example, a web server) where it awaits to be sent or resent at a later time. How it all Works Whenever I send out the Gazette newsletter, some emails don't get through to their destination. These emails are then ... (view more)

There's a few things to there talk about in this edition of the Gazette. First of all, you may have noticed that I sent out an issue yesterday for the first time on a Wednesday. I've decided to write the newsletter 3 times a week now. It's just too ... much fun emailing 30,000 people and seeing the response it generates. Besides that, it's a great way to solve a problem! Secondly, I wanted to let you all know that I've been working very hard the past two weeks to get some things straightened around on the web site. It was a real pain in in the butt to have to update links for every issue of the ... (view more)