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Yeah, they have more time on their hands and tend to care more about the customer. Subcontractors want to hurry up so they can get to the next job to make more money. Here's a good example. I went out on a job in North Scottsdale AZ... there had been 6 previous calls to this mansion before I got the call. All the previous 'techs' were subcontractors. I could see work that had been done to the drop and the side of the house... but inside I notice that there is a very old connector behind the wall plate... and the cable is RG-59, with copper shielding. Already off to a bad start. I go up into the attic (huge by the way, I could stand up with about 6 ft of headroom... straight up mansion) and see a litteral rats nest of cables. Chewed all to shit by mice. Some were so bad there was 10 feet of cable with nothing but the core left. I thought to myself, "how the hell did they not see this!" it was instantly obvious as soon as you popped your head in there ... because they weren't doing their job, that's how. I called my dispatcher and had her give all my other jobs to my buddies because I had an all day job on my hands. I ended up doing a nearly 30 outlet rewire on this place. Luckily the attic was big and easy to work with. The lady was cool too, she hooked up a big blower fan at the entrance to blow A/C in there for me. So the job went really smooth. ... we charged her nothing for the entire job. These days, they'd charge for every single outlet. But obviously, if you have 30 outlets... money isn't a problem for you. -- Funny thing is, if the contractors had seen and repaired that, they would have made BANK. Probably a couple grade for that job. But they were too lazy to get into it. You should have seen the D-Mark. I had a two way splitter, split to two 6 way amps, split to a bunch of 3 and 4 way splitters. By the time I left she had one of the best pictures I'd ever seen on analog. Contractors don't care about the customer in my experience. They care about how many easy jobs they can knock out real fast. I'd hear them talking to each other at the office as I got my equipment from the warehouse every day, "Dude, I did 20 data installs yesterday!" --- sorry but if you knock them out THAT fast, something isn't being done right. ... and here comes the in house tech to clean up the mess. Having said that however, Cox does follow up on them and holds them accountable for mistakes. Some of them lose their contracts, but just because they lose their contract doesn't mean that there isn't a bunch of houses out there with mis-wired cable that they did. It's not like firing them fixes all the issues they caused. Also, prewired coax done by homebuilders is crap. Brand new houses I'd go to that were getting service for the first time... first thing I'd do is cut off ALL the fittings that they did and throw them and the crap splitters they used in the trash. Electricians know electrical, not cable. I really just wished that they would just run the lines and leave the fittings up to me, hell it would save themselves money too. They almost always did it wrong and it was just easier to do it all over and not risk a callback. Probably one of the reasons my callback rate was one of the lowest in the state.

wow that IS quite a difference... hopefully someone here has an answer there are more than a few linux gurus in here... i have ubuntu...but i'm pretty lame in how it all works **snicker** i just like to say things like "run a test and post your image" so the techie guys can help... it would also help if you post up some info about your hardware...what's all in your box and connected to it.

CA3LE...good call on the "in-house" tech. Yes, they are night and day different from the regular installation techs. They'll also figure out the problem pretty quickly.

Mine refers to my favorite cartoon show, called Code Lyoko. It's from France, of all places! The antagonist is the character named XANA, one of those never-seen characters. The "virus" part of my username refers to XANA's 1) ability to infect computers at an alarming rate, and 2) its AI nature of its creation. For instance, one episode, XANA infects a miltary satalite - first using the local school's antenna, then from there it infects the TV antenna, which it then takes over the satalite armed with a deadly lazer. All this in the span of a few minutes! XANA, the character, has a symbol, which is my avatar. If you're into tech and anime, you'd probably like this show too.

I like my spam grilled and on toast with mayo.

phree c00ki3s... that's cool. Don't you just love how I tell you the truth here... it helps rather than hurts. You've just seen first hand the difference between TMN and other Interent speed tests. This is for multiple reasons. The other guys test your speed under the most ideal circumstances... they've removed many of the variables that are the Internet. Personally I believe that you're not here to know your speed under ideal conditions... you're here to test your Internet speed. How can you test your Internet speed if you're not even truly going out on the Internet? The tests that providers and the people that work for the providers best interests host are hosted within your providers network... TMN is a test that stands for the best interests of the consumer. For more details please read https://testmy.net/legit-speed-test.php Other speed tests run through third party protocols. These often bypass issues that you may have with your browser and OS configuration. They're also, in their own admission, often guessing... and adjusting the results based on guesses because of the poor protocol choice they've made. You didn't come to test your Internet for a guess, right? For more details please read https://testmy.net/ip...la-speed-tests/ TestMy.net is the only speed test that works the way it does. Your results along with countless others prove my point... results elsewhere often can't be trusted. Especially if the provider is involved, which is often the case. They have a vested interest in showing you that your connection is fine and that the problem is with the website you're trying to visit. It cuts down on service calls and saves them money. Personally, I could care less about how many service calls those guys have to send out... your connection should work the way that your provider advertises. I'm here to hopefully keep them honest. TMN is a third party with no vested interests in the outcome of the results. Having said that, this wasn't Cox's fault. This was a problem with settings on your end... a fault of your operating system. As you found, it's a simple fix with SpeedGuide's TCP Optimizer. Seems to me that the providers would keep much happier customers if they just sent them to TMN in the first place rather than having their customers have to figure it out on their own. It used to be standard operating procedure before many of them realized that hosting their own tests made them look better. Although I still think testing out to the Internet is better information the information on how your connection runs within their network is also useful... but only if the test being used is based on sound testing principals. If they're using Flash... like all of them are... the principals aren't sound. You saw the difference first hand, help me spread the word... people need to know this stuff.

I agree totally, raises a brow as to why, considering how high the probability of manipulation this file has. If I had to place a number on how many of the machines I get in where either the host file and or the browser proxy settings have been used to get the machine connected to a botnet , I might have to say nearly 50% of them. It is simple once you take a few to learn how to use it. Maybe a good thing would be to start a new thread discussing it.

First, if you don't plan on adding value to conversation... leave. Simple posts saying "hi" that contain no true value to the forum may be seen as spam and removed. Tell us something worth typing... share your speed, share your experience or tell me what you think of what I've built. As long as you're a real person posting real content you have nothing to worry about. Bots on the other hand don't last long here. We'd love to have you introduce yourself as a new member, so please click here to make a post to the New Members board that you're currently in. That way we can all give you a warm welcome and answer any questions you may have. But please, if you have a question about your system, connection or any computer related question please make those posts in the board that suits the topic best. If you don't know where your topic should go just post it to General Discussion and one of us will point the topic in the right direction for ya. To see a list of the boards you should make your posts to all you need to do is go to the Forum Default Page. Make sure you take note of the sub-forums that are with-in some of the forums. These sub-forums can sometimes give you more specific help. HAVE FUN DAMN IT! Most importantly... enjoy yourself here, this community is full of not only helpful self proclaimed (and proud of it) computer nerds it's also full of people having a great time! Many people become addicted to our forums so I'd just like to warn you... you may be with us till the day you die, but at least you'll make a ton of really kick ass friends along the way. - Damon