Pgoodwin1

Curiously again it's more normal in the morning

CA3LE. I still consistently get slow times on the Dallas server during the evening hours. When I switch to the Washington server, my download speeds are almost 2x what the Dallas server data shows. And when I use the CDN Alt Push Route to Dallas, it's roughly 3x. The key for the data below is the "star" is Dallas, the "flag" is Washington, and the ones with just the Apple are the CDN Alt Push Route to Dallas. This phenomenon is repeatable every night between say 8 PM and midnight EDST. The TraceMy.net results look OK to me, but I don't know where that test takes me geographically. Here's what the Dallas, Washington and CDN Push test curves look like. Many times the Dallas server averages will be under 10 Mbps. Any thoughts about how to determine what the issue(s) might be? Also, why do you think the CDN Push Alt server connection would be so much faster?

Hi from SW Ohio in the US. Great speeds

I haven't made the leap yet. I have a mid 2010 iMac, an iPad 2, and an iPhone 4. I haven't jumped to iOS 7 yet either. I posted on Apple's Support Community for iPhone and iPad asking how my two models were doing running the new OS. Lots of iPhone 4 users unhappy that a simple upgrade slowed their phones down. Many of them were fine but it took a complete wipe and a set up as a new device to get them to work right. As for Mavericks, I'm gonna let the jury chew on it for a while and see how things go. One bummer for me is that apparently Mavericks will not allow the use of iTunes 10.7 (I think because it requires the 64 bit iTunes 11). Unfortunately Apple did away with multiple windows in ITunes 11. To me, that's very important managing multiple playlists. We have these huge iMac screens which allows you in iTunes 10.7 to have your library plus multiple playlists showing, and drag and drop amongst them. In iTunes 11 you get only one window, and you can't add a song to multiple playlists without incessant mousing, selecting, and scrolling. Keep us posted on Mavericks though. It does have some great features.

I'm using an AirPort Extreme 802.11n (5th Generation). It's a great one too. I'm not actually using it as the router, but as a wireless switch that feeds my old D-Link DI-604 which performs the actual routing function. I did it that way so that I could put the router in the basement with all the Ethernet lines running to it through a gigabit switch. The house has wired ethernet in most rooms. That way I could put the AirPort Extreme upstairs in a central location. It has good range too, thru walls into the garage and out onto the deck. The AirPort Extreme, D-Link DI-604 router, and the D-Link DGS-1008G gigabit switch are rock solid reliable. Literally, the only time they ever get reset is when the electric power goes off. Wish I could say the same about the Time Warner equipment. The jury is still out on the Arris gateway from Time Warner. It's new here and came with a recent upgrade to faster Internet and phone service with their Signature Home plan. The Cisco DVR they have me is erratic and I think it will need to be replaced.

Got a TWC Signature Home plan upgrade a week ago. Two DVR boxes plus a 3rd player - can watch recorded programs of either DVR on any of the 3 boxes. Came with 50 Mbps down and 3 Mbps up (old service was 15/1). Came with bundled phone service. New total bill for cable/internet/phone is only $10 more per month when Cincinnati Bell phone bill is eliminated. 1 day avg is in my signature below. so far pretty good. Speeds are generally 2-2.5x (down) and 3-3.5x (up) over what they were. Still quite a bit of variation during download tests to Dallas server; less variation on Washington server.

R.I.P. EWO

I hope you find something. That's why I use Apple products and iTunes.

Welcome from SW Ohio...in the burbs of Cincinnati

Hi from SW Ohio in the US, in the burbs of Cincinnati. Begin building your results history. Gather data at different times of day. If you can, hook a laptop right to the Ethernet port of your modem and see if the results are the same. If they are, then either their modem or their equipment outside of your home is the issue...unless your computer is just overly resource starved.

Welcome Obie, from SW Ohio in the US

I'd highly recommend the iPod over any other player. Most aftermarket stereos have digital USB interfaces for iPods, and the organization of the music into songlists using iTunes results in a far better user experience in a car than having to scroll through lists of artists, or song titles or albums titles. With iTunes you can easily make lists of songs, rate them, sort by rating and make smart lists to pull in songs to a list based on whatever criteria you pick. It's far superior to any other music organization software. There are others, but none of them are even close to the flexible power of iTunes. If you don't have a huge music library of ripped CDs or purchased digital music, a smartphone can likely hold enough songs for you. As for your stereo, if it has a tape deck, it's probably an older model, and may not even have an Aux input. If it does, you can just plug into it from the headphone output of any MP3 player or smartphone. The sound quality isn't quite as high us using a digital input from an iPod or a smartphone. If you don't have the Aux in or USB inputs on your stereo, the only options you have without buying a new car stereo is a Cassette Adapter or an FM Modulator. The Cassette Adapter looks just like a cassette with a wire honing out of it that you plug into your MP3 player. When you insert the cassette, it plays through your tape heads, and it has the same rotating hubs that a cassette has. These devices sound just OK, not great, but about as good as any commercial cassette recording. They aren't very reliable. They don't cost much, but I had one where the cassette hub bearing froze and it ruined my cassette player - it wouldn't eject, and the payer got damaged when I tried to ease it out-it just wouldn't come out. The option (FM Transmitter) has an FM transmitter in it. You plug your MP3 player into it and tune your car FM radio to a specific station. The adapter transmits a signal to your car radio antenna. The transmitters don't have much power, so the signals can be interfered with, and even the FM channels on your stereo (where there's no station) will have a lot of background noise. I don't recommend either of these solutions. You'd be better off buying a new car stereo. You can compare models and manufacturer's features and spec online at Crutchfield. Or you an do some online research on reviews by people about local car audio stores. Those places can recommend the right equipment for your budget. I bought a Pioneer Pioneer DEH-X9500BHS CD receiver, and it's a really nice looking and sounding unit. Many of the better car stereos these days can interface with either an Android phone or an iPhoe digitally, and virtually all of them will interface digitally with an iPod. Many of them have BlueTooth and will connect your phone so you can talk hands free. So,e of them even have voice command.

The MacBook Pro can be upgraded more easily, giving you more performance down the road. The case comes apart with screws, where you have to split the iMac case with a little pizza cutter looking tool to break the adhesive. But as mentioned above, it really comes down to how you want to use it. With the laptop, it's portability and battery life may change the way you use the computer if you are currently not using a laptop. It's nice to be able to use the computer wherever you want. Both are great machines. My prior iMac (2002 Flat Panel G4) gave me 8 good years with just a RAM upgrade after 4 years. and the only reason I replaced it was that the kids wanted to play online games, and after 8 years, the web-based game complexity got so high, that the iMac wasn't good enough for them. My wife's 2006 MacBook Pro is still soldiering on fine with only a RAM upgrade and a bigger and faster HDD at about the 6 year point. Whichever you get, load it up with as much as you can afford.

Again, this morning I'm getting the normal fast (for me) speed readings on the Dallas server....see the last two points on the chart/data list Note that the ping times are about the same as last night when I was experiencing the really slow download times.

I'm still having issues when speed testing on the Dallas server. I get 3x the speed using the Washington DC server, which shows a speed more like I'm used to seeing during prime time evening hours on the Dallas aerver. When I do the TraceMy.net trace test, the ping times I see are very close to what I see when my speeds are registering normal - during non-prime time hours. I'm puzzled by the extremely low speeds I'm seeing using the Dallas server. Anyone have any idea what the issue(s) might be? This phenomenon has been going on for a while now-like 3 weeks or so. Note that the Dallas server is identified with the star in the upper data picture. And the Washing DC server is the US flag. Note. I get ping times like these when I'm registering close to 15 Mbps download from either server. When on the Dallas server, and my speeds are very low like the above ~3 Mbps, my ping times are virtually the same.

The guts of the PCs and Macs for sale are pretty similar. What the PC hardware has going for it is the customization aspect, where a skilled person can build what he wants. The average user can't really do it without getting himself into trouble from a lot of different engineering aspects. To me, the PC and Mac OSs are where the real differences are. Apple has more control over all the hardware/OS and OS/AS interfaces and the result is their integration results in fewer anomalies than Windows. The PC manufacturers can do a good job integrating their hardware with the version of Windows that ships with the units. Some of them do a lot better job than others. When both the OS and the hardware are new, they all have a much bigger challenge. Once the user gets a machine, the likelihood of it staying secure and stable is much higher with OS X because of the tight controls Apple has in place on application software in their app stores. A savvy person can keep a PC secure and stable. A not-so-savvy person has a much bigger challenge because the applications can come from anywhere. Plus the malware developers target PCs by orders of magnitude more than Macs. One of my bigger issues with MS has been that their developer brains don't work like mine. The logic they use to name and locate functions in the OS escapes me. Too many times, after a frustrating search, my thoughts are "why would anyone put that there?" And "Why did they call it that?". That and it always takes twice as many mouse clicks to do things. Years ago, the initial cost of getting Macs was higher than the PC. It's not any more. When you load up a PC with equivalent hardware now (from a store), the Mac prices are on par. So it basically comes down to the design and quality systems of the PC supplier. In the case of Apple, their hardware design and quality are consistently among the best.

I just tried the TraceMy.net tool. It's already great. I've only spent minutes with it and don't claim yet to understand everything it's telling me. But, I got normal looking Up and Down speeds this morning on the Dallas server, so I know what the trace looks like under normal operating conditions. It showed a couple of 600+ millisecond ping numbers, and I don't know how good, bad, or typical that is for Time Warner Cincinnati; it sounds really long. I pulled up a Community graph and it looks like an order of magnitude lower ping numbers, but since my times were as fast as they are when everything is working right, I expect the 625 mS ping numbers were normal for my ISP. My TWC plan isn't one of their fast ones; it's just one step up from their minimum offered plan (if I remember right). For all I know, they program in delays for the cheap plans and remove them for the expensive ones, and everybody uses the same equipment. I'll play with TraceMy.net some more soon, and maybe ask some specific questions The one thing that confused me a little with the TraceMy.net results was the security for sharing info that came up. It talked about creating a TMN ID. I guessed that that message was for new users without a TMN ID that would be using the eventual released version, and it was telling them to sign up for a TMN account. I wasn't sure though that the data I was looking at with the IP addresses was something I should be sharing. As I said, I haven't played with it much yet, so I'm sure I'll figure stuff out after I use it more. Your note comes up after a trace route test "Make this safe to share by removing identifying target information and converting the address into an anonymous TMN ID." After I hit the link part of that "Make this safe to share", it displays a similar page with a temporary note saying that it was safe to share. But I couldn't tell what the difference was from the prior page that supposedly wasn't safe to share. Note-9/3/13-I figured out the difference.

IMHO nobody makes better computers/OS than Apple. I've used them since 1988. And every one I've ever had was a fantastic machine that lasted for years problem free. And like you said, it just works. It hurts going to the office once a week (I'm retired now) and using the PC. And my wife's work Dell laptop she uses is only a year old, and it's just a so so laptop. Her 2006 MacBook Pro is still tooling along great. When you amortize the real costs of a Mac over a PC including OS updates, and security software costs for the PCs, the Macs are are a bargain when you price them with equivalent hardware.

Tonight is back doing the same thing.mtye Dallas server gives very slow Download times, where the CDN Alt Route and Washington DC server show what my equipment usually looks like for downloads. Also note that the upload times on the CDN Alt server is roughly 1/2 what it shows on the Dallas and Washington DC servers IMac: The star is Dallas. The flag is Washington. The plain stack icon is the CDN Alt Route server. Here's the similar iPad results: The slow intermittent upload speed on the CDN Alt server seems to be intermittent. Every once in a while I get a normal upload speed on it (about 0.8-0.9 Mbps

Strange. This morning it's working fine on both the iPad and the iMac. Must have been a warp in the force. Any idea what would cause that rapid fall off at the tail end of the test? Virtually every test I run does it. Smartest, or choosing file sizes, they all have that ramp down at the end that lowers the average speed value.

Using the Alternate CDN Push Alternate Route to Dallas, the times were very fast. Faster than than using the Washington DC server by 30-50%, and 4-5 times faster than the standard Dallas server default With a few more tests on the CDN Alt Route, I saw quite a variation in test results. Most of them were very good on download, but one was really low like the standard Dallas server numbers (down). I also saw some number using the CDN Alt route that were 1/2 of normal for upload speeds. The standard Dalla and Washington servers pretty much always give me about 0.8-1 Mbps, and the ALt CDN route was giving me about 0.35 a little bit ago for upload. Dallas Wed Aug 14 2013 @ 11:46:39 pm 448 kB 708 Kbps 89 kB/s 598569765972 Time Warner Cable jyvFmt4 share Wed Aug 14 2013 @ 11:46:31 pm 4.2 MB 4.78 Mbps 598 kB/s 598569765972 Time Warner Cable a5rymhu share Washington Washington Wed Aug 14 2013 @ 11:46:12 pm 928 kB 1.03 Mbps 128 kB/s Wed Aug 14 2013 @ 11:45:52 pm 13 MB 11.28 Mbps 1.41 MB/s CDN Alt Push Wed Aug 14 2013 @ 11:41:51 pm 448 kB 343 Kbps Wed Aug 14 2013 @ 11:41:26 pm 12.8 MB 17.24 Mbps

The last couple of days, I've been registering really low speeds when using my normal default Dallas server. It's giving me speeds less than 1/3 of what I see on the Washington DC server. Is there a problem on that server? Normally I'm between 10-15 Mbps down on that server. I was measuring as low as 3 tonight, and in the 5-8 range last night. Happens on more than one device (iPad and iMac) I've rebooted my Airport Extreme, Cable Modem and Router - no help. Plus, when I use the Washington DC server, I see times that are pretty normal looking for this time of night on Time Warner Cincinnati I'm not Multi threading

Sounds horrid. I've heard about how intrusive Google is so I didn't open a Google account. I only use their search engine and maps and whatever else they have that's available without a Google account. I wonder how many other little snitches there are. I don't have the expertise to understand what everything in Activity Monitor is showing me. There's nothing in my GoogleSoftwareUpdate folder newer than 2010 And I don't have Chrome installed

This is TWC here over a two week period at various times of day.

I offered the above data to show what I think is normal and typical for TWC. Obviously the TWC in your area won't be the same, but if you see performance that looks like mine, I wouldn't call it atypical of Time Warner's service. I've never seen TWC's cable service flat like CA3LE's showing. Even before this site had the graphic display of the TIP, you could watch the progress bar during the test and see it speeding up and slowing down. With TWC, I'm happy that they now at least provide me with an average that is close to what they advertised. Before their 1st of the year upgrade here, I was always 20% to 50% below what they advertised as their minimum.