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Imagine you are driving down the highway and run out of gas.  Surely that’s bad enough, but then you discover that you cannot refill your gas tank and are stranded for 24 hours or more.  Welcome to the world of high-speed satellite internet.

To deal with this problem, we built HNFAP, FREE Windows software that acts like a smart gas gauge for your HughesNet high-speed Satellite internet.  HNFAP™ (pronounced "HEN-fap") enables you to download as much as possible without running out of gas.

Satellite Internet: Best Option for Rural Customers

There are three major satellite internet providers in the United States: HughesNet, Starband and WildBlue.  With satellite internet, you download and upload data via a satellite dish mounted in your yard or on your roof, similar to how DirecTV and Dish networks provide TV channels via satellite.

When compared to other means of internet access (cable, DSL, T1, dialup, etc.), satellite internet is generally more expensive, slower (except for dialup), falters during rain and snow, has a noticeable lag, doesn’t support online gaming or virtual private networks, and has strict limits on how much data you can download each day.

But on the other hand, if you live out in the country, satellite is currently the best affordable option for high-speed internet (though perhaps that will change someday with the US Rural Broadband Initiative).

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The Internet is a fickle beast.  Websites come and go.  Connections break and are restored.  With so many working parts and points of failure, it’s amazing the Internet is as reliable as it usually is. 

But when things go wrong — as they inevitably do — and you cannot access a website, it can be challenging to determine where the problem occurred: your PC, Internet modem, cable connection, Internet service provider, the website itself, or any of the thousands of lines in between.

Fortunately there are free online services that independently check if a website is down:

• Check Site US
• Down For Everyone or Just Me
• Down.IO
• Is That Site Down

Most services allow you to enter a domain name to determine if it’s accessible.  However, CheckSite.us also allows you to enter a full URL path, domain with a specific port (e.g., checksite.us:2082), or an IP address (e.g., 209.41.89.150:2082).  For websites it cannot access, CheckSite.us will continue trying the website every 15 minutes for up to 3 days.  If it can access the website, it will send you an email or SMS text message.

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The one thing we can all count on with Facebook is change.  Facebook performs major updates to its user interface about twice a year.  Some changes are welcome, but sometimes the Facebook UI designers make things harder than they should be.

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Today the world’s most popular social network Facebook introduced its biggest interface change since the complete revamp in March.

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BugSpy crawls the web in search of the latest bug reports in open source software.  It tries to display only open bugs.  You can search by tag or product name.

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The NFL has punted the popular social network Twitter.

On Monday, the National Football League announced that players, coaches, and other team personnel can use social networks such as Twitter and Facebook during the season.  However, they are prohibited from using social networks starting 90 minutes before a game, through the game, and until post-game interviews are complete.

The rules extend to people representing a player or coach, such as agents, friends and family, and even include the media covering the games.

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"The Longest Poem in the World" is composed by aggregating real-time public twitter updates and selecting those that rhyme.  It grows at a rate of about 4,000 verses each day.  This novel site was created by Andrei Gheorghe, a web developer from Bucharest, Romania.

Here is the most recent start of the poem when it had 370,866 verses:

If life were easy and not so fast, I wouldn’t think about the past
and all the sudden, life is changing and its changing so fast.
is watching Ren and Stimpy. It’s becoming a nightly habit.
I had a dream that I had a sidekick and a rabbit.
Pride pride pride and now more harry potter!
and its only going to get hotter…
and learning again…
and then….
Tired and going to bed.  Good night everyone.
cup of tea and a caramel slice anyone?
and you know this working on a new song
Second day of school and still going strong
College just gets worse and worse.
Gift and the curse!
super bored and tired. cant sleep tho
And away we go…
oh no, are the bad word police after me and my potty mouth again?
Just done something a bit mad and creative. Lets see what happens then!
The Internet; where courtesy and reason go to die.
Yup im at school and i passed up a fine ass guy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

OK, it isn’t Shakespeare, but it is a pretty cool idea.  This may also go down in history as the greatest collaborative work ever.

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Web designers worldwide are staging an online revolt against the Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 web browser.  The designers claim that “IE6,” which was released 8 years ago but is still used by 20% of users, is “crippling the Internet’s potential and slowing down the online experience.”

The "IE 6 No More" website seems to be the hub of online dissent against IE6.  The site includes code that developers can insert into their websites to encourage IE6 users to upgrade.  Some websites already provide hurdles or roadblocks to IE6.  For example, YouTube sends a message to IE6 users, asking them to upgrade to another browser like Internet Explorer 8, Mozilla Firefox or Google Chrome.  However, YouTube will continue to function in basic mode for IE6 and other outdated browsers.

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Follow these steps to unhide a Facebook Friend that you have hidden:

Step 1.  In Facebook, click the News Feed link, which is usually on the top-left corner of the window:

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Beware all bloggers and tweeters: What you write may get you sued!

Chicago woman Amanda Bonnen discovered this lesson the hard way.  Her 117-character rant on Twitter may cost her more than $50,000 as the result of a defamation lawsuit filed by the target of her ire.  That’s $427 a letter!

Bonnen was having trouble with her landlord and complained of alleged mold in her apartment.  So like many of us, she ranted about her frustration on Twitter:

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