What happened to Compuserve?

What happened to Compuserve?

Compuserve was an online service for dialup modems from the 1970s to the 1990s. It was a way of getting online and communicating with others before the Internet was generally available to individuals. Later, it became a primary way for individuals to connect to the Internet, turning itself into an Internet Service Provider. But over time, it faded away into history. Here’s what happened to Compuserve.

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What is Spectrum, or Charter Spectrum?

What is Spectrum, or Charter Spectrum?

What is Spectrum? Charter Spectrum, or simply Spectrum, is a new name to many parts of the country. Spectrum is the brand name for cable, Internet and phone service from Charter Communications.

Although Charter started using the Spectrum name prior to its merger, the name Spectrum gained prominence as a result of the second, fourth, and sixth-largest cable operators in the United States merging in 2016. Post-merger Charter is now a Fortune 100 company.

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Spectrum bought by AT&T? Not quite.

Spectrum bought by AT&T? Not quite.

Was Time Warner Cable or Charter Spectrum bought by AT&T? No it wasn’t, but I understand why some people are thinking that right now. It now turns out that both Charter Communications and AT&T have a history with Time Warner, but it’s complicated.

That said, there was a rumor that AT&T’s arch rival Verizon is considering buying Charter Communications, the company behind Spectrum. Meanwhile, AT&T did buy Time Warner. Time Warner differs from Time Warner Cable.

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Blu Studio One review

I needed a phone in a hurry the other day when my wife’s Moto E started acting up. We turned to the Blu Studio One, specifically model# S0110UU. This is my Blu Studio One review.

It’s an inexpensive midrange phone for people who want to bring their own to their carrier rather than (over)paying on a monthly installment plan. It works with GSM providers like T-Mobile and AT&T. It does not work with Sprint or Verizon, since they use the CDMA standard. Some of the smaller carriers also work with GSM. Buying a Blu phone isn’t a bad way to go when you’re looking to save on a cell phone.

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How I set up office hours in Google Voice

How I set up office hours in Google Voice

If you have a side business, you need to offer customer service, but it’s also perfectly reasonable to not want your phone to ring at 3 a.m. You can fix that if you set up office hours in Google Voice.

Fortunately it’s easy to set up Google Voice to allow your phone to ring during office hours and go straight to voice mail after hours. And the nice thing is, Google Voice transcribes your messages. This makes it very easy to filter out people who are calling you trying to solicit your services at 25 cents on the dollar. I can’t say for certain that people are more likely to do that at off hours. But it’s certainly more annoying to get awakened at 3 a.m. by someone wanting to lowball you. And yes, I speak from experience.

Here’s how you do it if you don’t want to be disturbed at unreasonable hours.

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Does a POTS phone use the same wiring as U-Verse VOIP?

Does a POTS phone use the same wiring as U-Verse VOIP?

A friend asked me a good question: Does a POTS phone use the same wiring as U-Verse VOIP? The answer is, it depends. Outside your house, no it doesn’t. But that’s not your problem. Outside, that’s AT&T’s problem.

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Why you can’t get to Google and Facebook on AT&T U-Verse

If you have AT&T U-Verse, from time to time you may have issues with Facebook or Google sites like Youtube not working, while the rest of the Internet works fine.

The solution is simple but non-obvious: Disable IPv6.

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Does AT&T U-Verse drop connections like DSL?

I got this question anonymously, but it’s a fair question: Does AT&T U-Verse drop connections like DSL?

In my experience, over the 3½ years I’ve had it, sometimes. But not nearly as often.

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How to size your Internet connection

So I understand ISPs are upselling connection speeds saying it’ll make Netflix work better. That’s a nice theory. But if you’re already over 10 megabits, there’s a decent chance your connection speed won’t do much for Netflix at all. Here’s how to size your Internet connection. Read more

How to ensure you never get another Windows tech support scam call again

How to ensure you never get another Windows tech support scam call again

I haven’t received a fake Windows tech support call in a very long time. A couple of the operations doing this have been shut down, but based on the continued popularity of the things I’ve written about them, I wonder if some people are still getting them.

That makes me reluctant to block them, just in case they call me again, but if you’re getting those calls and want them to stop, I can tell you how to do that.

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