Broadband speed tests

From time to time you may need to check the speed you are actually getting especially when your internet experience seems to take a dive when it comes to performance.

There are plenty of choices for getting a speed check and you will find that results vary slightly. There are two that I use:

http://www.internetfrog.com/

 There is a lot on the page so to begin a test you just need to click the link (Arrowed above) "Test the speed of your connection"

The second one:

http://www.mybroadbandspeed.co.uk/

There is an easy interface here and the best bit as shown below is it keeps a history of your tests that you can download or display should you need to.

As is the norm, you wont get the full speed your area is geared up for so if you are in an area that can get up to 8meg then you will get something below that. I have found that 3 to 6 meg is the general range most connections achieve in devon on an adsl connection.

Converting documents to PDF format everyone can read

If you are using Microsoft publisher or any other program that by default saves your work in a format nobody else can read without having the same software installed in thier machine then help is at hand.

Primo PDF is a free utility that onece installed on your computer will produce a pdf version of your document or publication that you can save to your computer and confidently send off to others.

GET PRIMO PDF HERE

Once you have installed it just work on your document as usual, when you want to produce a pdf version just click on Print as usual but instead of printing from your usual printer choose "Primopdf" as in the illustration below. Although your printer will remain silent there will be a windows popping up from Primo pdf asking where you want to save the pdf file and under what name.

Next the window pops up so you can make final adjustments to your pdf document as below.

You can also set a password and add additional author information if you wish.

When you have finished Adobe reader or Foxit reader (whichever one you are using) will pop up showing your new pdf. All you need to do is locate it in your documents folder or wherever you saved it and send it on.