Computer help offered at no charge

USC's chapter of the Association of Computing Machinery (ACM) will be hosting its first Fix-IT day at the Swearingen Engineering Center on Saturday. From noon to 6 p.m., students of the College of Engineering will be offering free diagnostic and repair services for laptops and desktops using Mac OS, Windows and Linux.

This repair event is open to students and faculty of USC and the general public. While ACM participates in community service and free tutoring for students in introductory computing classes throughout the year, this is the student group's first large-scale community outreach event.

According to third-year computer science student Mark Williams, president of the ACM at USC, volunteers at Fix-IT day will be offering quicker repairs and a wider range of services than University Technology Services, including installing new operating systems, updating software, replacing LCD panels and removing viruses, malware and spyware. While ACM cannot cover the cost of hardware, they can help install it if the proper devices are brought with the computer.

Williams states that some of the most common computer problems for students are spyware and other viruses, incompatibility between programs and having a cluttered hard drive. ACM's vice-president, third-year computer science student Chase Daigle, says that students also need to be careful with the way they handle their computers. Hardware problems occur when laptops are jostled around in students' book bags, Daigle said.

With at least a dozen volunteers available throughout the day, ACM anticipates that students won't have to wait long for assistance. In the meantime, Daigle offers some suggestions for minimizing computer troubles.

"It is important to keep your system up-to-date," Daigle said. "When the developers hear about security holes, they develop patches for the software, and these patches are distributed in software updates. Regardless of the operating system you run, be it Windows, Mac OS, Linux, or something else, keeping your system current will help to protect you from software vulnerabilities."

Williams said he is looking forward to a good student turnout on Saturday. He knows very well the importance of maintaining a healthy operating system.

"Taking care of your computer will keep it from breaking down on you at 3 a.m. when you have a paper due at 8 a.m."

Source: dailygamecock

Fcc Offering Computer Broadband Speed

In a rare effort Fedzilla (federal government) has released a service that is beneficial. It is an accurate broadband speed test for your Internet connection. The service is offered, but not endorsed (per website legal), for demographic measurement of the population.

The FCC is acquiring a survey of Internet broadband speeds throughout the country. The FCC has made a gargantuan proposal for broadband deployment throughout the United States. The gathered information is theoretically for inventorying the current national state of broadband. The FCC barely mentions the proposal is supported via a new tax they are pursuing .

Over the past six weeks our broadband connectivity was sluggish and it almost took an act of Congress to get our provider to look into it. Somehow I don’t think Fedzilla is capable of fixing is the ISP’s reliability. This is another issue for another day.

During our slug speed we checked a number of broadband speed tests and the winner is the FCC. Other contenders included SpeakEasy, SpeedTest, Verizon, and Charter. The attributes of the contenders were so inaccurate they don’t come close. Speedtest.net is a joke as it comes down to the speed of the server. We tested the speed with over five servers and in each case the speeds varied from 6 mbps to 16 mbps. Seems a bit ironic considering the domain name is “speedtest.net.”

The other contenders tests were so outdated they either didn’t display speeds past 10 mbps or were not programmed to go beyond a speed that was way lower than our ceiling speed of 25 down and three up.

In the end the FCC site rocks for a real-world measurement of your Internet connection. Get on your computer and measure your speed. It will provide you the ammunition necessary to start on the repair of your broadband connection.