h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I'm sometimes on limited data plan (either 1GB or 2GB if I pay for more) for my internet access and want to find ways to limit how much data I receive as much as possible.

Any tips?


Also, when I'm monitoring how much data I'm using I need to get my head around bits, bytes, etc. Does lower or upper case B mean anything or can they be used interchangeably?

I have a programme on my mac that shows how much data I am receiving (and sending). It reads in either Bytes or KB per second. Right now, opening an h2g2 page, that's around between 52 bytes and 2.6 KB per second.

Another programme that shows my connection status says that I am connected at 57600 bps.

Is bps bytes or bits? Is 57 kbps the same as 57 KB per second? Will 57Kbps be the fastest rate then?

Is this right?:

1000 bytes = 1MB
1000 MB = 1GB

The activity monitor is showing data transfer in and out even though I'm not doing anything other than writing in this text box. Can I limit that?

They are interchanged a lot. What you need to get from your ISP is the actual amount of bytes that you can download.

Technically it is 1024 Kilobytes (which I always write as Kb) in a Megabyte (Mb), and 1024 Megabytes in a Gigabyte (Gb). With the capital B (KB, MB, GB) it does normally mean the same. However Marketing cannot seem to get their heads round this and often use the GB and MB to mean 1000 Kb and Mb. Which is why you need conformation from your ISP.

Just to keep everything simple, when talking about connection speeds bps is bits per second. So 57kbs is not the same as 57Kb/s.

To limit the computers chattering away amongst themselves your best bet is to check what programs you have in the background. Then either kill them (stop them now, and stop them from automatically starting) or totally remove them (depending on how much you need them). Then run a virus check, and adware check and a spyware check. No matter what you do there will still be some chatter, but maybe a lot less (depending on what you have on your machine now).

Hope this helps, any thing else just yell. Until later....
BCNU - Crescent

Another thing to limit data (depending on what websites you visit) is to use firefox with a couple of plugins.

Noscript stops scripts running. You can then select which sites are allowed to run scripts - once you get the hang of it it is very easy to stop adverts.

Flashblock - similar to the above but stops flash from playing (or even downloading) until you specifically tell it to.

Until later....
BCNU - Crescent