Ever wonder how fast your Internet connection really is? You could take the word of your ISP or you could test it yourself.

Speedtest.net is a site where you can do this in a fun and easy way. It allows you to select servers to ping from around the country on an interactive map and then graphically displays connections as they travel with varying speeds along the way. It also lets you store results of tests for your computer and sort them by date, time, speed and distance.

Impatience, arrogance, and jargon - for starters…

Cara Garretson has more:

“You’ve got to keep it simple,” says Heather Clarke-Peckerman, president of HCP Consulting Group, a career coaching firm in Parsippany, N.J. “Most users aren’t interested in the how [technology] works. Just show me what to do, how do I get out of this dialog box?”

She recommends IT managers remember how they first learned about technology and what descriptions or explanations helped them understand better.

I’ve always tried to do that here because I remember what it was like not knowing anything about computer networking.

Hopefully, you’ll keep me on track if I stray.

IF you have more than one computer sharing an Internet connection…

AND you plan on doing any kind of Peer-to-Peer file sharing (PtoP), Internet Games, Web serving, FTP serving, WebCams, IRC DDC, and Instant Messaging such as AIM, ICQ, Yahoo and MS Messenger…

THEN you’re going to have to configure your router to do something called “port forwarding.”

This web site will help you figure it all out.

(HT to saintlink)