'Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house. Not a creature was stirring, not even a slightly overpriced internet connection.....

As usual when we get some snow in Ireland the whole country has fallen to a stand still, this means that when people are usually in work going about their business or just out and about, they are now stuck at home with nothing else to keep them company but their trusted internet connection, but is that giving up battle with the snow too? 

Dylan sent a message using the contact form at http://elfknowsit.com/ask.

Is there any settings I can change to speed up my internet.I'm supposed to be getting 1MB speed but am currently getting about 40 or 50 KB/s.

Hi Dylan,

With so many ways these days to connecto to the web, how do you do it? Are you using wireless because the phone lines out your way can't take broadband? Maybe you have to use 3G mobile broadband because nothing else is out your direction. Which do you use?

Common internet connection types you might find at home:

Analogue (up to 56k)

Have you ever wondered what your website/blog is worth? How much financially your hard work has paid off? I found this great website http://websiteoutlook.com where you can find out how much your website/blog is worth!, It also provides stats about your website/blog such as back links, daily page views, and my favourite.. Daily Ads Revenue,

How it works?

Have you ever searched for a certain topic using Google, or Yahoo and follow the no.1 result and end up on a site that has nothing got to do with the topic you're looking for, and then just to rub salt on the wound you're smothered with pop-ups and dialogues? We've all been there, I know I have a lot. It's something that makes me want to just unplug that router and go read a book!

Search engines have got a lot better at filtering out these "Road Block" sites as a I like to call them. They do this by looking for certain characteristics in the domains and content of the site such as:

If you had the opportunity to change one thing, just one thing, about the internet or how we use it, what would it be?
Personally i'd have to do something about cyber squatters, these are people who buy up batches of domains just to host keyword relevant sites, that hold no information, just links to other sites, probably gaining them revenue for doing so, So many good domains are taken up by these 'squatters', So that's my two cents!

What would you change? It could be anything!