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Pingtest.net is the new project of the popular bandwidth test site, SpeedTest.net. Unlike SpeedTest.net, PingTest is used to determine the “quality” of your Internet connection.

How Pingtest works?

According to Pingtest.net, the quality of your connection is determined by 3 factors:

1. Packet loss: the success rate of data packets to reach its destination from its source. The less loss the better.
2. Ping: the travel time of a data packet between source and destination. The faster the better.
3. Jitter: the variance in measuring successive ping tests. The less the better.

Pingtest rank the your broadband test result with A to F, where A is the best quality broadband.

Benefit of quality broadband

The better broadband quality, the better performance when you are accessing online stream data such as online video, online music, online gaming.

Pingtest result of my broadband

My broadband connection (TMnet Streamyx) got a Grade C. The Ping time is 92ms, Jitter is 48ms, with no packet loss.

How is your broadband quality? Let’s compare!

The 1080p HD video (High-Definition video) is coming to YouTube.

But I don’t feel excited at all, even though that I have 2x 24-inch monitors (see my review of Dell 2407WFP 24-inch widescreen UltraShart LCD monitor), which fully support 1080p HD video’s resolution (1920×1080 pixels). Why?

My slow-broadband connection is way too slow to watch online video at HD quality. I even need to wait for buffering when watching YouTube videos at normal quality.

Watching 1080p HD video online is a dream for me now. It took me about 5 minutes to load the 44 seconds YouTube 1080p HD video demo at below:

What’s the big deal about YouTube 1080p HD video?

In short, you enjoy better full-screen high quality of YouTube video.

You could connect your HD LCD TV to your computer and enjoy watching YouTube HD videos on your sofa.

However, before you can enjoy that, you need to have a fast broadband and a monitor/tv that support HD video.

Also, you can upload HD videos taken with your HD camcorder. Currently, YouTube accepts video quality up to 720p.

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Today I received my first ever spam message in my Facebook Inbox from a friend’s Facebook account. Have you received similar spam message before?

The multiple recipients message with a subject line “hey” and the message body is:

You weree sighteed on our seccret ccamera!
http://bit.ly/4EOyWX

The bit.ly short URL redirected to an error page with text

“Traffic Back URL not using.”

Seems like the spam page has been removed. The domain name “bestdatingdirect.com” looks like a dating site. But visit the root domain page, only shows a online contact form.

Although the Facebook spam message does not do any harm to me, but it means that Facebook Inbox messages is no longer spam-proof.

Do NOT follow any website link that you do not know, even if it is sent by your best friend!

The simplest way to check is by sending a reply message and ask your Facebook friend to confirm about the website link sent to you.

Have you received similar spam message in Facebook before? How did you deal with it? Have spammers attacks your Facebook friends? Have Facebook spammer flood your Facebook news feed?

Master everything about Facebook with the book “Facebook: The Missing Manual” available at Amazon.com for $13.59 (32% off).

You have both Facebook and Twitter accounts. You want to find your Facebook friends who have Twitter accounts too. How? All you take is 3 simple steps.

fb140: find your Facebook friends who are using Twitter

1. Sign in your Facebook account at fb140.
2. Sign in your Twitter account.
3. You will get a list of Facebook friends who have Twitter account. Tick them and click on the “Follow these people!” button to follow them on Twitter. Done!

fb140 is a web application to find all your Facebook friends on Twitter. It looks at the website field of your Facebook friends’ profile to find friends who have listed their Twitter URL.

If your Facebook friends do not list their Twitter URL then fb140 cannot find them…

Among my 344 Facebook friends, only 6 have Twitter URL listed in their profile. I was expecting more.. maybe my friends are not keen to tweet?

How many of your Facebook friends are Twitter users too? Try fb140.

*Follow me at @liewcf

I told you to use TwitBlock to spot and block Twitter spammers from your Twitter followers. But how do you identify a Twitter spammer? Here are a few tips to help you.

Generally, to identify a Twitter spammer, we look at the user’s avatar icon, user name, number of followers, number of following, number of tweets, tweets pattern.

A Twitter user is probably a spammer, if it matches more than 1 of the following:

1. their profiles are using default Twitter avatar OR using a sexy pic as avatar.
2. their names are ended with numeric, example: david567
3. they are following many other Twitter users but only has few followers.
4. they have no update or few updates with links.
5. their Twitter updates contains repeated tweets with link.
6. their Twitter updates are published using ONLY Twitter API.
7. they show you how to “make money overnight”.

Once you found a Twitter spammer, please report it to Twitter (read my previous blog post: How to report a Twitter spammer?).

Follow me at @liewcf (I am NOT a spammer!)

Related books:

• Twitter Power listing at Amazon.com
• The Twitter Book listing at Amazon.com
• Twitter Tips, Tricks, and Tweets listing at Amazon.com

*Any tips you want to add to the list? Please share with us in the comment.