ReadWriteWeb

Why is the network slow? Is my Internet connection saturated? How can you be so bold? How did you know that golden rule?

These are common questions you might have at home or in your own home office. Getting an idea of where the precious Internets are going might seem like a challenge but it doesn't have to be.

Let's take a look at one simple approach by building up to what we are gathering.

We've all been there. You want to isolate an issue with a server running on a port but want something quick and easy to verify if it is a host firewall problem or something else. Perhaps you are dealing with someone on the other end of the network that says it is a firewall problem. How you prove otherwise?

The latest release of the Firefox 4 beta has arrived, and among the handful of new features introduced this round is the addition of App Tabs. These favicon-sized tabs let you pin your most frequently used programs to the top-left side of your tab bar. In an introductory video, Mozilla suggests tabs for email, calendar, IM and streaming music - you know, Web applications.

But this new feature isn't a copycat of competing browser Google Chrome's forthcoming Web app support and accompanying Chrome Web Store, sadly. It's a copycat of Chrome's simple "pin tab" option instead.

Technibble, the Australian site for aspiring computer techies, recently released the second version of its popular Computer Repair Utility Kit, a collection of 57 hand picked tools to help you diagnose and repair your Windows machine.

While all of the utilities are freely available online, this all-in-one kit saves you the trouble of searching for and downloading them individually. Most of the applications don't require installation and the kit can be run directly from your thumb drive.