Home Computing

These days home "How To's" have to address home computing and how to put that home computer to work!  As I discover useful things for the Home Computing aficionado I'll accumulate them here.  I'm trying to start with some structure, planning for future growth, so navigation in these pages may be a little more complex.

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Adsense Slow Fix

I've had intermittent problems with my website "presentation" performance; the pages come up sloooowww.  One cause of this is the Google Adsense servers appear to be slow to respond.  I've developed a work around for my site and it actually boosts performance!  Read more. Adsense performance boost

Adsense Relevance Fix

At times I've had trouble with the relevance of Adsense ads on certain pages on my site.  Here's a fix that seems to work well and has other performance benefits to boot.  Relevance for Adsense fix

Dialup Connection, Personal Home Website

You can build a personal home web site on your own home computer, yes just using your dial up connection to your Internet Service Provider ( ISP ).  Build a family web site, in many cases it's possible, one of the keys is Dynamic DNS  ( Domain Name System ).  For the well informed, you do not have to have a static IP address to have a dialup website at home!  I'll try to add more details in time.  You can build a personal web site for no cost!  No static IP required.  If you use Windows, typically Win ME will not support a family web site, but you can still look at the Apache Web Server as an alternative.
Welcome! - The Apache Software Foundation  This is a technical challenge from my perspective.

1. DirectUpdate - Home I use Direct Update to run the http://www.bobshowto.com build own website (this site).
2. DNS Resources Directory (DNSRD)  About the DNS system itself.
3. Today I'm using ZoneEdit for my dynamic DNS provider.
   

If my PC does go down I'm in trouble!  I'm fortunate to have another old PC to which I back up my web site content.  I've studied quite a few "web hosts".  A web host is of course where you might publish your website if it's not on your home PC.  If I had to because my PC crashed or for bandwidth reasons I'd probably choose iPowerWeb

And even cheaper.  Dot5hosting.  Guess what?  I've learned through the Better Business Bureau that Dot5Hosting is really IPowerWeb in a different wrapper at a lower price.  I don't see much of a disadvantage, though today 8/3/2004, this site is still hosted at IPowerWeb.  Here is the BBB report.  It looks like IPowerWeb bought up Dot5Hosting.com and now is offering slightly altered IPowerWeb products.
Oops, looks like the BBB has revised the report yet again, The comment "also doing business as Dot5hosting.com" has been removed.  I talked to the BBB and they have have been told these are separate companies that are in the same building.  (Even in the same Suite!).  Bob 8/28/2004.

Multiple IIS virtual servers

I've just discovered how to create multiple IIS (Internet Information Servers) in WIN XP Pro.  I believe many have concluded this can't be done but see IIS Server (s).

Windows XP notes and commentary

On this page I'll compile notes and observations about the Windows XP operating system as I continue to work with it as a web site host and for other personal uses.  Win XP

The Google crawl

Once or twice a month for the websites of the world the Google crawl occurs.  I've put together some information that I've gleaned from my website's log files.  Also some basic observations about how Google works.  I've included sample log files for my site www.bobshowto.com for two crawl cycles.

Web Hosts & GZIP support

Surprisingly only a few web hosts offer dynamic GZIP compression of web pages by default or even optionally.  This mechanism can speed up your web browsing by a factor of 4!  Read more GZIP support.

Put your home computer to work running your home!

X10 is a low cost technology that uses you home wiring to enable your PC to control all your lighting and appliances remotely.  X10 also allows you to use wireless hand held remote controls to dim lights in your house and turn on and off many appliances.  The lighting control is by far the most useful!  You can save so much electricity by turning off all the lights in your home with one button when you go to sleep!  And you can have your computer remember to turn off your lights after you've left in the morning.  Your computer can also turn off your water heater when your not using it!  Also, in the near future I can reveal a secret on how to brighten a lamp from full dim ( or off ), an artificial sunrise if you want it, just using the low cost dimmer modules and your PC.  (More to come).

Hope you've found this useful
Thanks, Bob