# I leave my puter on all day



## FarmboyBill (Aug 19, 2005)

And I run outa time around a week or better before my time rolls over. I always bring it back to the page with my picture on it, and don't leave it on my main page. Would/could I stretch my time by turning it completely off every time I leave it? Im paying $110 a mo now. I cant afford to buy more time per month.


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## Belfrybat (Feb 21, 2003)

Do you put it to sleep? Mine is set for display sleep in 10 min. and computer sleep in 15. It shouldn't use any Internet resources when it sleeps.


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## po boy (Jul 12, 2010)

FarmboyBill said:


> And I run outa time around a week or better before my time rolls over. I always bring it back to the page with my picture on it, and don't leave it on my main page. Would/could I stretch my time by turning it completely off every time I leave it? Im paying $110 a mo now. I cant afford to buy more time per month.


How many gigs you get for $100..

I have Hughes Net and get 10 gigs daytime for $63. Never used all of it....
Hughes gives me 50 gigs if used between 2am and 8 am


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## HermitJohn (May 10, 2002)

Do you have any idea what operating system you have? And what third party software you have. See its all trying to update itself and/or spy on you using your DIME!

Dialup became completely unusable for me. My ONLY serious option was a mobile broadband hotspot. Costs me $40 for 4gb. Well all this updating and background shenanigans was really eating into this expensive data. I use linux so at least it wasnt trying to update itself or phone home to the mothership with info it stole from me like windows does. But Firefox browser was and it was a pain to finally get it to stop updating itself frequently. They intentionally removed the option to do this easily, you now have to go into the configuration file and if I remember there were at least a dozen or more things I had to turn off. And it was pure experimentation as the help forum just kept telling me updates were for my own good. Well fine, but they arent paying the bills!!!! 

But also when I surf the web, nearly every website also wants to USE MY DATA to profit from tracking me. They call up many other websites secretly and run lot background scripts. I installed NO-SCRIPT to control this. Its annoying sometimes to figure which scripts are necessary to run to navigate the website and which are pure beautiful sunshine trying to track and profit off me. I also run adblocker plus and turned off flash, so I dont have to look at all the nonsense they try to sell me. It always amazes me when I am on computer without such and am bombarded with ads.

Anyway after becoming control freak over every bit of data, I can get by for a month on 4gb data. That also means I cant spend time watching youtube or any other video. And thats something I would enjoy as there is lot doityourself stuff on there. People anymore make videos rather than create a static webpage with same info. I basically get functionality and surfing speed that dialup used to provide long ago when internet was simpler without all the complicated garbage, but no longer does. And pay lot more for it. I will say if I want to download smaller files, it is lot faster than dialup for that.

And like it or not, with windows you may well have adware, spyware, malware of all kinds phoning home. Real PITA to keep a windows system clean.


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## Nevada (Sep 9, 2004)

FarmboyBill said:


> And I run outa time around a week or better before my time rolls over. I always bring it back to the page with my picture on it, and don't leave it on my main page. Would/could I stretch my time by turning it completely off every time I leave it? Im paying $110 a mo now. I cant afford to buy more time per month.


Could you describe your service more completely? Are they charging you for time connected or for data? What do you mean that you run out of time?

Are you being charged for air time on a cell phone service?


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## FarmboyBill (Aug 19, 2005)

no air time on cell phone service. No dialup. I get a certain length of useable time, and when its used, they put me on standby, which, to them is another word for SLOW SPEED. My time starts on the 16th of each month, and runs to the 16th of the next month. I had Hughes Net, and they got to be pretty tolerable, but I thought I could do better, but I didn't.


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## HermitJohn (May 10, 2002)

Ok, back to original question. You might save a little turning off your computer. With computer off, nothing is going to update in background and any malware or virus on your system isnt going to phone home during this period. Just cause you arent surfing the web doesnt mean your computer isnt active on the web.

But guessing mostly you watch lot video. Video burns up data like nothing else. Set up an adblocker and turn off flash when you arent using it so you dont get those stupid flash video ads on every webpage. Cut back on the youtube and suspect you will easily make it through month.


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## Nevada (Sep 9, 2004)

FarmboyBill said:


> no air time on cell phone service. No dialup. I get a certain length of useable time, and when its used, they put me on standby, which, to them is another word for SLOW SPEED. My time starts on the 16th of each month, and runs to the 16th of the next month. I had Hughes Net, and they got to be pretty tolerable, but I thought I could do better, but I didn't.


I've got a real good idea what you don't have, but I haven't a clue what you have. It's as if you're reluctant to come right out and say it. Why is it significant what day of the month billing begins & ends?


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## FarmboyBill (Aug 19, 2005)

Its significant to the company, not me. Hughes Net was the same way, just different days. As I responded to your other post, Im not hooked up to them by cell phone. I don't know by what basis they charge me. I think I get 10 whatever it is a month. They don't shut me down when I run past what they have allotted me as/in time, they just SLOW me down.


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## po boy (Jul 12, 2010)

FarmboyBill said:


> And I run outa time around a week or better before my time rolls over. *I always bring it back to the page with my picture on it, and don't leave it on my main page*. Would/could I stretch my time by turning it completely off every time I leave it? Im paying $110 a mo now. I cant afford to buy more time per month.


Not sure where these pages are, but you should always close your internet connection when you are not using it.


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## mnn2501 (Apr 2, 2008)

The problem is not "time" Bill (as you've been told many times before on this forum) Its the amount of data you use before your provider "throttles you back" (meaning they slow down your data transfer rate) Last time you complained you were told what to do and what not to do. You chose not to follow that advice then, so why are you asking again?

The definition of insanity is to do the same thing over and over and expect a different result.


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## CajunSunshine (Apr 24, 2007)

It's possible that either he didn't fully understand (which is easy to do if you are not computer literate), or he forgot some of it?



.


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## Nevada (Sep 9, 2004)

CajunSunshine said:


> It's possible that either he didn't fully understand (which is easy to do if you are not computer literate), or he forgot some of it?


I've concluded that there's something about this situation that wasn't presented in this thread. Evidently mnn2501 understands it, so I'll leave it there.


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## mnn2501 (Apr 2, 2008)

There are at least 3 threads started by Bill on this very topic on this board.
He watches a lot of YouTube videos and is always maxing out his allowed data limit
He had the opportunity to switch to a no-limit account a number of months back and was encouraged to do so, he decided not to.
Now once again he is posting here about being throttled back.


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## Steve_S (Feb 25, 2015)

Streaming Vids is certainly a wallop on the traffic meter... A simple 45 minute video @ 640x480 resolution averages around 500 Megabytes depending on encoding, compression & bit rates. 

Whatever I watch on the internet is downloaded & stored, even if from youtube or wherever... It's the only way I watched my movies, & series' and haven't actually had a need for Cable / Antenna for over a decade now. OK so I have 3, 1 TB WD Drives stuffed with movies, shows etc from the 1930's on up... very few recent things though as much of it is just shallow trash... Excluding entertaining romps like Dr. Who and such which don't take the world too seriously and have no sub-text social agendas.

BTW: MTBF; Mean Time Between Failure is always measured in "hours of use", more hours used, the lower the lifespan in days remaining...


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## Declan (Jan 18, 2015)

$110/month is a lot of money to be running out of data. I get the comcast triple play--telephone/internet/cable for $170/month with 3 extra boxes and the router.


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