Welcome to

For the past decade or so there has been talk about fiber optic internet connections. It was a big deal when your phone or cable provider laid fiber to the curb in your neighborhood, but did you ever really notice a speed difference? I did not. But now there are offerings out there giving you fiber direct to your house/office. Are they worth the change? Based on my experience, I would say a resounding yes. While I still have some machines attached to the “old” internet connection and some attached to the new fiber connection, I ran side-by-side comparisons. Here are the results:

Time-Warner cable modem:

Verizon FiOS fiber optic:

In a real-world test that most of you can probably relate to right now, I downloaded the Notes 8 Beta 2 Standard client in 7 minutes.  It would have gone faster if IBM’s servers weren’t so bogged down.