Ad blocking software--highly recommended

For some time now I have been getting increasingly annoyed, not to mention alarmed, by the nature of the video ads coming up on Yahoo. I use Yahoo a lot, both for e-mail and especially for weather. (I have a touching and irrational conviction that if I stare at the fancy Yahoo weather report and maps long enough, I can make it rain. It's the modern version of a magic rain dance and is doubtless the result of some atavistic racial memories that have been passed down to me from paleolithic forebears.)

I'm not going to go into detail on these ads, but suffice it to say that the girls dancing the Achy-Breaky or whatever it is to celebrate the current mortgage rates are not my chief concern, though that's mildly annoying in its own right. Some of the worst came up when I was innocently shopping for a new bread machine, on consumer's review sites.

So I tried turning off all pictures and other multimedia possibilities on the advanced internet options for IE. That just made the perfectly inoffensive lighthouse on this very blog disappear, as well as all the buttons on blog comments boxes and other legitimate and useful items, but video ads on Yahoo were still swimming into view--literally, because in that case it was a fish swimming around in a bowl. No problem in itself, but an indication that the problem was not solved.

My beloved husband said, "Ask Todd." Well, I tried to be independent for a while but finally gave it up and asked the all-things-computers-omniscient Todd McKimmey via e-mail. And sure enough, he immediately informed me that there is (who'd a thunk it?) ad blocking software out there. He recommended Ad Block Plus for Mozilla Firefox. (I rather gather that his attitude is, "Who would use IE when you could use Firefox?" I have to admit to seeing that point of view.) In the process of stumbling about, I more or less accidentally also downloaded Ad Block Pro, which is for IE. That one is only a 30-day free trial, but it looks like it's just $19.95 to register it after the 30 days, which is nothing for the service. I got the one for Firefox, too, which appears to be free.

Well, I can't begin to say how much nicer a web experience I am now having. All the tacky junk, and even just the ugly and annoying junk, is gone. Even though it isn't exactly bad, I really was getting tired of seeing all the ugly "avatars" I could choose from by clicking on some ad. I would rather be caught dead than be represented by any of the females pictured there! And I hate all that blinking stuff in my face. Plus I don't have to worry about having the kids in the room when some ad for Victoria's Secret ("Mommy, why does that lady have no clothes on?") or something worse comes up. Youngest Daughter is just learning to read, too, and reads everything she sees. Phew! It's a great relief. And the ads disappear nearly without a trace, too. It's not like there are big white blocks in the visual field on the weather site. You really have to look to try to figure out even where those ugly ads would be. Not that I care. I'm just glad they are gone. It's great!

It doesn't solve all Internet problems, but it's one big step in the right direction, especially for those of us who are careful about the sites we go to anyway.

New Post on W4 plus the Amazing Disappearing Sent Items

My blogging time this week went into a new post at What's Wrong with the World on a disturbing thing--disturbing to me anyway--I'm starting to learn about forced upward mobility in the corporate world. It's here.

Plus, my conservative soul is vexed to find that Yahoo has changed my e-mail format. Why do they do that? It was fine. Of course, they play it as a great improvement. Can't say I see it. One nifty new aspect is the disappearance of the "save sent items" feature. The "sent items" folder is still there. You just can't turn it on. I haven't found out yet if this is a judgement for my having had it turned off. I don't like to save everything I send, so I usually have it off. Now there's no way to turn it on anymore. I've written to Yahoo help about this three (count 'em, three) times. Each time I get a cute note from what is obviously a computer calling itself George (I hate computers with names) telling me that, because Yahoo likes to provide fast and efficient service, they aren't going to answer my question. It's a pretty simple question: "Has the save sent items feature really disappeared, or is the button just moved? If the former, could you please put the feature back again? I was using it sometimes." But no answer. Just a repeated link to a help page which, of course, doesn't mention this topic.

I definitely think they need to get some good, capitalist customer service going at Yahoo. And they should fire George. I don't think he has a wife computer and baby computers at home to support.

Weird connectivity problems

(Gee, I almost found myself saying "issues" in the post header. Don't you hate the new use of "issue" to mean "problem"?)

The connectivity problems referred to in the title are not to this site. As you can see, here I am. Ta-da! I also have e-mail and can connect to nearly all of my usual Internet sites. However, I suddenly (as of yesterday morning) cannot connect to my beloved group blog, to which I am a contributor, What's Wrong With the World.

By asking all my friends to try it and see if they can connect, I have narrowed down the problem to, apparently, my own house. My neighbor across the street has the same ISP that I do, and he can get the site.

I found this nifty article that may diagnose the problem. If so, we'll have to call in an expert. (I hope our physically local expert is available; he isn't always.) It says "only experienced Windows-savvy users" should attempt the workaround described, so I think we'll probably not try it ourselves. If this should turn out to be the problem, the mystery is why it suddenly arose yesterday morning, when nothing had changed in our local configuration.

Anyway, to all my many fans, I will be able to blog only here for a while, not at WWWtW, until it's all back up and running. One always hopes, with a trace of superstition, that the problem will just "fix itself." Maybe I'll wake up again tomorrow and it will all be better. Evidently (according to the article) that could actually happen if various servers started sending smaller "packets" that could fit down the "tunnel" of my router. Or something.

Update: The problem appears to be our local wireless router. When we plug the cable modem directly into the computer I use, the problem goes away. All sites become available. Unfortunately this means that no one else can use the Internet from a laptop at the same time. So for the time being, the cludge is that when no one else needs to use the Internet, I can switch the cables, reboot the computer (it doesn't work otherwise), and then go wherever I want on the Internet. When the wireless router is needed, we switch the cables back. Then I can come here, do e-mail, go most places, but not go to a few sites, including What's Wrong with the World. That's until we get an expert out here to find a better workaround. All most odd. I have a feeling some Bright Lad changed a packet size setting somewhere out there in cyberspace overnight between Friday and Saturday.

Update #2: Problem solved. The connection problem was indeed, as the article I linked above suggests, fixed by changing the MTU setting on my Linksys router down to 1492. The mystery that remains is why this should suddenly be necessary now. As far as I know, the setting has always been the factory-standard 1500, and this has never been a problem before, for over a year and a half. I've certainly never touched it before. I keep my ignorant hands off that stuff as much as possible. Anyway, thanks to Zippy and to Todd McKimmey for patient help and advice over the weekend. And thanks especially to Todd for pointing out to me what the linked article is not clear about and what I in my ignorance would have overlooked: If the problem is with the router, then the MTU setting that needs to be changed is the one on the router, not the one in the registry of the desktop computer. Of course. But it wouldn't have occurred to me. So just remember, if this esoteric problem should plague your Internet connection, the magic number is...1492.