Nerd Guide to PC Repair

Keeping up with all of the latest advances in various technologies can be tough, not just for tech nerds who are constantly poring over blogs and magazines in hopes of staying on the cutting edge, but for regular people, too. In fact, it's even more daunting for those who think Python is just a snake and Web 2.0 is some sort of operating system to fully understand the latest advancements, especially if they're shrouded in some sort of inaccessible tech-speak.

But the fact of the matter is, advances in technology aren't just made for people who understand them the best: they exist for everyone to enjoy! One of the biggest leaps forward in global communications has occurred this past year, and a lot of people are too busy trying to learn exactly what a Twitter or a Smart Phone is to understand the actual big issues. For the first time in quite awhile, the internet has actually made a step forward, thanks to WiMax.

First, consider the olden days of the internet, when the fastest way to get online was through an actual phone line, and downloading a single song could take an hour thanks to that 26.6k connection. This was the internet that many people were working with just 15 years ago, and in some parts of the world, this is still the fastest internet available. Shortly after dial-up managed to make its way into households around the country, a new and faster service was offered.

While it was nothing like the speed of today's 4G, the introduction of cable and DSL internet meant that suddenly, information was able to move at speeds that the inventors of this global technology had imagined. Now, it was possible to send larger files, even images and sounds, at speeds that didn't dissuade users or require a book to keep you company while an upload was underway. DSL and cable gave way to even faster methods, like T1 and T3, but all of these required being located at a desktop or laptop computer that was plugged into a modem physically.

The big breakthrough was wireless internet, when suddenly a router meant that it was possible to stray away from the plug-in model. Wireless also took off when people realized it meant that, instead of sitting in a cafe and writing in a notebook, it was now possible to type away on a laptop instead. Making the internet more mobile was a huge and important step, but it didn't solve everything right at once.

In fact, wireless sort of lulled regular consumers into thinking that things were as good as they were going to get, when that simply wasn't true. In the meantime, things like cell phones started growing by leaps and bounds, allowing for video messages and picture messages to be sent between phone users, from anywhere in the world.

That's where WiMax comes in. Imagine the ease with which you simply switch on your cell phone after a flight, when you're on vacation, or if you're out of the house. You turn it on, and it connects to a nationwide network, that manages to provide you with service and calls by beaming a signal from tower to tower, all of which are connected to data centers. Well, that's how the internet now works, and it sure beats wireless.

You can turn your laptop on as close to your house as the front yard or as far away as the next coast over, and it will connect to the network and allow for a signal. No more setting up a new network for a new router, no more dropped signals that make it impossible to do anything, and no more turtle-slow connections. Finally, there's something that has actually taken the internet a large step forward, and it doesn't require any nerd speak to explain how things actually work.