How to resolve issues with internet service speeds

“This morning it took about four minutes to download the newspaper,” a reader wrote. “Usually, it’s only seconds.”

Neither of us could figure it out, so he called his internet service, Xfinity. They said the problem was his wiring. But why, he wondered, would his download speed be 20 Mbps one day and 500 Mbps the next? After a runaround, he gave up on Xfinity and signed up for AT&T’s fiber-optics service. He’s very happy with it.

I like AT&T, too, but I switched to Xfinity last summer when I found an unbeatable deal: internet service for $5 a month and cell service for $15 a month. But I had a heck of a time getting Xfinity to acknowledge the deal, which I found at AllConnect. com. The problem wasn’t solved until I went to the local Xfinity store, which urged me go to their corporate office 25 minutes away. Nothing else works, they said. Phone calls are a big waste of time. They were right. The corporate office fixed everything.

TARGETING AMAZON

To compete with Amazon Prime, Target is offering Target Circle 360, which offers unlimited delivery and rushshipping service to members for $99 annually, or $49 if you sign up between April 7 and May 18.

I still prefer Amazon Prime for $139, which has a lot more benefits. They also sell stuff I don’t see elsewhere, and the price is usually better. Besides, I hate to add one more Target box to the delivery pile since I live next door to them. The Amazon pile is huge enough. In New York, for example, 1.5 million Amazon packages are delivered daily. If you could stack them, you’d get a one millionfoot tower. That’s 688 Empire State Buildings on top of each other.

On the other hand, online

shopping is more sustainable than traditional retail 75% of the time, according to a study by MIT’s Real Estate Innovation Lab. That’s because of fewer car trips and to a big reduction in the carbon footprint of companies like Amazon, Target and IKEA. For more info, see the Politico article “Shopping online surged during Covid. Now the environmental costs are becoming clearer.”

CRYPTO TRENDS

Back in 2017, I bought a $20 sweater with Bitcoin from Overstock.com, just to share the experience. It was a lousy sweater and I never got my Bitcoin back, probably because its value had soared. If I could have gotten it back and somehow saved it until today, it would be worth 10 times as much. Instead, I sold my remaining Bitcoin at a loss. Darn. Cryptocurrency is volatile. But according to CoinLedger, a crypto tax software company, there are 300 major companies that accept it, including Adidas, Etsy, Chipotle, Chuck E. Cheese, Domino’s, Hard Rock Café, DoorDash, Uber Eats, Gucci, Ralph Lauren, Royal Caribbean, Princess Cruises, Google Pay and Spotify. Burger King Venezuela has been accepting Bitcoin payments since 2020. Maybe, like Overstock, they chuckle all the way to the bank thanks to no-return policies.

GOOGLE’S ANTI-SPAM EFFORTS

The worst kind of spam comes from Google searches for obituaries, according to experts quoted by Wired Magazine. But Google is taking aim at that.

Google says it’s been able to eliminate 40% of low-quality, unoriginal content. Some of it comes from spammers who purchase defunct websites then flood them with random content and click bait. The website for a smalltown Indiana newspaper, for example, was filled with posts about retail stocks. But even if a spammer doesn’t buy a prestigious address, they can still advertise there. Google is giving those sites 60 days to remove all click bait.

SAVING STUFF TO YOUR PHONE

The Google Files app for Android phones now has a handy scanning feature.

To start, I tapped “scan,” then pointed my phone at my passport and pushed the camera button. Worked great. Now if I need to show my passport, I can open the Files app and click the scanned documents folder to easily find it.

On iPhones and iPads, open the Notes app, then select a note or create a new one. Tap the camera button to start scanning a document, then tap “Scan Documents.” If you don’t want to use the automatic scan, tap the “Shutter” button then drag the corners of the box around the image until you get it where you want it.

The free app Stacks is great, too. It prompts you to save your scan in a category such as receipts, tax, medical, insurance, house and IDs. There’s also a Starred folder for your most important stuff.

A SECOND PHONE

Forty percent of phone owners ages 16 to 24 report spending too much time on their smartphones, according to ZDnet. The new Barbie flip phone could give them their lives back.

Of course, some users say they need a smartphone for work. So one solution is to own two phones. They could leave their smartphone at home on weekends, bringing just a flip. That way they avoid the tyranny of email, social media and other distractions.

The Barbie phone, made by Human Mobile Devices, was just announced at Barcelona’s Mobile World Conference, so there’s no pricing info yet. But we know it’s pink, takes pictures and comes out this summer. Alternatively, you could buy a Tracfone. They start at $20 for the TCL Flip 2.