Awesome Internet

So you’ve just encountered the dreaded “Page Not Found (404)” error. You could give up, or you can heed the advice given in Tim Ireland’s educational song, from The Cautionary Campfire Songbook. Full lyrics here.

Portal promises more stable Internet connections by using channels that are normally reserved for radar and other sensitive purposes. It’s not a new approach, but Portal is supposedly the only router that can dynamically switch channels to avoid interference.

A desktop application that makes it easy to select which programs can connect to the Internet. Very useful when you’re using a mobile hotspot and other cellular connections. It also shows the total data consumed for that session. Available for Windows and OS X.

Did you know that Wi-Fi wasn’t originally an acronym but a pun on Hi-Fi? How about the fact that most Americans who are online are browsing Facebook? Or that it’s faster to say World Wide Web than WWW? All those and more in this Mental Floss episode.

Portable Wi-Fi hotspots have short battery lives. Alcatel OneTouch solves that problem for car-bound travelers with the 4G Car WiFi. It plugs into the cigarette lighter port and uses a Micro SIM to provide Wi-Fi to up to 15 users via 3G/LTE.

Brett Gaylor’s Do Not Track is an interactive educational web series about how companies monitor and store your online behavior and data without your awareness, and how it affects you and other people online.

A portable satellite dish that receives free news and other data from Outernet, which takes content from the Internet that people request (or sponsor) and broadcasts it over satellite radio for Outernet receivers (such as Lantern).

A Net Neutrality awareness campaign. See who has the power to influence the future of the Internet. We can help by spreading the word; US citizens can also sign a citizen letter for Net Neutrality.

A mobile hotspot service for frequent travelers. For a flat monthly fee, Anqor will let you go online via the cellular networks in different countries, eliminating roaming fees and the need for multiple SIM cards or plans.

A web app that disguises any webpage to look like the New York Times’ website. It even has the title and image from an actual news article, plus a summary of the article so your cover won’t be blown if someone asks what you’re “reading.”

You Won’t Believe What Happens Next! Actually nothing. Nothing happens next. Glove and Boots take on the disturbing trend of sites that create hyperbolic headlines to grab clicks, despite the lame content that lies beyond.

♬We’re goin’ surfin’ on the Internet!♬ For their latest Somebody Reacts to Something video, The Fine Bros. subject teens to a cheesy 1990s video about how to use the Internet, then questions them about the tech they take for granted today.

Hank Green presents the arguments for and against the principle of Net neutrality. It’s a very biased summary, but it should be. Folks, this is as dangerous as SOPA, and we’re already losing. You can help fight for Net neutrality.

Martin Vargic and Jay Jason Simons are working on a funny but informative illustration that depicts the major players and websites on the Web as countries and continents. The poster also includes stats and other trivia.

Do you have access to multiple data connections or Internet providers? Connectify’s Switchboard is a cloud service subscription that lets you gang together multiple Internet connections at once to speed up both downloads and uploads.

This PSA was made in 1995 by students from the Ray Bjork Learning Center. To encourage children to use the Internet, the kids make predictions about its future uses, all of which have come true.