A visual history of catt.com over the past 15 years.

Catt.com has been my home page for 11 years now.  The site is almost like an old friend.  It has, is, and will continue to be “the” community portal for north west Georgia. 

 In the beginning, the site was pretty bad.  But most websites were in 1997:

It had a link to download Netscape.  Remember Netscape?
 

 A year later, the site lost some ugly but still wasn’t too appealing:

 A cool link to “Ask Jeeves” was added because….he knew everything right?

Here’s a major overhaul of the site:

This is a screen shot from 1997 and where catt.com started to become a legitimate news source.  This is the first generation of catt.com that we all know today.

The 2nd major overhaul was in 2005 which looks very similar to the site today.  While similar in design structure to the old site, it used a much more sophisticated code so that real-time news and other features could be implemented:

It should be noted that many folks over the years have worked hard to make catt.com this area's premier community website.   You know who you are....thank you.  Also, Catoosa County News and WDEF News 12 have been a big part of the Catt.com website as news providers and I appreciate their content contribution as well.

On July 1st, the 3rd generation of catt.com will be implemented.  Each revision is better than the next.    For those of you that have made catt.com your home page or at least view the site from time to time, I hope you find the website as helpful as I do.  Please comment and share your impressions of the old catt.com and the new!

DOJ investigates cable companies for antitrust of online video

Just when you thought nothing 'good' comes from the DOJ, it begins investigating possible antitrust (anti competition) from cable companies as it relates to Internet TV services such as Netflix, Hulu, etc.  Nothing may become of it but there is a possibility this could be good news for OTT advocates and consumers of online video services.  Could this be a beginning to a-la-carte TV subscriptions to go live online? Wouldn't it be nice to subscribe to your favorite 8 cable TV channels $2/mo each and have it delivered over your Internet connection?  An interesting article from the WSJ here.

Is internet TV right for you? Take the test!

Is internet TV right for you?  Take the test by clicking here!

Protect your computer from the DNSChanger malware before July

Great June is finally here.  But there is a nasty new virus out that could effect your computer this July and your antivirus software may not necessarily detect or take care of the problem for you.  Here is an article with more information.  Also, here is a quick check to see if your computer infected.  If you see "green" your good.  "red" you are infected.  Subscribe to my blog and I'll do my best to inform readers of future viruses to look out for that antivirus software is unable to detect. 

Dish Network offers new 'Auto Hop' commercial skip feature

Dish Network now offers a commercial skip technology via their new Hopper DVR system.  This is not a fast forward feature it completely skips over the commercials.  Read more about it by clicking here.

Do you use catt.com email? Check this out....

Catt.com mail can do so much more than just email.  Next time you login to your catt mail via the "Check e-mail" button.  Look at the very top left of the screen.   You will see a button that says "Documents".  Click that button and you will something similar to this:

From here, you can do some pretty neat things all for free.  Create a word document, powerpoint, or excel spreadsheet.  It is like having Microsoft office for free.  When you save these documents they can be shared with others as they are saved in the "cloud".  You may also upload files using the little hard drive button to the right of the "create" button.  Here you can upload music, pictures, or even covert your older documents to the google format.  This way, you can store, save, and collaborate with others on the web.  Or, keep your files private so you may access them anywhere you have internet access. 

Update:  As of April 23rd, RTC Internet offers 5gb of online storage free with any High Speed Internet account.  Get more out of your RTC Internet account!

Level 3 concurs: Comcast appears to be prioritizing traffic

A recent article from Gigaom suggests Comcast is prioritizing traffic again despite an agreement with the FCC.  The data to back up this claim is very interesting per the article here.

In previous blogs, I have praised RTC Internet for being the only ISP provider in Ringgold that does not cap its users bandwidth or throttle the bandwidth in some way.  Comcast, Charter, Verizon 3G/4G, Sprint, etc are all doing it as a cost savings measure.  RTC does not do this nor does it prioritize or De-prioritize what you decide to do with your internet connection.