We are saddened by the devastating events that took place yesterday in West, Texas when a fertilizer plant exploded and wreaked havoc on this small town.

We send all our thoughts and prayers to the community of West, Texas and we are sending our love and support for you in this difficult time.

It’s been a tough week in America and we continue to pray for those in Boston and for those in our in our home state of Texas who have been affected by the events in West, Texas.

Please take a moment to pray or think about the families and friends affected by these tragedies.

For Donations:

To Donate to the Red Cross of Central Texas click here.

For other ways to donate, read here for more information.

From CNN- Disaster in Texas: How to Help

Tribute to Boston (Photo: Angela S. Morales)

We are keeping the victims and all those family and friends affected by the devastating act of terrorism that took place at The Boston Marathon in our prayers. As the city celebrated Patriots’ Day, a state holiday in Massachusetts, thousands participated in the traditional marathon held on this day and thousands more came out to show their support. The bombings that interrupted the marathon took the lives of at least three innocent people and caused injury to many more.

Although we do not know who or why, we join the rest of our nation in sending our support to Boston and hope they can find comfort in knowing that we are here.

May God bless and keep Boston.

We are staying connected at home and on the go more than ever. A surprising new statistic by the NPD Group states that the national average for homes with Internet-connected devices is a whopping 5.7 devices per household in the United States. This is an increase from just three months ago when the average was 5.3 devices per household. That’s a lot of connectivity and when you count the Internet-connected devices in your own household it may not be that surprising after all. I counted at least twelve in my household of just two adults and one toddler. How many do you have?

The firm defined Internet-connected devices as any of your devices with Internet capability and can include any of the following: computers, laptops, tablets, smartphones, HDTVs, Blu-ray disc players, video game consoles, and streaming media set top boxes.  Both smartphones and tablets saw a significant increase with increased usage in Internet connected households and are expected to continue to rise in the coming months.

Although computers won’t be leaving households anytime soon, smartphones and tablets per household are quickly outnumbering PCs. John Buffone, the direct of devices at NPD Connected Intelligence, explains “ When you look at the combined number of smartphones and tablets consumers own, for the first time ever it exceeded the installed base of computers.” Smartphones increased by about 9 million and tablets gained nearly 18 million in the last three months. Apple and Samsung brands remained at the top of their market for US consumers.

The increase in smartphones and tablets as consumers become more connected naturally also increases the number of connected devices in an Internet-connected household. Of course, this increase could have gotten a large boost from wish lists for Santa and holiday shopping sales, but numbers are expected to rise indefinitely. With the low cost of tablets and smartphones when compared to PCs, it’s much more affordable to own these devices per family member. Streaming is also on the rise, as seen in Netflix’s percentage of Internet usage from its subscribers. The increase in Internet-connected devices per household also means that the way we actually connect to the net via our ISP and hardware are becoming equally important for a successful connection and an enjoyable experience. Bombarding our home network with at least 5.7 or maybe 10.2 devices is not that far-fetched and our ability to control, monitor, and tailor our Internet usage to the specific needs of our family is becoming vital. It’s easy to let your network be taken over by a streaming-happy bandwidth hog and not so easy to control or prevent that from happening when you need full-throttle uninterrupted Internet the most. The HomeNet™ Intelligent Router delivers the tools that we need to wrangle our family’s devices and maximize our connectivity with exciting features that allow scheduling, prioritizing, monitoring, and the ability to set up user profiles per device for each of our family member’s needs. You can make the most of your connectivity and also make sure that you are really getting what you are paying your ISP for when it comes to connectivity and speed.

Pre-order the HomeNet™ router here.

Netflix dropped the ball on ISPs this week and launched a dedicated site, ispspeedindex.netflix.com, to exclusively report the average download bit-rate in locations all over the world where its streaming service is available.

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A teenage girl sweetly offered to buy milkshakes for her parents. Chocolate for Dad and vanilla for mom. Sadly these milkshakes were spiked with sleep-inducingpharmaceuticals. Why on earth would a teenager drug their parents to make them fall asleep? To get more time on the Internet of course! True story. These are the stories that no matter how bizarre they sound make us question the reality we live in and what we can do to prevent them in our own lives. Continue reading →

Nowadays, our children are engaging in the world of technology younger than ever. They have been born into a world of Internet enabled devices literally at their fingertips. Mom’s smartphone or Dad’s iPad are easily maneuvered by clumsy toddler hands with proficient accuracy. There are tons of apps geared toward a spectrum of age groups including toddlers, school age children, and teens. Social media sites such as Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter are being used by kids (with or without their parent’s permission) despite privacy policies specifically stating users must be a certain age. It’s easy for kids to find themselves in dangerous situations amidst all this technology that is readily available and as parents it’s our job to help guide them and protect them.  One of the things that we question as parents and struggle with is keeping our children safe on the Internet.

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