What’s worse than dying in a game? Dying because of something you have no control over. When a better – OK, luckier – player frags you, that’s one thing. When your connection hangs and your character stands in the line of fire like a zombie, that’s something else.

Except, maybe you can control it. There are things you can do to accelerate your connection speed, eliminate sudden changes in speed and only die when the game, not the ISP, dictates.

Some cost money, some are free, and they’re all pretty easy. Check ‘em out.

1: Ditch Wi-Fi

Wi-Fi is convenient. But it’s slower than a cabled connection, always. Wi-Fi is shared so individual connections are usually gated for speed.

It’s also another set of protocols and handshakes to put in between you and the server you’re communicating with. Another layer of complexity, another thing to go wrong. Drop it and switch to ethernet instead for your gaming machine; leave wifi for less speed-sensitive devices.

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Note: Updates for the site have been less frequent in recent months as The Night Owl works out personal issues. But we’re still active and busy exploring the world of technology and more cutting-edge commentaries and reviews are in the works.

What I read last week is so typical of anti-Apple foolishness, but I was hardly surprised. As you know, we’re less than two months away from an expected Apple event to introduce new iPhones and no doubt an updated Apple Watch. Whether or not any other gear will be launched is a question mark, even though new iPads and Macs (in addition to the ones launched last week) are expected.

But it’s not too early for the usual gang of Apple haters to claim that whatever is going to happen is wrongheaded, that the company with the world’s largest market cap is just incapable of doing things right. Or perhaps following the foolish speculation from a wayward and ill-informed blogger. If Apple doesn’t follow the erratic and illogical twists and turns of would-be journalists, they will never succeed. All that’s happened to them so far is some gigantic fluke.

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Recently, Apple settled its outstanding patent issues with Samsung, so it’s free to buy the parts it needs without that cloud hanging over dealings with the South Korean electronics giant. For Samsung, one hopes they will be a little more careful about copying, or stealing, technology and focus more on selling gear. And parts.

While Apple has continued to seek out alternate suppliers for the components it sources from Samsung, this settlement may actually help preserve at least some of the business. With no legal complications to consider, the two companies can do what they do best, and doing business with one another ought to be a more positive experience.

But that still leaves other lawsuits in place for Apple to consider. Over the years, there have been patent lawsuits, some of which Apple wins, but they lose some too and have to settle. Other actions come from people who feel that Apple has doing something evil with greedy intent.

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Since I’ve been largely in cheapskate mode in recent years, I seek ways to save money. I no longer pay $99 to join the Apple Developer Program. At most I miss one or two early previews after the annual WWDC. Otherwise, a public beta release is usually released no more than a day after the developer version, unless there’s something really bad that has to be fixed first.

With the release of the iOS 12 public beta, I went ahead and downloaded it for installation on a late model iPhone. It is possible to restore your device if something goes wrong by downloading a previous version (not to worry, it’s searchable). So I took the plunge.

The first step requires installing Apple’s device profile on your iOS device, so it will be able to alert you, download and install the new releases.

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