science

OnSpeed

OnSpeed is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand OnSpeed rather than just read about it. In short: Onspeed (stylised as ONSPEED) was a web accelerator service designed to accelerate an internet connection using compression techniques. Onspeed primarily improves the speed of an internet connection, including dial-up, wireless, low-speed broadband, and mobile connections such as 3G, GPRS and UMTS.

Key takeaways

OnSpeed belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect OnSpeed to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of OnSpeed from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Onspeed (stylised as ONSPEED) was a web accelerator service designed to accelerate an internet connection using compression techniques. Onspeed primarily improves the speed of an internet connection, including dial-up, wireless, low-speed broadband, and mobile connections such as 3G, GPRS and UMTS. The Onspeed software is installed onto the user's hard drive and using the existing Internet service provider (ISP) connection to the internet, it utilises data compression techniques to process a website, before it is transmitted by the user's ISP to their computer. The Onspeed software works by compressing text and graphics contained on any website (or within emails). Each internet access is routed through their UK, United States, South Africa and Indian based servers, which then compress the data before transmitting them to a computer. Onspeed has dedicated algorithms for compressing the following web page elements (all protected by 9 pending patents): Photo-realistic images (e.g., JPEG, PNG, GIF, and BMP), Line Art and Drawings (e.g., GIF, BMP), Animated objects (GIF), HTML objects, Text, Office Documents (Word, Excel, PowerPoint), PDF Documents, and Macromedia Flash. It does not accelerate secure websites or certain files such as music and video files (MP3, AVI etc.).

Onspeed Mobile Onspeed also provides a service for mobile phone users using a GPRS/UMTS connection. Operating in a similar way to its PC service, it accelerates and resizes most websites so they can be viewed easily on a mobile phone.

Proxies AOL customers often experience problems with the service due to AOL's proxy settings. However, Onspeed's website states that AOL customers may still use the service providing they use an alternative browser such as Mozilla Firefox. Onspeed claims that the software can be used in any country worldwide, however this is not entirely true. Onspeed usually will not work in certain African and Middle Eastern countries that connect to the Internet via a forced proxy.

References

External links Onspeed website

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with OnSpeed

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what OnSpeed claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to OnSpeed before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about OnSpeed ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of OnSpeed

In research: OnSpeed appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses OnSpeed in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: OnSpeed is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Internet stubs, Web accelerators, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for OnSpeed outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study OnSpeed in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what OnSpeed means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain OnSpeed out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is OnSpeed in simple terms?

Why does OnSpeed matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study OnSpeed?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on OnSpeed.