Page 4 - Florida Sentinel 11-9-18

Feature
Voters Gather With Hopes Of Seeing Andrew
Gillum Make History
BY KENYA WOODARD Sentinel Feature Writer
Cassandra Mondesir
was raised to avoid partici- pation in elections. But she retired that mindset this year and cast her first vote ever for Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum.
“He’s the reason I regis- tered to vote,” she said.
Mondesir’s hope to see Gillum make history as Florida’s first Black governor died Tuesday night after news reports showed Gillum losing to Republi- can challenger and former Congressman Ron DeSan- tis.
Mondesir was among hundreds of voters who gathered at Zydeco’s in Ybor City to watch the election re- turns. The crowd cheered heartily as Democratic wins in other national races flashed on television screens.
But that enthusiasm died
down as the night wore on and it became apparent that Gillum’s election as Florida’s next governor would not be likely.
Gillum wasn’t the only disappointment for Democ- rats, as Bill Nelson’s run for another six-year term in the U. S. Senate appeared to be in jeopardy. As of Wednesday morning, Nel- son had not conceded the race to his opponent, Gov. Rick Scott.
For Mondesir, her first election day as a voter was anti-climatic.
“I’m a little sad right now,” she said. “I’m very dis- appointed.”
Tawanna Reese con- curred.
“(Gillum) was very dif- ferent; he was very truthful,” she said. “He didn’t bash the other candidate.”
Angela Malone, of Tampa, had been “very opti- mistic” about Gillum’s
chances although she knew the race between he and De- Santis would be “very close.”
“If it was an even playing field, Democrats would have won,” she said. “It’s very frustrating.”
Tampa resident Tony Smith said he was inspired by Gillum’s run for the state’s top office and that his humility and down-to-earth demeanor was especially ap- pealing.
But in the end, those characteristics weren’t enough to convince more people to vote for the mayor.
“I expected this best, but I was hoping for the best,” he said.
Smith pointed to the passage of Amendment 4 and a county sales tax hike to pay for roads and transit as a silver lining.
“It’s all about being pro- gressive,” he said. “We got some good out of it.”
Column
Why Your Internet Service May Be Running Slow
obody likes to wait too
long for a web page to open. It becomes intimately frustrating and time consum- ing when your home network comes to a sudden crawl. How do you increase your in- ternet speed? Wait! Don’t touch your router or modem just yet. Head over to speedtest.net and run a speed check of your com- puter.
Speedtest.net is a good source to check the speed of your home network com- pared to the national average speed. You may also want to check with your ISP to see what package you are paying for when you first signed up for service. Some ISP’s will start their customers out with the lowest and cheapest
package available in your area as a period of introduc- tion to other services.
The cheapest package means the lowest speed, which may not be right for you at that time. Once you have completed your re- search and you are using your own router, check the age of your router, you might need to invest in a new router. ISP’s try to force you to buy their own equipment, but you can still use your own router and save some money.
If you have a new router, do a quick reset by powering it down or pressing the reset button for a few minutes. Do this operation on a regular basis to avoid a bottleneck on your network. Check to see how many devices are on
your network, as a standard any more than three to five computers can cause your in- ternet protocol to crawl. Check for spyware or the ex- istence of malware by using Malwarebytes.
Malwarebytes is a free download and runs quickly to clean your computer of any hidden spies. Make sure you are running a recent and unaggressive anti-virus soft- ware such as Kaspersky or Panda. Set your anti-virus software to do a full scan at nights. Check all your com- puters if you have children who may have installed ad- blockers or bit torrent pro- grams to download illegal music or movies.
If your wi-fi signal is still weak, place your computer relatively close to your router. Your router should not be close to any other elec- tronic devices.
Finally, call your ISP who may be willing to bump up your internet speed for a small monthly increase. They do only a slight increase sometimes for valuable long- time customers.
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PAGE 4-A FLORIDA SENTINEL BULLETIN PUBLISHED EVERY TUESDAY AND FRIDAY FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 9, 2018