Guinness is an Irish institution and if you visit any pub in Ireland you will see Guinness has pride of place at the bar. Often referred to as the black stuff,?Guinness is a stout beer which is typically a malt beer with a caramel flavour and bitterness in the finish. Guinness is made with four natural ingredients (water, barley, hops, yeast) and with the addition of isinglass during the filtration process.

Guinness was first brewed in 1759, but it was not until 1769 that the beer was exported. Arthur Guinness signed a 9,000 year lease for an unused brewery St James Gate brewery in 1959, a lease that cost only 45 per year. Today St James Gate is the second largest brewery in the world and amazingly 10million glasses of Guinness are drunk every day across the world.

In Ireland the way Guinness is poured is always a talking point. If you are in an Irish bar you are sure to here people comment on the quality of their pint which would be strange anywhere else but in Ireland. The Irish are obsessive about their Guinness, and go as far as only buying pints from barmen they trust or send back pints because there are bubbles in the head. It is a theory in Ireland, that the closer the keg is to the tap, the better the Guinness.

Guinness is world famous for the unique way it is poured. Best served cool, Guinness should be poured slowly into a glass at an angle so bubbles do not form. Once filled three quarters of the way, the Guinness is left to stand and settle. Once settled, the pint should be topped up?by holding the Guinness under the tap, and by pushing the tap forwards. A pint pulled in such a manner will have a creamy head that will last till the end. As stated in one of Guinnesss adverts, the perfect pint of Guinness takes 1:20.5 seconds.

If you are planning to visit Dublin, be sure to enjoy at least one pint of Guinness in a traditional bar, preferably with Irish stew and brown bread.

Ronan Menton is the webmaster for a number of travel related websites and has been for some time in Ireland, associated with search engine optimisation in the Irish travel industry. He spends two months a year in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and now sees it as his second home. Among the many sites he is currently working on are the following: Car Rental in Ireland and International Car Rentals.com.

Broadband providers have been under scrutiny recently, as it has come to light that broadband speeds advertised by ISP's (Internet Service Providers) are not matching actual broadband speeds that customers receive.

It's proving to be a frustrating time for many customers. Many have been promised speeds of up to 8 Meg, but they are finding themselves with connection speeds, that in some cases are only marginally better than dial-up.

So, what are the contributing factors that affect broadband speeds? There are in fact numerous conditions that exist that can hamper your connection, and unfortunately there are no quick fix solutions to any of the problems.

Conditions that can cause poor internet speeds include:

The distance from the exchange

This is probably the single biggest contributing factor to broadband speeds. The closer you are to the telephone exchange the better your chances are of getting faster internet speeds. Only those living close to an exchange will be able to get anywhere near the 8meg download speeds promised by many of the providers.

The number of computers on a network

If have a number of computers in your household hooked up to the same router, then this will affect your broadband speeds as each computer will be sharing the one connection.

Quality of cables

Your ISP should provide you with high capacity modem cables as part of their package. But, if they haven't then it's wise to check that the cabling you are using is up to the job intended. Also, poor quality internal telephone cabling can affect the quality of your service.

Weather Conditions

Severe weather conditions can cause problems with the ADSL signal which in turn affects internet speeds.

Viruses

Always use good virus protection software. A computer that is poorly protected from viruses and spyware will inevitably begin to lose performance. Virus programs running in the background hog your bandwidth.

Time of day

The peak times when people surf the internet are between 6pm - 11pm. During these peak times it's common to experience slower internet speeds.

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