Is High Speed Internet still new to people?...

[TNT]

I've been weeping for the last couple of weeks - I'm currently on a backup dial-up account and it sucks compared to DSL. Hopefully our DSL issues will be straightened out this coming week.

I've had cable and it was great, but in my area it's becoming rather pricey, so we had to switch back to DSL

That'll learn you to give up on cable... we're not just cable, we're your local cable pals...

Kidding... I'm just kidding. Really.

[Andara Bledin]

If you add internet to a satellite account that already gets tv, it's a lot less expensive as an option.

^-.-^

[TNT]

If you add internet to a satellite account that already gets tv, it's a lot less expensive as an option.

^-.-^

Depends... satellite internet is always going to suck unless Einstein was just blowing smoke.

[Zell]

Well this one doesn't seem too unreasonable. Although it has been out for a good...7-8 years now, some people still just don't have it.

But they should've at least heard of high-speed

[infavorofnaturalselection]

Depends... satellite internet is always going to suck unless Einstein was just blowing smoke.

Depends on what you are using it for. Anything that would be affected by latency such as online gaming, satellite you would only use if you had no other high speed option. An email server would be perfect for satellite since it wouldn't be affected to any noticeable degree.

[draggar]

Good for you, Draggar.

I run into way too many sites that are optimized for people with high speed connections with flash animations all over the place, and tons of java coding and all sorts of bells and whistles that make me want to strangle the developers. And no way to skip to a lower-demand version of the site.

^-.-^

That really pisses me off, too, especially I shop my competition and what they do all the time. Sheesh, they're sites about people's dogs and cats, we don't need a 10-minute flash about cartoon animals that have NOTHING to do with the site!!

[draggar]

You'll note a lack of images on this site. I used to have dial-up and I'm painfully aware that it's a bugger to do anything on the Internet on some sites.

Images aren't the problem, people tend to take 4-6 megapizel pictures, full size, and force the browser to resize them to fit.

So, you're trying to load up a 2-3 megabyte picture file. I use a program and shrink it to 600 pixels wide and the largest picture I have on any site is 100K, loads up in a few seconds with a 56K connection (most pictures are 40K-60K).

[infavorofnaturalselection]

I use a program and shrink it to 600 pixels wide and the largest picture I have on any site is 100K, loads up in a few seconds with a 56K connection (most pictures are 40K-60K).

Then you put in links for bigger sizes of the pic. wallpaper sizes or enlarged images. What i really detest is when a site has some nasty ad or bad coding that causes my browser to crash. Usually it's some ad that has a tracking cookie in it. Sites need to be optimzed for browsing period. Even a high speed user can appreciate a well designed website that loads fast and has all the flash stuff by way of a marked hyperlink.

[Andara Bledin]

I'm normally a high speed user, and I can say, unequivocably, that I appreciate a well-designed and slim site. I don't need Microsoft-style bloat. I'm a substance over style individual.

Images are usually not any sort of issue, as long as the user has adjusted the file size so that it is under 1 megabyte each. Also, it's appreciated when image files are also scaled down to display at a native resolution of 800x600 without undue scrolling. As much as the high end users are all running at 1200x765 minimum, there are still thousands of people happy at 800x600. If you want to show off a larger display image, then have a link from the smaller one.

It's the streaming media, sound files, flash images, overabundant (and badly coded) java applets. Nothing will inhibit my ability to browse the net more than a badly coded java applet. One site in particular that I visit often will usually make me have to close Firefox from the task manager to get rid of the java that is still running even though the application that spawned it was shut down.

^-.-^

[Jack7957]

My first online experience was with a Commodore 64 and a 300bps modem, using Compuserve.

Didn't get into high speed until around 1997 through work.

Now I've got fiber to the house through Verizon (Fios). I keep a free dialup account with Netzero just in case it ever goes down, or in my travels I stay somewhere that they don't have HI access in the hotel.

[Andara Bledin]

You don't have a dial-up backup through your Fiber account?

Every high speed option I've been with has come with something like up to 10 hours of free dial-up access per month so that you could check your email while travelling.

Speaking of NetZero, they must have been having trouble yesterday. We were getting bounces do to "Service is Unavailable."

^-.-^

[ken]

South Korea for instance has one of the highest concentrations of high speed internet users in the world.

Sweden is pretty well wired too. My current Internet connection at home
is Ethernet-based (RJ45 jack in the wall, just like in the office), with 100
Mbps downstream and 10 Mbps upstream.

On the other hand, at the summer house I'm back to 56 kbps dial-up.
That's OK, though. It keeps me from wasting my time online there too.

:-)

[Jack7957]

Every high speed option I've been with has come with something like up to 10 hours of free dial-up access per month so that you could check your email while travelling.

I can't remember and haven't checked. I don't use their email address they gave me, since I like to have something more permament (yahoo) in case I switch companies again.

[Andara Bledin]

A good solution for when you don't use the ISP-provided email address is to have everything forwarded to your "real" email address. I use gmail, myself, and with their labelling system, it's easy to know what has come in throught he forward as opposed to what comes in to your main address.

^-.-^