Tuesday, May 30, 2006
Dial Up Purgatory
So we get to Mom and Dad's house and their good computer needs tweaking. A lot of tweaking. Enough tweaking that my new best friend, Richard from Dell Computer's help hotline, suggested that we reformat and start again. We started reformatting last night at about 10:00 p.m. It is now 12:46 p.m. and it is 17% complete. Looks like it's going to take a while.
My new best friend Richard was supposed to call me back last night, and he never did. Richard, was it something I said? All that time we spent together on the phone, laughing and sharing about my parents' computer? Richard from Dell, I told you that I was sentenced to AOL dial-up until Mom and Dad's computer was fixed. Don't you care, Richard?
Seriously, though, I want to take a trip down Memory Lane.
Back in 1994, I was just starting seminary, and I had a brand new Macintosh computer with a 1200 baud modem. I upgraded to a 2400 baud, and thought it was going super fast. A few months later, my friend Andy bought a computer that had a 28800 baud. Wow! That was super-fast. He then upgraded to a56k baud. We thought he was flying.
My grandma's computer has, I think, 56k baud. It took me ten minutes to log on, sign in to yahoo, and finally click on an email. I cannot believe how quickly I have gotten used to a speedier internet connection.
Today, I am at the library. The computers are in great demand here. But I would rather wait 15 minutes for high speed internet access than live in dial up purgatory.
Well, my time's up. Getting kicked off. More later.
My new best friend Richard was supposed to call me back last night, and he never did. Richard, was it something I said? All that time we spent together on the phone, laughing and sharing about my parents' computer? Richard from Dell, I told you that I was sentenced to AOL dial-up until Mom and Dad's computer was fixed. Don't you care, Richard?
Seriously, though, I want to take a trip down Memory Lane.
Back in 1994, I was just starting seminary, and I had a brand new Macintosh computer with a 1200 baud modem. I upgraded to a 2400 baud, and thought it was going super fast. A few months later, my friend Andy bought a computer that had a 28800 baud. Wow! That was super-fast. He then upgraded to a56k baud. We thought he was flying.
My grandma's computer has, I think, 56k baud. It took me ten minutes to log on, sign in to yahoo, and finally click on an email. I cannot believe how quickly I have gotten used to a speedier internet connection.
Today, I am at the library. The computers are in great demand here. But I would rather wait 15 minutes for high speed internet access than live in dial up purgatory.
Well, my time's up. Getting kicked off. More later.
