In an ongoing attempt to ease us into the 21st century, yesterday my son-in-law went exploring for some method of equipping our house with wireless internet service. Dial-up is slow, cranky, and unreliable, but I've put up with it over the years by limiting my use of the Internet at home while relying heavily on the high-speed network on campus. (That's why I often don't post on the weekends and why I don't try to post photos from home or do anything involving our bandwidth-hogging college portal.)
At the local Verizon store he learned that our house sits in the middle of a blank space on the map, one of the few spots in the county where service simply isn't available. Nevertheless, Verizon loaned him a little black box that sits on the windowsill and blinks silently and through which I am now posting this message.
I don't even know what the black box is called, but we can use the thing for four days to see whether it will suit our needs. So far, it does: it's not as fast as the campus network but it's much faster than dial-up. Last night we even managed to watch a bit of online video, although it was a bit herky-jerky. But that's okay--videos are not my main priority. This little box lets me use the college's course management system without waiting 10 or 12 minutes for it to load, and it makes checking my e-mail a breeze instead of a chore. I can even upload pictures:
See?
Of course, that one little photo took nearly four minutes to load, so maybe we still need to work out some kinks in the system. But there is hope! This blank spot on the map may not remain blank much longer.
No comments:
Post a Comment