It was just like any other day. I booted up my computer and started to check on my web sites.
And as happens from time to time, my sites were not coming up quickly or at all. My first thought is that a server is down. I test another server and see that it is not communicating either. Now I start thinking my T1 to the office is down. So I apply the test to a site that is not mine, such as ebay. Hmmm, it isn't coming up either. Either Cox Communications (my Internet cable provider) is having a problem, or I am having an internal network problem.
This is how my day started.
As luck would have it, I do indeed have some sort of cable problem. I purchased a new cable modem and the problem persisted, leaving me with a Wednesday morning appointment for the cable guy to come and fix whatever ails my home network. Today is Sunday and I can't WAIT until Wednesday to get online!
Dialup to the rescue. Only my dialup account is with AOL and I just cannot stand another moment of the "world wide wait" on the service that makes a turtle look fast!
I remember that AT&T had recently sent me mail regarding a $14.95/month unlimited Internet dialup for existing customers. But what really caught my eye was the AT&T WorldNet Accelerator, whcih supposedly boosts the speed of their dialup service. Now I know that you can't make dialup any faster logistically speaking, so I was eager to find out what kind of tricks they used to make web surfing on dialup a faster experience.
The WorldNet Accelerator is a seperate program that must be downloaded after you get online with AT&T. It was very easy to configure and I am pleased to say that I am indeed surifing the web faster! How do they do it? The accelerator compresses the graphic elements that appear on web pages by only pulling some of the data related to the graphic. There are five accelerator setting options, so I selected lowest quality graphics with fastest speed. Many of the web page images, especially photos, are no longer high quality. Some of them are pixelized, others are greyscale. All images are cached on my local hard drive making it even faster if I revisit a site.
This method really works quite effectively and I have no problem sacrificing image quality while on dialup. The WorldNet Accelerator performance meter reports that I am receiving an average speed up of 4x over my regular speed. My 26K connection is downloading web pages as if it were a 100K connection! I'm quite pleased with my new AT&T dialup service so far and I believe it will tide me over until the cable man arrives. I am sure it will come in quite handy when I am on the road as well.
It's Del.icio.us!
Furl It!
December 25, 2004 02:38 AM
Yes The acceleratorr works, but itcreated problems, so that I would get only Page not available while surfing. I called ATT and was told to disconnect the acclerator and eliminate the proxi?