Minimalist Internet: 10 Ways to Make Dial-Up Work for You

If you are one of those who is having to access the internet via a dial-up connection, first of all, you do have the sympathy those of us who know how slow that can be, in this high speed digital world. Whether it is your only option at your location (yes, there are still those places) or you have chosen to go that route for due to the expense of other options in your area, the key to surviving dial-up is simply recognizing your limitations.

1. Dedicated line – Since anything you do on dial-up is going to take extra time to accomplish, you will want to have two phone lines, one for the phone and one for your computer modem. Otherwise, you will always be having to choose, which is of more importance at the time.
2. Clear off your hard drive – The more room you have on your hard drive, the more efficiently your computer will operate. Run defrags often to keep your data well compressed.
3. Plenty of memory – The more memory you have available on your computer, the faster it will be able to deal with graphics and loading pages from the internet. Keep other programs shut down on your computer when browsing the internet. They eat up the memory you need available for browsing.
4. No pictures please. Let all your email contacts know that you are operating with a dial-up connection and would prefer that they don’t send you photos, videos or any other large files. Send out a reminder from time to time. People do forget, and you are the one who will pay for their forgetfulness.
5. Avoid Youtube. It would be best, if you simply forgot that Youtube even existed while you are limited to dialup. The amount of time it takes to stream a video and the play quality are simply not worth it.
6. Ezines Articles. If you want to find good quality information in a textual format, read Ezine Articles. You can find just about any topic you can imagine there and low graphics.
7. Forums. Since facebook and most of the other social networks are graphic heavy, you might find that text forums are a better place for you to connect with online communities. There are plenty of them out there that are niche specific, which means you’ll also have something in common with the other posters.
8. Nighttime downloads – If there are some things you really want to download that will take some time, get the download started before you go to bed and let it pull it in while you sleep. Say a prayer before you lay down that it doesn’t time out in the middle of the process though.
9. Patience – This should probably have been listed under number one, because it is a definite requirement for dealing with a dial-up connection. It is going to be slow. It will be slow to connect. It will be slow to down load items. It will be slow at loading web pages. So, find something else to do in between mouse clicks.
10. High speed day trips – Whenever you can, treat yourself to some high speed internet. It may be a trip to the library, or it may be at a hotel while you’re traveling, but take advantage of those times and enjoy some of the online material that you have been fasting from at home.

Those who endure the use of dial-up in this age, and have previously tasted the joy of high speed browsing…we salute you. Someone will probably establish a memorial in your honor someday, for you are truly saints.

Taken From Dial Up Internet