Reminiscing

Ok Network down for a few days, but a new D-Link Router and a couple of hours configuring everything solved the problem. Out of the box functionality my eye. Just kidding, I am just very particular about my security, wireless is fun but dangerous. I can see at least 2 other wireless networks near by, neither one appears to have security up. Been tempted to access their printers to show them how vulnerable they are. But I won't, they will learn the dangers of no security from someone else.

Having my network down made me think about how much we have come to be dependent on the PC. My wife hates it when she can't get her e-mail and most of our banking is done online, and nearly all of our shopping - at least the research part of it. Strange it wasn't too many years ago I had to convince my wife that this Internet thing was going to be around and that we should get online. Our first computer was a a used 386, with Windows 3.11 back in 1994. If I remember right it cost us over $1000.00 used. We fired up AOL on our 14.4 Modem and we knew we were on the cutting edge. AOL was slow on a 14.4 with all the graphics, so soon we got a 486 DL100, with a 28.8 Modem now we were cooking. We got tired of AOL and jump around to other providers until we finally landed at Flashnet, A local provider that cost us 199.99 a year.

By this time we had move up to an HP Pentium 100, with a 56.6 Modem and Windows 95 and had second Kit built computer sharing a dial up connection through a cross over cable. We were sailing, also had a second phone line just for Internet and faxing, though I think I can count on my left hand the number of times we faxed things over a 2 year period, and have fingers left. Well any way I kept hearing these rumors about something called "Broadband" it was super fast, and the coming thing, I went to the local mall and saw a Demo of @home. I was hooked, I wanted it, drove the wife crazy talking about how stuff would load so much fast and how I could get more done, not having to put up with the World Wide Wait.

But they had not yet upgraded the cable in my neighborhood, what a cruel thing, like giving you your first sip of water after being in the desert for days, then telling you you can't have any more for a long time. Well I waited, and Waited, and WAITED, checking the local cable company's Web site to see if my neighborhood was upgraded yet. The blue area on the map got bigger and bigger each week, and finally MY BLOCK WAS BLUE. Oh Joy-- oh yeah one major hurdle-- convincing the wife that it was worth the expense. Not as big a problem as I thought it might be, after we figured in the cost of the phone line, and the cost of the ISP, it was only a few dollars more then we were already paying. There was a bonus too- If you got cable TV with it it was $10.00 cheaper a month. Limited Basic was 6.99 a month so we saved 3 bucks a month and I got Broadband, and cable. What more could a guy want?

The week it took for the cable guys to get out there and install my Modem seemed like an eternity. But soon we had broadband and never looked back. My mom even has Broadband and plays Scrabble with me online everyday. Now that is saying something for a Woman who wouldn't let us have "Pong" when I was a teenager, because she was afraid it would burn an image on the TV screen.

Just think in the last 10 years, how far we have come. I am now typing this on a Pentium 4 Laptop, with CPU speeds not dreamed of in 94, and I am wirelessly connected to my Cable Modem, From a far flung part of my house. Ain't Technology Wonderful?

Later.