Death of Dial-up

Internet has thrived into every nook and corner of the earth and is an indispensable aspect in daily life. The conventional usage of internet with the aid of dial up connections started to decline with the advent of broadband in almost all parts of the world. The internet users had started to reject dial-up and had moved to broadband by the mid of 2006. The internet users found dial-up internet access nearly unusable and switched over to efficient technologies. The grounds for complacency are in broadband are the higher data transfer speeds and its independent nature preventing the blocking of phone line. Previously experienced users of broadband apparently drive the advantages of broadband. The cost of monthly fees is the significant component in the selection of a broadband connection. Besides that, the Installation fees and download limits play a moderate role whereas the contract length and charges for excess downloads are of meager importance.

Extension of the Dial-ups:

The economic downturn however prolongs the extinction of the 56k modem making it in favour of the dial-up Internet business. Now people retain their excruciatingly the slow dial-up connections. The current economic crunch has affected the Internet Service Provider (ISP) business to a greater extent. The declining broadband costs have not affected the dial-up services’ appeal for consumers. The fact is that the savings obtained is prioritized over the time lost in waiting for the completion of downloads. The situation now has drifted in favour of the dial-up connection that people are left with no other choice than to praise it eloquently.

Effects of broadband:

Still many people use analog modems and like it that way. Those who use the internet minimally may not resort to using broadband over the affordable dial-ups with decent access rate. Moreover the cable and DSL service prices are far more than the dial-ups. This is also a critical factor that supports the dial-ups. Computer manufacturers that had cut back the 56K modem from the processors they manufactured, now offer an external USB modem as a supplement. The high-speed connections had many overheads like the building and maintenance of the physical pipelines which proved to be wastage of resources in the scarcely populated areas. But there is a widespread opinion that the wide-area Wi-Fi networks like the Cisco Systems rural broadband initiative, the satellite broadband Internet link-ups or the broadband over electrical power lines are powerful tools that are sure to bridge the digital divide in even the most remote places of the world. The effects that result on the event of the broadband access becoming easily available to the markets and the service providers that are hard to be reached may make the prices of the high-speed competitive with the dial-up. On the one hand the providers are clear in their motto to render services like the dial-up access as long as there are stake holders and users who call for it and persist this till the dial-up fans themselves repent and throw out their modems on realizing the potential power of the novel high-speed connections. On the other hand there are people who resort to choosing online over broadcast in the scenarios where the same content is present in both the modes. A survey has revealed that many of the determined dial-up users were of elderly age group or had comparatively lesser incomes than those of the early supporters of broadband. Anyhow the broadband adoption was gaining momentum even among those distinguished groups. The dial-up users of the households are predicted to make a switch over to broadband in the near future. The adopters of narrowband are also forecasted to decline by 2010. There is a foresight that they will tend to choose the cheap services and playing less per month. The death of dial-ups is thus slowed but sure.

Blog to Book with the Web

Before the internet was developed and used as one of the most convenient and best media to use for communication, life wasn’t as easy and fast. But now, with just a few clicks of the hand, you can purchase the things you need from several online stores even from different countries and you can communicate with your loved ones across the boarders for only a little expense. And who would ever imagine that the traditional diary would be conquered by online journals in the form of blogs and soon, also with the internet, making Blog to Book can already be done in just a snap?!

Real bloggers really invest on their blogs, from the domain, hosting, theme and most especially, the content. Sadly, the posts remain to be just posts and you wouldn’t have anything tangible to show off to your grandparents or some kids who cannot access the web. But soon, your browser can turn your blog into a book and with less hassles, you can create something for keeps! Can you imagine turning all the memorabilia in hard copy right through your browser?! Well, stop imagining because this will soon be for real!

Outdoors are now Online

Even the activities with the most complicated planning like the outdoors, information about them are now readily available in the internet. The primary channels of information about these activities are the scuba forums. The diversity of the outdoor activities also implies a diverse array of information available. Online outdoor forums have tried to resolve this complexity by categorizing outdoor activities.

The key to harnessing the outdoor information is to search on more specific sites. Being more specific means find the category of the outdoor activity. Usually fishing, hunting, and other related outdoor activities are found on the same online outdoor forum. Meanwhile, outdoor activities such as hiking and trekking are under the more general topic of camping.

Outdoor activities like fishing and hunting are more skill-intensive than camping related activities. This is why online outdoor forums share a lot of information from tutorials to seasonal hunting and camping trip reports for example. Critical aspects of the planning such as topics on safety and first aid, navigation, campfire cooking, etc. are also very accessible on these online outdoor forms. They are very helpful on planning an outdoor activity up to the smallest detail. Other discussions such as reliable and cheap suppliers of gear and other outdoor necessities are especially helpful to the budget-conscious and first-time campers for example.

Browser Wars II

Back in the 1990’s, when the internet was just starting to become popular, and when dial-up was the only choice for connection (no such thing as broadband yet back then), the first browser war erupted. The protagonists then were the upstart, Netscape with its Navigator and the giant, Microsoft with its Internet Explorer.

Netscape was actually leading then, with almost 80% market share. But then, Microsoft started bundling IE with Windows, and that was the death knell for Netscape.

Now though, the protagonists are different…and there are more than two. IE is still there, and it’s still bundled with Windows. Its reputation though has been bad for the past few years, taking a lot of flak for having a lot of security holes, and lacking many features.

One of the more popular browsers now is the open-source Firefox from Mozilla. Its origins actually come from Netscape Navigator, as Netscape open-sourced its browser code after it was defeated by IE. One of the most popular features of Firefox is its plug-ins, with which one could personalize their browser. Another combatant in this war is Google’s Chrome, another open-source browser. Chrome, unlike its competitors, keeps everything simple. This leads to faster load times and a clean user interface.

There are other browsers out there like Apple’s Safari and Opera. This browser war promises to be more interesting than the first one.

Hello world!

Are you a gadget or technology enthusiast? Then you bumped into the right page. This is Kym’s blog - his online journal about the latest, hottest and most interesting innovations in the tech world.

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