Back on the Air
The photograph is of astronaut Steve Bowen. His expression pretty much sums up my feelings of being back online.
It’s been six months. Six long months since February when a shark internet company called PowerNet stole our telephone line from under us. This evening our line became ours again, new hardware was connected to it (courtesy of British Telecom), and we are connected to the firehose once more.
The earlier part of this evening was taken up with Windows updates, virus updates, Apple updates, and various application updates. We had been surviving via a Vodaphone 3G USB dongle for the last few months, but it was a shocking reminder of how the internet used to be… with connection speeds anywhere between 56K and bytes per second. We took Broadband for granted – our recent experiences brought into focus just how amazing it really is.
It’s quite a novelty to check email as I wander past, to listen to music on Spotify, to watch television programmes on the BBC iPlayer, to surf YouTube and Vimeo (mostly to catch up on the adventures of a few blogger friends), and of course to participate in Twitter, Facebook, and the various instant messaging networks.
It’s great to be back!
You had a lot of spare time then? :)
Yeah, right… lol
:)