Lowered Expectations

♦ A Mindful Webworker July 18, 2012 at 7:13 pm

For reasons too stupid to elaborate, I had to take a hit, like taking a pay cut, a demotion, and moving from a house to an apartment. Or something. Yesterday morning I moved from broadband cable down to 3G cell connection. Don’t know how long this will be my situation. Also took me most of two days and many swings with the 5lb rubber mallet to figure how to configure this to work. Again. I had this set up a couple of winters ago. Folks at AT&T, when informed of how I log on, said, “You’re not supposed to be able to do that.” Shhh.

You know that 26-second video up top? About seven minutes to download. Yowsers! So, no video up- or downloads for this little webworker for the foreseeable future, nor much else beyond reading text, and cutting even that to the bone.

Se la guerre.

♦ chrissythehyphenated July 18, 2012 at 7:22 pm

I’m guessing my suggestion (below) [to post video links instead of embedded videos] would benefit the poor shlubs who don’t have high speed. I’ve got Turbo … not the fastest, but still waaayyy faster than my old standard digital and light speed compared with our original dial up. If it’s slow for me … ouch.

♦ A Mindful Webworker July 18, 2012 at 8:21 pm

I’m using Opera Turbo. It does help. Just not enough. Especially for someone with a heavy YouTube addic interest.

Other blogs have found as you did that the multiple videos slow down the page load. But think how bland the page would look without them! Obviously, instead of cutting down the videos, the solution is for Obama to give us all FREE BROADBAND from his bottomless largesse!

(Insert joke here about MO and largesse bottoms.)

♦ chrissythehyphenated July 18, 2012 at 11:31 pm

ROFL …. but seriously, I’m willing to settle for still graphics for eye candy and use hot links for youtube.

♦ What A Hoot July 18, 2012 at 9:38 pm

See if you can download to your phone opera mini. This really makes things go faster. Also, go the The wordpress main page and they have something to go mobile with wordpress. The opera is listed as an application on my phone but I do not have a smart phone or anything so it is not “an app” really. Good luck.

♦ A Mindful Webworker July 18, 2012 at 11:38 pm

Thanks for the ideas, wishes, and concern. Good folks here!

I have Opera mini on my phone. It's great, much faster than the native browser. Alas, my old coal-burning cell has very little memory. I can only browse low-overhead pages, like Drudge. Seriously! The cell is far more useful as a dial-up modem than for browsing itself. I look at the ads for the Samsung Galaxy S3 and I cry. In a manly way.

Now that I've been forced back to hooking my tired old workhorse desktop up via Bluetooth through the cell to the net, my got-used-to-broadband 2012 self is hair-pullingly frustrated, but my beginning-hacker 1973 1978 self marvels that it works at all. This is my only current option.

Something like a year ago, the data cable port on the cell began getting flaky. I took it to a small cell repair shop. After they quit ROFLing at my antique, I said, the data port seems to have come loose from the motherboard. They confirmed this was the problem. I asked, so, can it be re-soldered? Ah, what a naive old-timer I am. No, they said, they don't solder those, they glue them. Ugh. Solder can be re-melted and things fixed. Glue leaves a big glob and if it fails you're SOL. Cheap? Or planned obsolescence? (The two are not necessarily mutually exclusive.) Well, that wasn't a problem. I got a $10 Bluetooth connector and that was better! No cable to fuss with, and it linked to the desktop when I walked in the room.

Now, as long anticipated, the power cable port is heading the same way. And of course wireless power is hardly an option! Besides that, the battery doesn't always charge, or something; the cell frequently bricks in the middle of a call. To get on here, picture me gingerly twiddling the cable until it says “charging,” then trying not to jiggle it while I work. I expect the power port to fail any time.

At least then I won't be frustrated at how slow my connection is!

Good night, Gracie. God bless y'all & keep up the good fight.