Sitting on a Cornflake

From Tuesday morning, until lunchtime today, I had no ADSL. I had to resort to dial up.. which meant sitting in the hall so I could be attached to the phone line, slower speeds, and watching every minute, because it was costing me.

I use my internet alot - it’s always on when I’m here, and I pop on and off. I keep an eye on my forum, I wander around blogs, I like to see my emails as soon as they come in. I also have trillian switched on, with my various online contacts - I don’t spend alot of time chatting, but I like to know they’re there.

With no ADSL, this is all taken away from me. I had to sit and write my emails offline, and wandering around forums and blogs is too much of a luxury when every minute costs. My internet is a link to alot of people, and I felt completely cut off.

Addicted? You bet! LOL

Since running my book forum, I have had the pleasure of getting to know various writers and authors.. and through them, discovering new ones. Some of these authors have only published ebooks, or the paper book is only available in the US.

Considering that I spend so much time in front of my monitor, reading too many docs or pdfs on here isn’t something that I’m keen on.. but I don’t want to miss out on these authors.

Yesterday I downloaded Mobipocket Reader (free!), and it has made a big difference! The layout is more like reading a book, but the real joy is that you have so much control.. you can change the font family, font size, and even colour. You can set it to one page, or 2 or 3 columns. Basically, whatever you (and your eyes) feel more comfortable with.

Some books are available in a ‘mobipocket’ format, but it also downloads and converts all other formats.. so I’ve now added a couple of pdfs on there.

Of course, I have this on my laptop, but apparently it can also be used on most mobile devices.. and files can be easily be transferred.

I think a whole new world has opened up to me!

PS What was the final push to try this? Well, I was following some blog links, and I came across this site.. Imogen Howsen. Her site grabbed my attention, as did her books. They were only available online, and I was keen to take a look. So far, I’m very glad I did.. stay tuned to find out more!

I think it’s clear form here that I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with social networking sites.

I do enjoy playing about with them when I first join, then I start to get annoyed over various things (flashing graphics, anyone?! lol).

I like linking up with people I know, re-discovering old friends, and even sometimes making new ones.. then I get annoyed because strange people want to be my ‘friend’, and I have no idea who they are!

And so on..

But, the main problem with them is that I simply get bored of them. I used to leave comments for friends, but now I find it easier to send emails - I’m writing to them because I have something I want to say to them, not because I want to get involved in a ‘popularity contest’. Etc..

It seems as if others feel the same, according to this article.

So how about you, are you still caught up in the ‘craze’, are you feeling the boredom, or did you stay well clear in the first place?

Yes, I’ve finally joined facebook! I can’t really decide what I think of it.. it can be a fairly amusing waste of time (throwing sheep at people, for example), but every single thing you do on there seems to be a new, separate application. There are TONS of these, so of course, most profiles are full of different things.. and a bit of a mess! And for someone obsessed with neatness (and before anyone says anything, I mean online, not my home.. or writing! lol), it’s a bit frustrating!

However, unlike MySpace, you can’t start changing colours and backgrounds.. so at least the profiles stay readable! Mind you, one popular application has skins, which changes it’s appearance, so I’m sure many more will follow.. and before long, facebook profiles will also be a mass of clashing colours, and annoying flashing graphics! (Sorry, ranting again!)

Oh.. searching for friends is also a little odd - if you pop in a name, you get presented with a long list.. but you can’t view their profiles until you add them as a friend. So, if it’s someone you haven’t seen for a while, you can’t wander through the different profiles, and see if you recognise the person in question.

You can however, search for email addresses in your webmail address books.. this has allowed me to find a couple of old friends, which was interesting! It’ll be be interesting to see if where that leads.

So, when is someone going to make the perfect social networking site? You should be able to present basic info to all, then the rest to those you know. It should be possible to divide your friends list into groups, such as ‘friends’, ‘work’, ‘networking’ etc. There should be a basic profile, where everything is nicely laid out, then links to all the other bits.

Plus, of course, no clashing colours and flashing graphics! LOL

If you recall, when we moved in, my ADSL order was delayed, because there was a block on the line. That block was the previous ADSL.

When I was informed that the line was clear, I gave my provider the go ahead, and mine was set up.

It would appear that the order to remove the previous order was somehow delayed.. and on Tuesday, the people in the exchange switched off my ADSL!! The engineer called them from here, and they plugged it back in!

If my backside wasn’t so numb from sitting using dial up, it’d be funny!

I had a pretty crappy day at work yesterday.. and came home to find that my internet connection had died! Argh!

After a few phone calls today, BT have confirmed that there seems to be a fault on the line, and they need to send out an engineer. As we’re out and about tomorrow (car into garage, doctors appts etc), I’ve had to book it for Friday. So until then, I’m back on the dreaded dial up!

And on top of that, I have a migraine, that just won’t go away!

Someone pass me my duvet, I’d like to hide for a while!

Do you have set blogs that you try to visit regularly? Are they in your favourites, or do you use a RSS reader? Or, do you visit various blogs only when you remember them?

And once there, do you stick with the same ones, or go exploring the blogs that they link to?

These days I use Google Reader.. if I see a blog I like, I add it.. if I get bored with it after a while, I can take it out again. And yes, I often click on some links.. especially if the title looks interesting.

How about commenting? Do you ‘read and run’, comment only if you feel you have something to say, or do you try to comment whenever possible?

And yes, if you read this, I’d appreciate a comment. <grin> I do like to know who’s visited.

No more dial up! my ADSL was finally switched on yesterday, and so the laptop can finally go where it’s meant to.. on my lap! hehe

The desktop computer now lives upstairs, but our phone point is downstairs, in the hall. Instead of trailing wires everywhere, I’ve used one of those USB wireless ‘thingies’, and it’s working fine.

Hopefully I can start getting my ‘internet life’ back again! <grin>