It's all about the dust
After more than five attempts to open up the casing of our computer, I became successful only this morning, when it would no longer boot up. There was a lot of dust in the two fans, video card and the modem card. I also reset the two memory cards. So far, so good. Just this afternoon, I was able to boot up the computer without a hitch, when normally, it would take about three or four resets before I could finally use it. I just let the casing without its cover. I will return it tomorrow, on my day off.
Given the money, I would but a new computer, but I want it to be built by myself. What’s a tech support for if I cannot fix and build my own computer? I would be looking for a computer with an improved graphics card since I do a lot of photo and website editing. The computer I am using right has 1 gig of RAM, 80 gig, I think of hard disk space, an ATI graphics card, a Sony DVD player and an ASUS CD burner. Not bad for a normal user.
Aside from MS Office 2003, I installed Adobe Photoshop and InDesign for my photo and publishing needs. There’s also the Nokia PC Suite to connect it to my N70, Photostory for Windows which I would be using later for our presentation in the school anniversary, Real Player to watch 3GP contents from the phone. Later on I would install Quick Time. I also have Adobe Reader 8. I might uninstall Limewire because I just used it once when I have to download songs for the batch presentation for the anniversary. Mozilla Firefox and Opera are my web browsers, aside from Internet Explorer. IE 7 is not different from my Mozilla browser since I downloaded the Aero Basic theme.
Speaking of web browsing, Abe Olandres asks today the question: “How’s your DSL in the Philippines?” Let me just tell you our family’s history of Internet connection.
Back in the 1998, when we first had our Windows 95 computer, we we’re connected to the dial up, courtesy of Digitel. We were patient enough to have it for eight years and I did not complain at all, since I have no other type of Internet connection that I can compare it with. My brother, who now works in New Zealand, used to build and repair our computer. Aside from Windows NT and 2000, and Vista, we have used all Windows operating system, including Windows Mistake Edition (lol).
Being connected to dial up means that we have to content ourselves to 33.6 – 49.1 kbps, and of course, busy lines. Our parents have threatened me and my brother that the phone line will be cut off since they cannot make or take in calls anyway.
When prepaid ISPs offered free off peak Internet access, I grabbed the opportunity to visit the websites that I haven’t been able to browse. Sometimes I would wake up at 4 am to have more hours, and I will disconnect it later at 8 am. ISP Bonanza, Infocom and Blast are some of the ISPs I connect to. When Globe offered the purchase of prepaid accounts by texting in Blast to 2366, I was able to get more than 1000 accounts, each with two hours and costs P 20. My load then was just P 25. I thought that since the promo was still new, there’s always a glitch in the system. And I was right. I still have some of the dial up accounts.
In August last year, we we’re finally connected to the broadband, courtesy of Smart Broadband. Although I have heard of complaints on their service, our community doesn’t really have choice since the DSLs of other companies does not pass by the town proper. Our neighboring towns have DSLs.
Smart Broadband is fast in this computer. We share the Internet with our neighbor, I pay him P 300 a month. I only use the Internet whenever I’m on my rest day, which is like 8 days a month. The results on the Speed Test was:
Of course, there would be times when the system would be slow, but I am thinking that no system is perfect. I would do ipconfig and most of the time, it solves the problem. Jun, our neighbor who is just five meters away from our house, sometimes turns off the router and I would be left with no connection at all. That’s fine with me since a reset is always needed.
To answer Abe’s question, How’s your DSL in the Philippines? : Before we complain of slow Internet connection, that our country’s standard isn’t par with Hong Kong [ HK tops broadband survey of Asian cities, Manila ranks 19th ] or Singapore [ Do we actually have broadband in RP? ], can’t we address first the issue of digital divide and lack of education?
What’s the use of having fast connection when only a few number of people, the rich and those who can afford it, can use it? Imagine the facts: there are 7.8 million Internet users (as of March 2005) or 9 percent penetration rate in a population of 87 million. Take a look however, of the mobile phone users: 25 million Smart subscribers, 13.2 million for Globe and about a million for Sun. Wouldn’t it be possible that we can address the lack of Internet penetration through mobile phone Internet access?
