Remember dialing all those numbers, then the weird connecting noises, finally the ability to download a song of about 4mb from roughly about 30 mins, yes people those were the days of the dial-up. I remember how I used to constantly monitor the clock to look at the elapsed time to make sure that I don’t use the phone line too much generating thumping phone bills. When we got internet to our house I was just 12 (1999/2000). That was supposedly to help my father to send his office emails. But he very rarely used the computer at home let alone send emails. So this new technology was kind of “all mine”.
Those were the days before youtube and the concept of social networking had not touched the lives of people, and navigation on the world wide web was a structured and a well planned affair. I used to prepare a list of all the things I wanted to learn and search all those stuff every time I connected, and mind you that list did not contain any of the random crap that I go through mostly these days. Yup that list was a guide for a quest of knowledge and contained sites related to astronomy, automobiles, and howstuffworks.com was one of my favorites (Nowadays a rarely go there). And to save on the call charges I used to save the pages that I found interesting first and then read them properly after disconnecting. (hmm those were the days)
Most of the internet access was after 9pm coz after that time the call charges with Sri Lanka Telecom was cheaper.
And then there were the emails. At first I didn’t have my own mail address so preferred to use my father’s. All mails were handled using Outlook Express and that didn’t have spam filters those days( hopefully they have them now). So it took a while for all these mails to be received. Gosh was I stupid, the first “You have Won” emails really excited me.
The mail box size was a mere 4mb( can u even believe it 4mb?????) and once my friends started forwarding emails this 4mb was exceeded everyday. And when my father got that all important email from office it got deleted from the server since mail box size had exceeded. (then came the lecture about using technology in the proper manner). So I made up my mind that was the time to get myself a new email account (as if I had to receive very important “emails”).
And after A/Ls in 2006 I got ADSL and the rest is history.
I'm sure many of the Sri Lankan users have had this 'experience'. Browsing was an art in the good old day, had to do it perfectly efficiently.
I still remember during one school vacation, my internet usage exceeded the '22 free hours' provided by my ISP and I had used 39 hours of which most was during daytime. This was during 2005 december. Had to pay a little extra to the ISP and a staggering Rs. 18k phone bill which my mother struggled to pay for a while
:D
i can just imagine the atmosphere at your home when ur'll received a phone bill of 18k
oooh.. Very true.. every part of it.. This brings back memories.
I also had that 'Internet To do list' habit. Usually it was the auspicious friday nights cz I can stay awake a little longer..(no school next day!)
Our first ISP was eureka (and I dont know whether company still exists).Then came SL Telecom.
After all surfing was a much formal affair with the costs related with time..!
Wondering how the future will be..
Thanx for the nice read!
my first was eureka too. that use to get disconnected all the time coz v never paid bills on time
This indeed is a nice read... Something similar to NPP happened to me too :D and now I can't stop laughing remembering the incident(and mine was around 10k)..
The whole concept of social networking was only a misery but it's kinda efficient, if you use it on the right manner. isn't it?Another thing the random and crappy searches might lead us to some interesting things eh?
Hek ya I too miss those good times :)
well bro,
the atmosphere was ok since my dad didnt know the magnitude of the problem. Obviously the line was disconnected and a CDMA was brought home for temporary use which is still here...
Eureka here too.. i use the email by eureka still.. I dunno why i do it though :D
Do you remember when we eagerly wait for New year day cos we get 24 hrs calls free. i used to spent the whole day on that day in the net downloading the maximum i can. hehe
yes loved that day. used to get so annoyed when my parents wanted to go to relative's houses