Tag Archives: MSN

News

Spring is here

Spring is here! It’s warming up off-and-on around here. In the 70’s yesterday, but extremely windy.  We had a chance to wash one of the cars and go to the park with Kevin, and just spent as much of the day outside as we could.  By the end of the day Kevin was exhausted and cranky.  We have a lot of new photos online now, just in time for spring.  They’re in an album called “Spring 2001”.  You can get to them through our photo albums section or just by clicking here.

Since our last update we have switched from MSN Dial-up to RoadRunner Cable Internet.  WOW, what a difference!  We’re always connected now, no dialing up, and we were able to get rid of our second phone line, which was used just for the computer.  This alone saved us the difference in price between MSN and RoadRunner, so it was definitely worth the price for us, especially with the overall increase in speed! I can download a 5MB MP3 in about 30 seconds, and download most programs and updates in less than a minute!  We’re really happy with it.  I’ve also started a comparison chart here on our site to compare the different speeds.  You can see the results by clicking here, and you can test your own connection and submit your results to me by clicking here.

News

Christmas is over

Christmas is over, but the snow, slush and ice lingers on.  Enough already! We’ve had so much snow in the last month everyone is sick of it.  It’s supposed to start warming up next week (1/8/01-1/15/01) so at least enough snow should melt so we’ll have ROOM for the next batch whenever that comes.

Web Site Changes – We’ve changed our home page so it would be easy for us to use as our “Start Page”.  This was the original intention of the idea of a “home page” on the internet; So each web user could have their own personal Start Page.  But since the commercial “Portals” like Yahoo, Excite, MSN, etc. did such a good job of combining so many features and allowing customizable features, this is now a rare occurrence on the internet.  But what they’ve ALSO added on those pages is unnecessary advertising and tricks to get you to click on THEIR recommended sites, which is how they can offer all of the neat “free” features they have.  So our home page is faster-loading because it’s free of all of that customization code, free of ads, and free of MOST of the extra snazzy graphics and effects (hey, we have to have SOME fun!).  So if you find it useful, feel free to either add it to your favorites or even make it your own home page if you don’t have one yourself. And if you DO have one yourself, let us know and we’ll add it to our “Friends and Family” site list!

Photo Albums – We’ve added our Christmas album for 2000, so take a look if you’re interested.

Odigo – Jim’s been experimenting with a few new programs: Odigo, which combines AIM, Yahoo, and ICQ as well as it’s own services, and it looks like a nice alternative to using two or more messenger programs. Too bad it doesn’t support MSN Messenger, or it would cover all the bases we need.