According to statistics, if you are reading this, you are probably on a broadband connection. Whether you are surfing at work on a LAN or at home on a DSL or cable modem, you are probably not on dial up at this moment.

However, there was a time not that long ago in which Webmasters were optimizing every element of their page feverishly to squeeze every ounce of speed from it. Broadband simply was not that common and, even over dial up connections, visitors had twitchy fingers on the “back” button at all times.

But in the age of YouTube, Flash ads and embeddable content, those lessons have been all but forgotten, However, not everyone has access to high-speed connection, especially in rural locations, and after spending just a few days limited to dial up, the lessons come flooding back.

So what lessons did I learn while surfing the slow Web while evacuated? Here is just a sample of what I saw. read more

Take a look at the comment below, caught by Akismet and held for moderation on a client blog I have access to, but not automatically marked as spam and removed when clicking the Check for Spam button. Why do I have to see it? What in this comment makes it even remotely possible to be a valid one?

Don’t get me wrong, Akismet is a great service, and it saves me a lot of time, as it does numerous others, but sometimes it amazes me what it lets through. And I’m not only thinking about the porn spam that litters most blogs’ moderation queues (or comment areas) should they have obtained some degree of traffic. read more

When Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans three years ago, I was stranded in the upstate of Louisiana without my most basic tools. I was there for several weeks with only dial-up Web access and a borrowed computer to help me out. Yet, I managed to update my online diary twice a day during my evacuation and continue to operate my then-newest site Plagiarism Today.

Now, three years later, I find myself in a similar position. As I am writing this, I am evacuated for Hurricane Gustav while tending to a new blog, Inelegant Solutions (see link above) and several older ones. I also have to worry about writing jobs and consulting work even though my computers and my files are mostly packed up.

However, this time around, I am better prepared. Not only was the evacuation more smooth, but I am better able to maintain my presence online despite barely being able to see the Web.

However, making that happen requires a great deal of preparation and taking several steps before anything happens. For bloggers who want to keep writing no matter what, I would strongly urge the following steps. read more

Paul Stamatiou has written a great post on ‘How to Live the Cloud Life’.

Paul outlines how to use cloud computing for several different things - ranging from E-mail (gmail), to storage (Amazon S3), to documents (Google Docs), and others.

As Paul writes in his intro:

There’s no doubt about it, I’m in love with the cloud. Some people might not share my fascination with storage-in-the-cloud and compute-in-the-cloud models but I can’t wait to have the same computing experience regardless of the computer or device I’m using to connect to the Internet. I’ve taken it upon myself to change my workflow and digital lifestyle to get as much of my data online and make use of web-based tools until that utopian time comes. Here’s how I do it and you can do the same.

Well worth the read…

One of my favorite recent hobbies has been to look at CSS redesigns of Google’s GMail email system.

In my Apple oriented home office, I’ve used the Better GMail 2 extension for Firefox combined with the Gmail Redesigned 2.0 CSS Skin in order to have a vastly different GMail experience than what comes out of the box. And one that looks much sharper as well.

But without making major changes to G-Mail, Dan Rubin has refactored and relaid the GMail design onto a grid layout, added some spacing, and made a much easier-to-read and use interface for the vaunted enterprise email system. read more

Gmail had some down time for a few hours recently, luckily something I just saw in passing since it was at night where I’m located. I’m a dedicated Gmail user and I get very annoyed when it is not accessible. I also think that it works well enough to replace a desktop mail client, and that makes me think that the “beta” mark on Gmail is ridiculous. But it is there, and for a reason. Google has issues with their e-mail service from time to time, and obviously don’t feel that it is ready to be released for real. Which I think is a bit scary, but obviously understandable. It makes it easier for people like me and Om Malik to accept the apology and continue labeling our inbox accordingly.