I first encountered the Internet when in 1995 where i cheated on a project for school. By 2001 i really got into it. Still with just dial up, the horror. I started to use chat room's, discover the other side of the Internet, the oodles of porn, and then msn. Oh msn, these day's it has the rather alien name of Windows Live Messenger. In short i will always call it MSN and not reference the website when doing so. Such an essential tool of communication. I made several friends on it, some life long like Rose, other's i'd rather forget.
We then got broadband, or the then equivalent. My dad connected our house to his school on the north side of Dublin by firing a radio transmission between two antennae. Basically we had the Internet at the expense of the board of education, good times. We also had a network in our house. Wiring wise my dad butchered the house. A server in the pantry. His computer in the kitchen, my computer in my room just above the stairs. Another in the small bedroom and a router box in the attic connected to the ariel.
OH that was a heyday. I didn't do to much, MSN chat room's died around that time. I still had normal msn mesenger too. Didn't do to much surfing either, go figure. But one thing i did do, was play Counter-Strike. You know back when it was free and cool! Classic game, i wasn't that good but it was a good way to blow off some steam, without using steam(because it didn't exist yet!).
I do remember running to go shoot some terrorists on my 16th birthday while my sister shouted at my mother and accosted her in a rather rough argument about spiked orange juice. Frankly not a good day.
Now in the summer of 2004 just before i moved was the summer of Startrek.com. Yep i am a nerd. But hear me out, it wasn't that uncool. The chat room was fun. It wasn't as bad as the message boards are now surrounding the current movie. No back then it was just a chat room. I spent a long time that summer there. But then, oh then, i lost the Internet for 2 years!!!!!
Yes my wilderness. We didn't even have successful dial up at home. My computer was a ghost of it's former self. But every Wednesday, my half day's, i would go to an internet café while waiting for my train.
Oh that café. I don't even know it's name. But for a good while it was my source of connection to the world. It was snug and cramped underneath the dart track's. A ideal location for being you know pretentious and reminiscent thinking it's a superior or inferior grotty location worthy of my time. Okay so it doesn't have food or drink or any café elements. It's more of a phonebox centre for contacting the world. From that location i checked my email once a week instead of once an hour. I also posted on my then message board of the time Mestcrapp.com. It was also there that i tested my first Fall Out Boy album on a disc man and fell in love. It was also here that i kept up my friendship with Rose. But for the most part i didn't do much.
But then January 1st 2005. After a rather legendary night which is a story unto itself i had to wait for a sunday train. So i was in the café. And i had recently heard of something rather special. I already had a rather unused Myspace, but what i had now found was BEBO. By May it had all my Sandford school-mate's as friends and a few others. It was "addictive". It was it's golden age. Through 6th year my internet activity wasn't that extensive, wednesday's and the odd dial up on one of my parents laptop's for adult purpose's.
Then my new computer. Just before i started College i transferred over from my old computer of 5 years, sometimes called Bertha to my last computer Lorraine. Oh Lorraine. She was a beast, a coolant fan like a jet engine and basically the strongest thing i had ever owned, up to date for the time. And then i received a Vodafone 3G hub. Basically a little gizmo to hook up to the mobile phone network for the Internet. It sat atop my desk and broadcast signal to my dad's computer as well. It was strongest at my desk and not that strong at that. But it was the internet. It lasted a couple of months and then we got Wireless broadband. A similar set up to my old house. A Ariel sits atop our garage and feed's into a server. That server feeds to a wireless router and some 30 metre's away is my room. I have had that same connection for 3 years now.
It's good at that. Myspace and bebo usage spiked. All my nursing colleague's added. Msn all the time. A constant mean's of talking to PG, and eventually how i asked her out. Youtube for fun and so on, family guy collections and so on. I discovered A LOT of music on my own via myspace.
Farewell
Mercy Mercedes
Emily
Steer Clear
The High Court
Failed Flight
Paramore
The Matches
I also got into using the Star Trek Message boards. Spent at least a year and a half there, day in day out. I've moved away from it now but i do miss it sometimes. And pop back to check up on everything. Still the creationism vs evolution debates, still the odd spammers, still the rivalry and the friendships.
The amount of things i am a member of on the web is astonishing. Half the things i can't even remember. There is a lot out there. And i increasingly seem to use the net more and more. More and more way's of spending my time. What did i do before Facebook's live stream? What did i do before reading blogs? What did i do before Twitter, it's celeb members and trending topics? What did i do without active email conversations with Society folks in my college GMail? What did i do before Perezhilton? Or entertainment Weekly? And how could i not have a star trek fix without the wonder of Trekmovie.com. Which kept me sane waiting for the new movie and still gives me genre info at the same time.
Google:
I use a lot of google things. I really do.
Google Chrome
Google Picasa 3
Google Picasa web albums
Gmail for college
Google the search engine
Google's Blogger
I have and Orkut account
I have just gotten Google Desktop(i don't even need it, but the feeds and mini-slideshow are so pretty!)
and in the future, later this year, I will use GOOGLE WAVE.
Opera:
Opera. Now i think it's a nice browser but i am very used to Google Chrome, i like it a lot. But Opera Unite. As of today the new great thing on the internet. It's apparently the future. And i think it is damn cool. It means that i can access my file's, music, photo's and specialised social networking space's from anywhere. I can log into a computer else where and if my pc is on, play my music on that private website or access my photo's or file's. Which is going to be damn handy. I don't know if i really do need it, but i could be helpful.
Here's a possible scenario. I have an assignment due in college, or need to print something special i was working on at home. I leave my pc on and pray my parent's haven't turned it off to save power. I then leave opera and it's opera unite things on. I can then in theory using Opera go to my opera unite page's and access my stuff... Or provide links to those website's and their passwords to myself in an email and open that link and use the stuff. The exact detail's i haven't figured out. I am after all BRAND NEW to this....
Now i don't know if
Usage in The Future:
Oh there is a lot in the future of the internet. For one i hope to consolidate my time. Ie utilise everything i do for a greater good. Blogging being that main centre for good. Talking my opinion away in rapidly typed and poorly edited ways. To "socialise" with my comrade's and acquaintances and to actually use the web resource's for my course.
In all my internet usage i have barely used My internet resource's for my course. I procrastinate more than work. Web CT is shit in all fairness. It's sticky, it's slow and it's ugly. I don't like using it. But i should. I should be reading my note's as energetically and feverishly as i read wiki's. Whether via the random button, active search or brushing up my canon Knowledge of Star Trek, Star Wars, Stargate and other franchise's. I may have to schedule myself to do that with my education. Force myself to read such web based things.
In short. I use the internet far to much. So much so i wrote a blog about it that went nowhere, go figure.
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