a wireless network in your home would mean you have no cables running from the computer to your DSL modem.

You would have a wireless card {w/antenna} in your computer and you would have a wireless router that sends the signal from the DSL modem to the card in your computer.

But if you have your computer near to the DSL modem you probably have a cable connected to it "wired". Or you might have a cable running along the wall or in the wall that you connect to.

I can't tell if my webpages load faster or not because we are on the edges of the service area and we share a wireless connection in the home between 3 computers- so that slows things down.

My modem is connected via ethernet thing. How do I know this??? Because I just looked at the modem, all 4 lights are on and one of them says ETHERNET.
So no wireless stuff going on here.

I hear the word router used from time to time. I have no idea what that is.

My son in California has a dsl line but he bought a router. I said "why would you need a router?" and if you think I understand him when he talks, forget it. He lives in a virtual world called Second Life where he is an android. He is the smartest person about computers (he has aspergeers).

Anytime I have a problem, all I have to do is ask him and in 5 seconds he knows exactly what is happening. He doesn't even have to be on his computer. HE JUST KNOWS STUFF IN HIS HEAD. I'll never be like that.

You might be thinking "how come she just doesn't ask her son these questions about dsl" . Well, he is without a phone where he lives. He just has the computer and a dsl line. So if he wants to speak on the phone, he goes outside to call me.

The odd thing is that because he is a gamer and lives on the internet, I thought his dsl would be zipped up super fast or something. He just called me tonight and I asked him 'what connection speed do you have?" and he said 1.5" and I said "you mean, I have a faster connection than you and you are a gamer???" He laughed and said "Second LIfe can't handle faster speeds".

I was under the impression that all these people who play video games, well, that they are using really high speed cable modems and T1 lines. I guess I am totally mistaken. I'm just now learning what he already knows.

Hey, at least I'm learning (at my age anyway).

Thanks much
mel

Lara:

You are actually the only person I know now that still uses dial-up.

Up until 18 months ago, I had AOL and a 56 k modem.

Brother, when I got the dsl and I could talk on the phone at the same time, well glory be.

And I just got new phone features, like call waiting, etc. And today, the Verizon girl said "you do know that you have voice mail don't you".

Now THAT was a funny conversation. She gave me a phone number to call and I am supposed to activate my voice mail. So I called the number and a robot voice on the other end says: "We do not recognize you".

So I called back Verizon and said "the robot lady doesn't like me". She got hysterical and tried to help me. She said "Please press the number 2 on your phone, I have to make sure that you know you have touch tone service". I said "lady, I know the difference between touch tone and pulse". She laughed her head off. She checked the number and yes indeed, I was right. It seems they did not switch on my voice mail with Verizon until today so I can't activate it until tomorrow night.

See, I can still learn stuff.

lol Melody

LOL! THANKYOU

Your post absolutely and totally cheered me up today.

It's not that I use it by choice, believe me.
I paid for ASDL for my son for a few years and it was quite expensive for me here. He had ASDL and I had dial-up. Typical. Then when I moved again it wasn't available at all.
Next move hopefully it'll be available and inexpensive.

Thanks so much for the chuckle. Made my day.

Lara, glad I made you smile.

Aftermynap: Well, I have a HP Media Center PC, with all bells and whistles. I am now learning how to use these bells and whistles. Do you know I never saw a dvd until this year. Now I get them, pop them in and they are amazing.


The other night I watched XMEN the Last Stand. Boy, what a clear picture.
I have a 200 gig hard drive, I have 1.0GB memory, I have 3700+ AMD ATHLON 64 Processor.
There is also a DVD LIGHT SCRIBE/WRITER thing. cd writer too. I believe I can burn stuff with this right? Never did this yet.

Also in the front of the tower there's stuff I have no clue what this is.

There are little slots that say SmartMedia/xd Complactflash I/II, Memory Stick/PRO and there's a slot that says MMC/SD

Also a USB 2.0 (I do know what this is) but the other stuff, forget it.

Then underneat all this there are 3 holes where I can plug in stuff only I don't know what these holes are for. They have little images over them. The holes are colored, purple, green pink. The green hole has a little icon of headphones over it. Now why would I need headphones for this hole, when my monitor has a headphone jack? See why I'm confused. Now to the right of this is three ports (I think they are ports). Oh heck, I'll take a photo of this and you can tell me what all these things are.

Here we go

Here’s a photo of the front of my computer



Here’s a closeup of the front of my computer (with all the slots and everything)


Do you know what these slots are and the port things??

Thanks, you’re a genius.

Melody

hope that helps you to figure them out - did you get a manual with the computer when you bought it??
If not you can go to the HP website and probably download the manual so you can have it saved right on your computer.

If you ever lose your HP XP {or Vista too I'm sure} back up /restore CD you can order a replacement CD on the website for less than 20.00 -
the newer versions may cost more.

Hi Melody!

Man there is some real techies in here

Headphones are nice when you want to use your pc like a phone, get the headphones with a built in mic and get your gamer son to get a set. Or if he has them already your set to go!

Use the instant message program (I use windows messenger, but any will do) to talk to your son, or anyone else that has headphone/mic set up. You can also use just a mic and your speakers if you already have that instead. This way he doesnt need to use the phone.

Im pretty sure your son has this as us gamers love to use a program called teamspeak that allows everyone to communicate in game.

I think it is sooo cool your learning all this stuff. One thing about DSL. It can get slow during peak hours. The more people using the same lines will sometimes make the surfing a bit slower. That is why sometimes the cable, although fast will have times where it acts like a dial up.

I have dial-up :Groans: and am thinking of getting DSL since my IP is offering it now for just $5. more a month. I think that's a lot better than many other IPs. Some people pay what? $50-60 a month?? So total it will only be about $15. a month. That's not bad at all.

Someone also, actually More than one person has told me to download FireFox Browser because it is much better than IE. I have NO idea what they are talking about but I have the link and am thinking about it. But only when I have someone on the phone at the time to cry to if I get messed up.

Hi there. I do love your pretty avatar.

And you must get DSL. You have no idea the difference it will make.

But be aware, the modem that comes, and the software that arrives, well it takes some doing. You have to hook up every phone line with the filters (they supply these).

Then you have to hook up the modem to the back of your computer. Mine is hooked up via an ethernet cable.

But I had to call the Verizon people because the cd that came with the modem was not working right and she had to walk me through the whole installation. Took about 3 hours.

I just upgraded and I know I could never go back to a 56 modem. I don't think they make computers anymore with 56 k modems, do they??? lol

So let us know when you are DSL....ing

bye for now,

Mel

Wiix, I only use Firefox. It's great for me. I actually got rid of IE altogether but I wouldn't advise doing that. I think I have some problems with downloads because I'm only using Firefox. Just double check what you're downloading before you press the button. Some downloads come with google packs and other things. If you're doing it for the first time, you might want to make it as simple as possible.
http://www.mozilla.org/download.html