Google is to introduce the opportunity to use some of its applications off line starting first with Google reader. This is an interesting move in a broadband connected world but will no doubt be a boon for mobile workers and those still on dial-up.

Songbird is a music organiser and playback programme available for Windows, Mac and Linux and combines the power of VLC with Firefox browser. It has an almost i-Tunes like interface and can even import any existing i-Tunes libraries and work alongside i-Tunes. Similar to firefox there are many specific third part add ons including audio scrobbling for last.fm and tagging.

Google's personalised homepage, renamed iGoogle (what's with using Apple's "i" monika?) now has themes. There aren't many at the moment but they're quite nice. The colour tint changes based on the time of day where you live. Worth a tryout anyway.

Broadband Internet access continues to be very successful around the world however it is by no means universal and obtaining a broadband connection (a term open to interpretation but generally deemed to be a faster speed than ordinary dial-up) can be dependent on where you live.

Here in the UK broadband can be as cheap if not cheaper than dial-up. My own parents were paying £14.99 a months for a dial-up service which sometimes had frequent connection problems and with my help moved to a £9.99 a month broadband connection (1Mb unlimited- not the fastest available but a big improvement for them) which gives them always on Internet and has opened the doors for a much improved use of the Internet including ease of browsing, Internet phone calls for free or low cost and the ability to share the connection between a fixed computer and laptop as well as the novelty of being able to be on-line without blocking incoming calls from their existing land-line phone.

They live but a few miles from us but their choice of broadband system was greater than our own as we were deemed too far from the exchange to utilise broadband via ADSL, which uses an existing BT phone line and so it has cable or nothing for us. This has recently changed although our location still dictates the likely speeds we would be likely to experience from ADSL.

But what of good old dial-up? What can be done for those of us who either can't upgrade to a permanent broadband Internet connection.

If you cannot get broadband and even if you can get broadband but at the slower available speeds (with many ISP's in some companies claiming speeds below 512k as 'broadband' which is pushing the term somewhat) then the proxy and /or compression add on service is worth considering.

Compression/proxy option

• A 3rd party paid for add on service


• Uses proprietary compression to speed up your existing Internet Service


• Low cost add on that improves the dial-up speed experience


• Web pages, web email and images all download much faster


• Multimedia content (video, audio)and secure(https) connections will however NOT see any speed improvement


• Onspeed is a well known purveyor of this service who charge £1.99 a month or £24.99 a year


• Others include are Proxyconn and Propel


• Can also improve low bandwidth broadband and mobile Internet speeds

It's not as good as true broadband but it helps improve the browsing experience by giving your dialup service a bit of a helping hand. In effect a third party provider is compressing the Internet for you in order to fit more into the small bandwidth space that dial-up allows.

Some people are happy with minimal Internet access of even occasional use at the library whereas others are lucky enough to be able to tap into community wireless Internet connections.For some, where broadband monthly cost is an issue I have even helped set up a shared wireless and even wired connections between neighbours.

The smaller ways to improve your web browsing experience:

Try to use a hardware modem rather than a software modem (which draws on the processing power of your computer) especially if your computer is a little older and of average processing speed

Add extra memory if you can- this will always make a difference.

Installing free Ram optimizer to help make sure that you have not consumed more RAM than you thought,

Make sure you browser is up to date and try other available browser such as Opera Firefox , Flock or even Torpark the secure, private browsing variation of Mozilla.

Get your computer checked over to make sure that an undetetcted virus, worm or Malware isn't impeding the performance of your computer (Windows only).

If your Windows computer is very sluggish and you know it's not just down to low RAM memory or a full up hard drive then it might be worth re installing your operating system from scratch which can often be a breath of fresh air to many strugling users (I know this from experience).Obviously this can be quite daunting, especially backing up your data and requires a slow methodical approach or ideally somebody experienced who is prepared to do this for you.

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