A buddy called in a panic. "I'm heading off for a few days next week and staying in a house with dial-up. How do I connect my notebook to a phone line?" he said.
It's frightening: not setting up dial-up, but being without Charter's fast cable connection.
I thought it might be worthwhile to show you what I sent my friend, just in case you're ever stuck with using dial-up.
Dialing With Dial-Up
Setting up a dial-up connection isn't difficult; it shouldn't take you more than a couple of minutes. And even if you think you'll never use one, it's handy to have one around just in case your cable or DSL account goes south. Here's the step-by-step:
- You must have a modem built into your notebook. [Obvious, sure, but you don't know my buddy.] If you don't have a modem, you'll need to get one.
- Go to your ISP's Web site and get the local access phone number for the area you'll be in. For instance, I use EarthLink, so I'd go to http://www.earthlink.net and search for "local access." They ask me for an area code for my temporary location and then supply the phone number. Do that for each location you'll be at while you're traveling, then write down the phone numbers.
- Go to the Start menu, get to the Control Panel, and choose Network Connections. In the left panel, click "Create a new connection." Then click Next, "Connect to Internet," "Set up my connection manually," and finally "Connect using a dial-up modem."
- Type "Vacation in Cambria Connection" (or where ever you'll be dialing in from), hit Next, fill in the phone number (include the area code, but don't use "1" before the number), and click Next. If you have Call Waiting, you need to temporarily disable it or you'll get knocked offline every time a call comes in. Just add "*70" before the area code.
- Fill in your personal info, then click "Add a Shortcut for desktop."
- Repeat for each vacation location.
Dig This: This Volkswagen is not a bug.
hOp U R doin k (Or, I FEl old)
Last week I started using text messages. No big surprise here. I'm behind the curve on lots of things--I just don't tell you about any of them. (Have to maintain my tech-savvy rep, you know?) Farah, my 16-year old niece, started TMing me and I had a hell of a time understanding half of what she said. (ha uncle steve, wotz ^?)
I'm not the only one struggling. John M., a loyal reader, told me about dealing with the slang, emoticons, and jargon that his two college-age boys send him within text messages. He discovered two translation sites that convert lingo to English or vice versa.
Of the two, I like Transl8it. The Internet Slang Translator also handles the mysterious leet (or l33t speak).
BTW, if you want to use your e-mail program to send a text message to someone's cell phone, you don't need to know their carrier. Just use a neat trick from TeleFlip: Address the e-mail to the cell number and use "@teleflip.com" as the domain. For instance, if the number is 626/555-1212, send the text message to 6265551212@teleflip.com; TeleFlip figures out which carrier the number belongs to--and sends the message. Cool, no?
Dig This: Remember when you were a kid and tried your hand making cool shadows? Okay, maybe you didn't. That's why you need to watch this terrific rendition of El Gölge Kukla Gösterisi's shadow puppetry set to Louie Armstrong singing "A Wonderful World."
I'll Read Your E-Mail--If You Use Smart Subjects
I'm picky about the e-mail I send--and just as persnickety about the messages I receive. You can read any one of the dozen stories I've written about e-mail if you don't believe me. (Try "E-Mail That Gets Your Message Across" and my "Be Less Annoying" series (part I, part II, part III, and part IV).
I recently come across a brilliant idea for e-mail subject lines. It's a technique Brett Kelly (of The Cranking Widgets Blog) cooked up that forces you to squeeze your subject line into one of four categories: Questions, Responses, Informational, and Spam.
Brett suggests labeling each subject line with a keyword so the recipient immediately knows what the message entails. For instance, I might send something like this to my boss: "Question: How about a raise?" My boss knows what's in the body of the message and can prepare himself to say no.
I've been using this style for about a month and I think it's streamlined the way people respond to my messages.
Brett goes into detail in a short essay, "How to Construct the Perfect Email Subject Line."
