h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Well, I'm proper chuffed. Recently I took the plunge and got myself a phone / Internet connection after numerous years of dilly-dallying and hum-hahing and, er, nay-saying. But it's a rather old computer that I have (Pentium 133 and only 16 Mb Ram) and the modem clocks in at a prehistoric 28.8 kbps (what the hell *is* a kbp?), and I found I was sitting around waiting for between 5 - 10 minutes just for a simple h2g2 forum page to load up, naturally becoming pretty despondent and cheesed off about the whole affair, two steps away in fact from giving up altogether and resigning myself to a sad life haunting the Internet Cafes in the evenings searching for vaguely interesting email postings and paying over the odds for the privilege.

But - and here's why I'm chuffed - I happened upon a 'preferences' option that enables me to switch off all graphics, animations and so forth. All the stuff, in fact, that I absolutely hate about the Internet - those silly gimmicky things featuring cartoon characters dancing across the screen making seductive gestures at me, funny flickering balls bouncing all over the place every time I move my mouse button, you know the kind of nonsense (nothing to do with h2g2, this second one. Just a nasty memory I have from some website or other). The sort of thing that any half-competent designer wouldn't even waste their time opening their mouth to sneer at. If only I'd been smart enough to realise how easy it is to do away with all of that...

Anyway, now I can download text-only, and it only takes a minute or two per page. Things are made still easier by the improvements that the h2g2 techies have recently been making to the service. And I love that alabaster homepage. That's all something to celebrate. Time for a nice strong cup of tea...

I like the alabster homepage too. It's a lot more solid than the old goo. Also the password service is pretty neat, after the hell I've had trying to get at this site over a network. IMprovements for users seem to happen here. Perhaps they found their towel again...

...Why does everyone *things* like that when they want bold? Is it a Macintosh thing, oris it from older software. I notice the Mac version of the word processor I use bolds this stuff, but not the PC version. ould you spread some light on this.

Thanks for telling us all about the text only, it sure will be useful over the awfully slow shared connection I have to use - if only they'd put these 200 machines on ADSL...

I like the alabster homepage too. It's a lot more solid than the old goo. Also the password service is pretty neat, after the hell I've had trying to get at this site over a network. IMprovements for users seem to happen here. Perhaps they found their towel again...

...Why does everyone *things* like that when they want bold? Is it a Macintosh thing, oris it from older software. I notice the Mac version of the word processor I use bolds this stuff, but not the PC version. ould you spread some light on this.

Thanks for telling us all about the text only, it sure will be useful over the awfully slow shared connection I have to use - if only they'd put these 200 machines on ADSL...

Hullo, this one's been written in double-entry. Are you an accountant, Fullup? That would certainly account for your name (just joking, in case you actually are)...

Yes, I think the new skin looks a lot more professional than the old one, although perhaps it still has to prove itself in the 'personality' stakes. The only disadvantage is that I think reading black text on white background is always a bit dodgy because of eye-strain caused by the glare. But I s'pose, in true British stoical fashion, I can always turn the brightness down a bit...

As for doing *this* for emphasis. On PCs - at least, the ones that I've used - formatting doesn't show up at all on these forums, so the only way to emphasise is to *asterisk* or else to CAPITALISE. I think the latter looks ugly, rather like shouting on screen, so I follow the other convention. Simply an aesthetic choice, really...

*Thanks for that*. I'm not an accountant, more a student.