Upgrading my web connection, well not really; Upgrading Internet security suite; Revising old web pages; Internet Archive; Ghost Sites

Recently I received a note from BellSouth indicating that I could upgrade my DLS service. I looked at this once before only to discover that services above what I had were not available. I was most interested in the offer since I actually would like to have a faster service.

I went on line, being careful to order under Internet Explorer, which I hate. Order can only be placed via Internet Explorer because of the special pop-up windows that appear. I placed my order and the completion date was the same day. Which struck me as a little odd.

About an hour ago, I did an on-line speed test and noticed that it was equal to my older service. In checking back, I now realize that all I did was to order the same service again - thinking it was an upgrade.

So I thought, I'll place an order for the proper upgrade. BUT, the situation is the same as it was before. I've got the maximum service for my area. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!

A couple of days ago, for some unknown reason, I checked my web security suite. I was going along fine until I came to the anti-virus section, at which point was a message saying that no anti-virus was running on the system. WTF. Panic! Not good, not good! By the way, I never could discover why.

Companies provide web protection in components or as a comprehensive package. I made the mistake last year of ordering a component only to discover that it was less powerful than what I already had. I really think some of this obfuscation is deliberate.

So I've learned that the easiest and in the end most convenient practice is to order the comprehensive package. Which I set about doing this morning. Well, of course, at first, it didn't download properly - three times. Next, even though it swore, it was not necessary to erase the old package, I discovered it was.

To trigger the service once it is downloaded requires this mind-boggling license key which was 27-characters long. I carefully bookmarked the page but discovered once you leave the download process, the page no longer exist.

BUT in a moment of sheer brilliance, I had enough sense to take a screen print of the page and store it away. So once I entered the key, the suite began a F U L L virus scan which I thought would take about 30 minutes. But this was one SERIOUS scan that took about 5 hours.

In retrospect, I'm very glad it was as thorough as it was. There were spyware, virus, firewall and program problems. The scariest being two Trojan horses. All-in-all, at least a hundred trouble spots.

And I'm sure this started when I first began dabbling with on-line video. In order to speed up the process, I would frequently turn off the security and anonymizer suites.In the back of my mind, I noticed for the past month or so that the system seemed to be getting balkier and balkier.

All's well that ends well. I feel far more confident that the system is clean And it appears to be far more responsive.

I'm very slowly, too slowly in fact, trying to establish a standard format for all the web pages. I'm now through mid November of 99. It is interesting to notice pages and sites that have totally vanished over the years.

However, one of the great unknown or over-looked tools of the web is the Internet Archive which keeps millions of random snapshops of web sites, text pages, moving images, live music and audio. It seems to do best with the text of web sites, images most likely will not be available unless you really search. But, on the issue of images, I've discovered graphics, adult material in most cases, that was originally password protected. Or was fee based.

But in other cases, there is nothing. So a site may have existed, had its moment of glory and vanished into the electronic miasma.

But there's also a converse to this in sites that were created but abandoned at some point but continue to sail the electronic seas of the web like the Flying Dutchman. Ghost Sites of the Web: Where Dead Sites Live On... Where Web Disasters Are Still Fresh" manages to ferret these out. Seemingly these are sites that were founded years ago, the forgotten, but never erased from the server.

One of the oddest sites is OS/2 e-Zine - The Best of OS/2 Reading Anywhere. OS/2 was IBM's 32-bit operating system that was supposed to, once and for all, wrest control of the PC from the evil Microsoft back in the early 1990's? But was more or less ignored. Possibly the only people left who use it are a few devoted hobbyist.

PAX!