Got broadband - now what?

May 21, 2007 2:59 AM

After an eternity with dial-up net access, I've finally made the move to (24Mbit / 20gb month) ADSL broadband. What should I do with it?

I video chat with my mum in Florida, which is cool, and I'll get around to hooking up the VOIP thingy. I installed Google Earth, and was briefly amused by zooming in and out of various international locations, but I don't really get what the fuss is about. I watched a couple of trailers at Apple. I had a look at YouTube, but it seems to be cats all the way down. I don't have Usenet access, and I'm scared I'll get sued if I download telly with torrents.

It's just a bit...well, underwhelming. Has anything changed since the last time this question was asked back in 2005? What am I missing? Intel Mac and an old Win2K laptop, if it matters.

posted by obiwanwasabi to computers & internet (14 comments total)

It's highly highly highly unlikely you'll get sued for downloading TV shows.
posted by lemonfridge at 3:20 AM on May 21, 2007

Watch that 20gb limit-- at that speed, you can blow through it in under two hours.
posted by alexei at 3:45 AM on May 21, 2007

You can get usenet access through several commercial sites. TV shows can be pretty big downloads though, so watch your 20gb limit.
posted by DarkForest at 3:47 AM on May 21, 2007

Bandwidth is nice, and there are occasional interesting things on youtube, but it's the always-on/fast response nature of broadband that's really important. Leave your PC on suspend and you'll find all kinds of stuff you can "just look up online". Song lyrics, company contact details, recipes, programming manuals, comparison shopping and general Wikipedia browsing are all things I'd be much less likely to check out without broadband (I'd rely on books instead).

Your email, IM and RSS feeds will just trickle in, too (ADD ahoy).

VPN access back to your home PC (see Hamachi and UltraVNC) can be pretty useful, too.

There is one difference between now and 2005, but it's quantitative rather than qualitative - web applications are more mature, and now make pretty good substitutes for their desktop cousins.
posted by Leon at 3:52 AM on May 21, 2007

Welcome to the 21st Century! You'll never have to pay for pornography again.
posted by Faint of Butt at 5:16 AM on May 21, 2007 [2 favorites]

FPS/RTS games are fun, especially those with good multiplayer.
posted by aye at 5:29 AM on May 21, 2007

Youtube w/o the cats: Smashing Telly.
posted by magwich at 5:54 AM on May 21, 2007

Leon hit the nail on the head - quantitative, not qualitative. Here's some real data for you - I just looked at my Google Web History report for yesterday (I'm one of those crazy people who doesn't care a whit about privacy - I let them store not only my search history but my browsing history too) ...

yesterday alone I

searched Google 209 times

visited 1040 pages on 198 unique sites

When it's always on and always instant, you never make a mental choice "is this worth spending a minute of my time finding out?" - because it doesn't take a minute, it takes five seconds, so the balance always tips in favor of obtaining the information.

posted by dmd at 6:20 AM on May 21, 2007

Download the full archives for podcasts that interest you.
posted by cowbellemoo at 6:23 AM on May 21, 2007

Check out etree.org and download the live sets from bands that actually let you download live sets. Some of them are pretty amazing.
posted by devilsbrigade at 6:58 AM on May 21, 2007

What Leon and dmd said: Always on, always there. Now you can get a laptop and wireless, and have a wealth of information and trivia available whenever you want it.

Watching an old movie on TV? Look up the bios of the stars and the history of the film. Not sure what to cook for dinner? Take inventory of the fridge then go to AllRecipes.com. Have a question about anything? AskMe and Wikipedia and Google are always there. Always. Anytime you want them.
posted by Robert Angelo at 7:04 AM on May 21, 2007

A 1-hour hdtv-quality show is abut 350MB, so 20GB = 58 shows per month.
Go here. get the rss feed for the shows you like. Get µTorrent, and set it up to download automatically (using the "rss downloader"). Free tivo!
posted by signal at 8:58 AM on May 21, 2007 [1 favorite]

whatever you do, don't do what anonymous (more recent question today - 13 years of surfing has ruined his brain) has done! check his post for important pointers!
posted by Salvatorparadise at 9:07 AM on May 21, 2007

Start hanging out in the whirlpool forums, if you haven't already.

It's probably a good idea to run system update & windows update now you are off dialup.

Fire up iTunes and checkout some interesting podcasts.
posted by cwhitfcd at 5:48 PM on May 21, 2007