Offline Browsing: A way to cut down on spiraling Internet costs<\/p>\n
Vishnu K. Mahmud, Contributor, Jakarta<\/p>\n
In the U.S., people pay a flat rate of about US$20 per month
\nfor unlimited local phone calls in addition to another $20 per
\nmonth for unfettered Internet access. No download limitations, no
\nper-megabyte charges, no time limit. In Indonesia, on the other
\nhand, we get the double whammy. Not only must we pay by-the-
\nminute telephone charges, but the hourly Net costs as well.<\/p>\n
In the wake of increasing prices by telephone company Telkom,
\nmore and more people are cutting back their time spent online to
\ndefray costs. Unlike General Packet Radio Service, where you are
\ncharged by the amount of data downloaded and uploaded, telephone
\nand Internet charges are priced by the amount of time spent
\nonline, whenever you are downloading a file or reading a virtual
\nnewspaper. Needless to say, idle time (when the computer is not
\ndownloading or uploading, just waiting for the next command) can
\nbe rather costly.<\/p>\n
Here are a few tips to help you utilize your online time
\nwisely. You should download all that you want to view in one go,
\nlog off the Net (and telephone), then leisurely read all your
\nwebsites without incurring the expenses of idle time. This is
\ncalled Offline Browsing, where you are actually surfing the Web
\nwhile being disconnected from the Internet.<\/p>\n
Of course, some links may not work since you are viewing a
\npage that has been cached or stored on your hard drive. For
\n\"external\" links (pages that are not located on your computer),
\nyou would have to access the Internet again.<\/p>\n
The simplest form of offline browsing can be done using e-
\nmail. Many news websites (such as CNN or Satunet) offer an e-mail
\noption where the news can be delivered to your in-box for free.
\nYou can sign up for this feature and receive condensed daily e-
\nmails with the latest news.<\/p>\n
This may pale in comparison to the dynamic and constantly
\n\"breaking news\" nature of the Net, but for those who just need
\nthe latest daily instead of hourly news, this feature is a winner
\nin terms of costs and time spent. Note: This works best with e-
\nmail clients located on your computer, not with Web based e-mail
\nproviders. We're trying to cut down our access time. By
\ndownloading our e-mails to the computer, we can read them
\noffline.<\/p>\n
If you are a member of a Web discussion mailing list (such as
\nan e-group), you may want to aggregate the e-mails prior to
\ndispatch for your in-box. For example, Yahoo Groups has a
\nfacility that will collect all the e-mails of the day within the
\ngroup and merge them into one combined message. This is
\npreferable instead of having 3-dozen e-mails, each with their own
\ntaglines, banner ads and graphical formats.<\/p>\n
Unfortunately, utilizing this method does have its drawbacks.
\nNon-text e-mail attachments from individual messages will not be
\nincluded in the consolidated group e-mail so you would have to
\naccess them individually from your Yahoo Group homepage.<\/p>\n
There is also a website that specializes in bringing the Web
\nto your e-mail address. Web2Mail (web2mail.com) offers a free
\nservice for delivering a website (or a page from that site)
\ncomplete with images and hyperlinks should you wish. Remember,
\nthe larger the e-mail, with text, music, etc., the longer it will
\ntake to download to your computer. Signing up and setting the
\nwebsites you wish to be delivered to your e-mail address is as
\nsimple as filling in a form.<\/p>\n
For those who can allocate a little more time online and
\ncomputer-processing power may consider obtaining programs to
\nbring the Web to them. Offline Explorer and Teleport Pro are but
\na few programs that will \"capture\" a website completely (HTML,
\nJavaScript, images and all), store them on your hard drive for
\nlater viewing. Make sure your hard disk has space, though!<\/p>\n
These programs collect and download the websites in real time
\nso it may take some time to complete compared to the e-mail
\noption whose content has already been collected by the Internet
\nsite ready for delivery). Some programs can even be automated to
\nconnect online routinely and grab the latest snapshot of the
\nwebsite at set intervals.<\/p>\n
You can search for these programs in CNET's download.com with
\nthe key word \"offline browsing\".<\/p>\n
These are but a few tips to help save money and time online.
\nAs a heavy Internet user, I read the news from five countries,
\ncomics from 12 sites and computer journals of three networks.
\nUsing these techniques have helped me to reduce the amount of
\ntime spent online while increasing quality time reading. After
\nall, the Internet is supposed to bring knowledge and information
\nto the user without bankrupting you.<\/p>",
"url": "https:\/\/jawawa.id\/newsitem\/offline-browsing-a-way-to-cut-down-on-spiraling-internet-costs-1447893297",
"image": ""
},
"sponsor": "Okusi Associates",
"sponsor_url": "https:\/\/okusiassociates.com"
}