Hi John, My parents live in the country where there’s no cable, they are forced to use Satellite or Dish. Right now they are using AOL dial up internet and whenever I send them pictures, it takes for ever to receive them. What options do they have? Can they go wireless using AOL dial up? I know that they will not want to change their AOL email account.

- Darlene, March 6, 2007 (name changed for privacy)

Hi Darlene, let me mention a couple of things before I show you how to compress those pictures before sending by email.

You mentioned Cable and Satellite, did you look into DSL high speed internet service for your parents? DSL high speed internet also might not be available in the country, however, it’s worth a look. Verizon DSL and AT&T Yahoo DSL high speed internet are offering the best internet deals this month.

 “Wireless” means two different things which makes it confusing. One meaning is using a cell phone company like Verizon Wireless. If this is what you are thinking, then visit the Verizon Wireless home page and select Plans / Wireless PC Card Plans to see what they have to offer. Of course, if Verizon Wireless doesn’t service your area, try another company that does. We often have wireless internet service deals mixed into our Check Availability tool as well. Like cell phones, however, if your reception is bad at the house, this type of wireless internet connection can be problematic too. The upside is that wireless internet service plans go where you go nationwide.

Wireless within your home network is when you buy a wireless modem and connect it to your existing internet connection modem. In your case, connecting a wireless modem to your existing dial up internet connection will not improve your email download speed. The bottleneck is still your 56k dial up internet connection. Take a look at this DSL installation I did recently which shows pictures of a wireless modem for AT&T Yahoo DSL internet service.

Ok, so about those email pictures. Anytime you send picture through email you should reduce the file size through what’s called compression. Reducing the file size reduces the time your parents (or anyone) will have to wait to see them. I’ll give you a quick example using Microsoft Picture Manager, though many other picture editing software packages have this same compression feature.

Assuming you have Microsoft Office installed on your computer, click your “Start” button on the lower left of your screen. Select “programs” then “Microsoft Office” then it will be in this folder or continue to “Microsoft Office Tools” then select the program “Microsoft Office Picture Manager.”

Once Microsoft Office Picture Manager is open, you will see something that looks like Windows Explorer with folders off on the left side and files within those folders in the main viewing area. Navigate to the folder with your pictures. Double click on a picture to select it for editing, then use the top menu “Picture / Compress Pictures.” On the right you will see the “Compress Pictures” options. Select compress for “E-mail messages” to get the smallest file size. If this is too small for your needs, try the “Web pages” option. The file size reduction is substantial, see the “Estimated total size” before and after before clicking “OK.” Don’t forget to “File / Save as” and give the compressed file a new name. Keep the larger original file around in case you wish to use it in a slide show for example.

That’s Grand Central Station in New York if you’re trying to guess. I was there not too long ago. I’ll leave you with these basic instructions, let me know if you need more help.

John Napoletano
Webmaster
InternetServiceDeals.com

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 7th, 2007 at 4:18 am and is filed under Cable Internet, DSL Internet, Dial Up Internet, Email Address Accounts, High Speed Internet, Internet Service Providers, Internet hacks, Other Services, Questions, Wireless Internet. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.