I certainly didn't mean to offend either. I don't recall who complained, but several folks (including yours truly) gladly complied out of consideration.
Dialup access will always exist, and it's really NOT a bad thing/not too slow for stuff like this. I use it from the laptop sometimes, while at a client site. We went with broadband at the shop because the dialup "message units" would probably exceed the 49.99/month fee for the DSL line. (phone companies in this part of USA charge a "per minute" fee for business calls, while some in the south charge a flat fee for unlimited usage - as they do here for residential lines) Is it necessary? Probably not! We use it for Lifesaver beta updates, database changes, instant messages between sites, customer email inquiries, supply & print ordering, pcanywhere access to the financials from home, and as a way to back up the POS every weekend to an outside location.(home)
I remember getting my first 150 baud modem from the early 80's. It seemed like the best thing at the time, but looking back.... Talk about slow! Typing on a typewriter was actually faster than the characters would come across the screen
When Dennis Hayes (a friend whos company is now out of business) came out with his 300 smartmodem, it wasn't much faster.
Each unique image has to load once before it is cached in the browser. If the same image is on a page 100 times, it'll 'draw' them at the same time - while it downloads the pic once in the background. If you visit again in the near future, the single image will pop up immediately because it's stored on your HD. (if it downloaded more than once with the same filename to store in the cache dir, there would be a duplicate/name conflict) This is my understanding anyways...
Dialup isn't dead, but for now it has pretty much reached it's maximum speed/ability. They've pushed the envelope so many times over the years by means of compression, etc. Dialup is absolutely fine for 95% of us. A new faster broadband is on the horizon also, but not for a couple years.
As long as we can get to the Grumble, it's all good