Social sites for old/slow machines?
Posted: November 1st, 2011, 12:19 am
OT rant: This decision-making process about my social media presence has become so painful for me that I've decided to call it S&M. Facebook + Blogging = "flogging." But just like with any sort of fetish, there are people entirely averse to it, and others who really get a kick out of the whole thing.
<Safe word: Honorificabilitudinitatibus. Oh, man, talk about getting twisted and tongue-tied.>
Back to post. Since my computer is *ahem* painfully slow, and the Internet not much faster (and with no way of upgrading at the moment), is there a way people with really old, slow PCs and internet connections can use media-heavy and rapidly-updated social sites like FB and Twitter? I've heard of what's called Mobile editions, which are optimized for the small screens of iPhones and Blackberries, etc., but still use a so-called "rich media framework."
But what I'm wondering is if there are ways of using these sites or something similar that's optimized for very old PCs that don't have the latest plugins and updates and can't, anyway, because the third-party software (like Flash, QuickTime, etc.), just can't be upgraded past a certain point.
Right now I'm on a relative's computer that has Windows 7, but I'm not on this one all the time -- hardly ever, in fact. Most often I access what I can of the internet through an old (but still functional!) laptop running Windows 2000. Another in our house still has Windows 98. The 2000 one works pretty OK for the most part, but like I said, certain things either don't display correctly or won't load at all, saying I need to upgrade my plugins -- but I can't. AFAIK Facebook and Twitter are something like that. I can't afford a new computer and the internet isn't mine to be paid for. How do people like me -- the "poorest one percent" -- use sites like these with the equipment they've got? If I wanted to do a FB/Twitter or blog for whatever reason, how could I do this without having to fork over money for a whole new computer, or is that possible? And if it's possible, would I not be able to "reach out and touch someone" as effectively without pulling in all the media items and so forth, i.e. keeping the blog strictly for words, and not having any pictures (boring, I know), or not adding slow-loading widgets and whatnot to the page?
<Safe word: Honorificabilitudinitatibus. Oh, man, talk about getting twisted and tongue-tied.>
Back to post. Since my computer is *ahem* painfully slow, and the Internet not much faster (and with no way of upgrading at the moment), is there a way people with really old, slow PCs and internet connections can use media-heavy and rapidly-updated social sites like FB and Twitter? I've heard of what's called Mobile editions, which are optimized for the small screens of iPhones and Blackberries, etc., but still use a so-called "rich media framework."
But what I'm wondering is if there are ways of using these sites or something similar that's optimized for very old PCs that don't have the latest plugins and updates and can't, anyway, because the third-party software (like Flash, QuickTime, etc.), just can't be upgraded past a certain point.
Right now I'm on a relative's computer that has Windows 7, but I'm not on this one all the time -- hardly ever, in fact. Most often I access what I can of the internet through an old (but still functional!) laptop running Windows 2000. Another in our house still has Windows 98. The 2000 one works pretty OK for the most part, but like I said, certain things either don't display correctly or won't load at all, saying I need to upgrade my plugins -- but I can't. AFAIK Facebook and Twitter are something like that. I can't afford a new computer and the internet isn't mine to be paid for. How do people like me -- the "poorest one percent" -- use sites like these with the equipment they've got? If I wanted to do a FB/Twitter or blog for whatever reason, how could I do this without having to fork over money for a whole new computer, or is that possible? And if it's possible, would I not be able to "reach out and touch someone" as effectively without pulling in all the media items and so forth, i.e. keeping the blog strictly for words, and not having any pictures (boring, I know), or not adding slow-loading widgets and whatnot to the page?