e convenient for those of us who can’t miss our favorite sports if we need to write a paper. With the high-speed Internet now available through such carriers as Adelphia (Powerlink), modem usage has been dramatically cut down due to its slow speed and its usage of one’s phone line. For a cost similar to such popular Internet services like America Online, one can have lightening fast Internet access that (theoretically) is always on. However, just as in the point I made about the floppy drive, it is always nice to have a failsafe. For this I would use a free Internet service, such as BlueLight or Freelane (Powered by Excite) to connect to the Internet at 56k. These are free programs, which can either be downloaded from the Internet, or received for free at stores such as Wal-Mart and Kmart. They provide free Internet service, usually connecting at speeds around 50 bps, with an advertisement bar that appears on a portion of your screen while it is in use. The speed isn’t great, and the ads can sometimes be irritating, but for free they are great services. The term “bps” stands for “bits per second”. It is often times more accurately abbreviated as kbps, or kilobytes per second. Modems are not manufactured that run faster than 56k, as a standard telephone line can not handle more than 56 kilobytes of information per second. So for my dream computer a simple Lucent Technologies 56k internal modem will be just fine ($25).Although one of my goals in setting up my dream computer was to preserve desk space, I feel it necessary to have a scanner hooked up to scan pictures and documents, using it primarily as a way to make copies of photos. I found that the Canon CanoScan N1220U was one of the most space saving on the market, while still having a scan area of 8.5 x 11.7 inches ($120). This is the standard scan area for most scanners on the market, yet the CanoScan was one of the thinnest mo...
