Friday Five for 2007-03-30

1. What web browser do you use?
Like all hip netizens, I use chiefly Firefox, but I keep Internet Exploder around for those (increasingly uncommon) websites that don't work well with the 'fox yet.  I also have Opera and the Mozilla browser installed, but I rarely actually use those.

2. What email client do you use?
I have several web-based e-mail accounts.  I also run Thunderbird every couple of weeks or so, on my accounts that allow POP access, such as Gmail, in order to create an offline backup.

3. What type of Internet connection do you have at home?
Clearwire is a provider of wireless, portable broadband.  They give you an external modem, and from there, you don't have to have a land-based phone line or a cable connection.  Just plug it into your computer, an it establishes your Internet connection through cell phone towers, instantly, as long as you're -anywhere- within the service area.  So, I could unplug the modem that's sitting on my desk right now, take it halfway across town to someone else who has a computer, plug it in, and instantly access the net.  I think that's neat.

4. What kind of computer do you have?
An unbranded Intel PC, assembled at home from OEM parts and running Windows XP.

5. When did you first get 'online'?
While I was peripherally aware of the Internet during my time at university, I never had an account while I was a student there because I wasn't a Comp Sci major at the time.  My first hands-on experience with being online was sometime in the mid-'90s.  One evening shortly after my place of employment at the time had acquired a modem and a dialup account from a small local ISP, a co-worker showed me the computer that had been set up for connecting to the 'net.  Software on it included a script-based dialer, an IRC client, and an early version of some cool thing called "Navigator" by a company called "Netscape".  Ah, good times.