Learn the rhythm

Connections on the Internet vary second by second. You can try a site one minute and find it unavailable, then 30 seconds later you can get through. Or you can connect to a site and find it infuriatingly slow, but try again five minutes later and things flow beautifully. The trick is knowing whether it's worthwhile hitting the reload button a couple of times, or whether you've hit a very heavy traffic flow and you should try later.

There are no hard and fast rules for assessing this. In fact, a lot of it is done by feel. The crucial tools that will help you decide whether a connection is merely slow or is likely to time out are your modem indicator lights, in particular the receive data (RD) and send data (SD) lights. By watching these lights frequently while you're online you can become adept at working out how your connection is proceeding. There's a typical rhythm to a good connection that you'll become accustomed to. Even sluggish connections have their own rhythm – with elongated pauses – which will let you know that if you just hang on, the page will load.

The absence of any activity in the SD and RD indicators for anything more than about 10 seconds, however, almost always indicates a connection that's not proceeding. The exception is when you've filled in a form or accessed a site with a database, and you're now waiting for the site to acknowledge receipt of your form or look something up in its database.

With an external modem, position it so you can see the lights while you're surfing. If you have an internal modem, or would like an even easier visual cue, you can display a modem status indicator in your Taskbar which displays the SD and RD activity. To do so, in Windows 98 and Windows Me:

1. Open My Computer and then Dial-Up Networking (in Windows Me, click Start -> Settings -> Control Panel and double-click the Dial-up Networking icon).
2. In Dial-Up Networking, highlight the dial-up connection you use to connect to the Internet (don't open it, just highlight it).
3. Open the Connections Menu in the Dial-Up Networking folder and choose Settings.
4. Place a checkmark beside the option to Show An Icon On Taskbar After Connected.
5. Click OK.

To do the same thing in Windows XP:

1. Click Start -> My Network Places.
2. In My Network Places, click View Network Connections under Network Tasks.
3. Right-click your dial-up network connection's icon and choose Properties from the pop-up menu.
4. Place a checkmark beside the option to Show Icon In Notification Area When Connected.
5. Click OK.



If you watch the modem indicators over a period of time, you'll find you develop a good sense about your connections. You'll get additional information by watching the status indicator on your browser's status line. If a connection seems slow, click your browser's Stop button and then hit Reload to see if you can speed things up. If there's still no response, it may be worth going elsewhere and checking back later.