The WildBlue satellite spot beam 35 was out for most of the day, so I have not had access to the internet until this afternoon. So this photo is being posted a day later than I would have liked.
We were fortunate enough to receive 2 inches of rain Friday and into Saturday. With the 2 1/2 inches we received the prior week, it looks as if our pastures and fields will be growing like gangbusters.  Once dry creeks are now flowing again, and the catfish pond will regain it’s previous glorious fullness soon, which is a big relief to me (not to mention the catfish).
After the rain stopped, we were again fortunate enough to be presented with a superbly brilliant rainbow. I figured that, no matter how you happened upon this page, you would appreciate a moment to enjoy a beautiful rainbow with us.
PS – In case you were wondering, I raced over to this pasture to find the pot of gold, but somebody must have beat me to it!
That’s one brilliant rainbow.
Richard of York Got Boozed in Vienna is my mnemonic for red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet. I can see 6 colours at this end, can’t make out the indigo/violet distinction. At least on this screen.
I think I can see all seven colours on my laptop LCD screen here at home. I was at work when I made the previous comment. There I was viewing the rainbow on a CRT monitor.
The rain was very welcome at our place. My few ‘mater plants were smiling about it.
Wildblue satellite broadband?
How do you like it?
I’ve been considering that or Hughes (old direcway) satellite broadband since we are too far out for anything else but dial up.
Sorry to be nosey…
FC – I have had Wildblue satellite broadband service since mid-January. Prior to Wildblue, I had dial-up and ISDN. Because I am about 30 miles from the telephone company equipment, the effective throughput for dial-up was 33kbs (out of 56kbs maximum), and for ISDN it was 90kbs (out of 128kbs maximum).
By and large, I have been happy with Wildblue. I have the fastest package they offer (ProPack plan) at 1.5Mbs. When I test my effective download speed, it usually tests out at the 1.5Mbs that I am paying for, but occasionally it will test slower. Sometimes, for no apparent reason, I will lose connection with the satellite. The satellite modem will usually reconnect within a couple of minutes, without any intervention on my part. I have not had to use technical support from Wildblue, but from what I gather from reading posts in their user forum, it isn’t to great.
Proper installation of a satellite data system is critical. Installers who cut corners on the quality of the coaxial cable, or neglect proper grounding procedures or recommended maximum cable lengths account for the bulk of the problems that end-users face. So regardless of which satellite company you use, it is important to be sure you get the services of a competent installer.
The biggest drawback regarding satellite internet (besides the cost) is the latency inherent in a satellite system. Depending upon your usage patterns, satellite internet may, or may not, be appropriate. Consider two extremes, User A and User B. User A is a heavy downloader of music files, movie files, program files, etc. User B downloads large files infrequently, but surfs between various web pages often. The latency that User A experiences for a file to begin downloading is negligible relative to the total download time. The increased download speed available to User A as a result of broadband speed is well worth the annoyance of satellite latency. But for User B the situation is different. The amount of data in a typical web page is small, but the latency factor remains constant. So the latency issue becomes glaring in the mind of User B, as this user will constantly face the effects of latency as he surfs from web page to web page.
All that being said, I will never go back to dial-up or ISDN again. If DSL or cable ever becomes available here I will jump on it at once, but I doubt that will happen in my lifetime.