A rainy night.
Gmail is loading unusually slow tonight. It made me think about my other non-Gmail email addys.
I remebered: Edsamail!
Remember those 56 kbps dial-up days? When the cheapest internet card was Rebel? It was Php 100 for 4 hours, and you can get a free email add with Rebel. Then Pacific offered Php 100 for 10 hours. Then came ISP Bonanza with Php 100 for 20 hours. I remember patting and talking to our dial-up modem to please please please connect to the internet during these days.
Enter DSL age. We got Bayantel's DSL package and kissed the 40-minute-per-mp3-download world goodbye. Hello YouTube!
During those dial up days, Edsamail was the savior of the students who wants to check their email for free. The edsamail CD installers were passed around class. There are these special email addys: ___@mariaclara.ph, ___@climbers.ph, etc. Lotsa jokes and videos were forwarded. I joined a lot of yahoogroups back then. However, there was just a 1MB limit on the size of the email attachments hence you could not forward an mp3. Everyone who had a computer and a dial-up modem had a free access to the email world.
Come my freshie days in 2001, Edsamail announced that their service is not for free anymore. One would have to pay Php 365 a year if you'll continue using their service (Add Php 100 to maintain your special email add). They marketed it in a way that the rate is still cheaper than a cellphone load. I fell for it. So I paid that Php 365. Then next year, they raised their fees to Php 500. I still paid that. And paid another Php 500 the next year. I maintained my Edsamail email till around my OJT days. Then I discovered Gmail with its Gigabyte capacity. I bid farewell to lorainefg@edsamail.com.ph.
Consumed by my Edsamail memories, I unearthed the free CD they gave out in malls back then.
I googled up on Edsamail, this is what I found:
That is the same URL of Edsamail during the days I accessed its web-based platform. Now it has a "Pinay Scandal" menu!!! What is Edsamail up to these days? It is scary to click on anything on their website now.
Good thing we are now in the Broadband era. Dial-up era is a scary time to remember.
4 comments:
we shared our mp3s through 3-1/2" floppy disks then. XD
And we used FILE SPLITTER!!! (lol)
Who would've thought ISPs would become dead. Telecoms dominate the Internet now.
@springplum: Yez. Di ko maimagine ang buhay dial-up ngayon. Walang YouTube? Scary!
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