Save money with off-line tool.

Telephone costs can be considerably reduced by using Galahad. Netscape users need to be connected to the Internet constantly while reading and responding to messages. This quickly adds up. The average on-line user spends 2 hours/day on-line. During that time his phone line is in use so no one will be able to reach him. In many a household this is unacceptable. So, either a voice mail service at $7.50/month or an extra telephone line at $15/month is required.

Using Galahad, you save the expense of $90/year to $180/year while remaining reachable!

Most Internet Service Providers (ISPs) offer three tiers of pricing:

1. Low volume $5/month with 5 hours of access.
2. Average volume $10/month for 10 hours.
3. Unlimited usage for $20/month.

As an off-line user, the 5 hour plan is typically enough to cover twice daily sessions of 5 minutes each. The typical session only takes a few minutes because Galahad can upload and download messages and files at high speed. It is only limited by the speed of the modem connection.

Galahad saves you 400% over the unlimited plan. Instead of paying $240/year to the ISP for access, you only pay $60/year for access. That's a savings of $180/year!

The total savings of off-line versus on-line can run up to $360/year. This assumes the ISP is an A-band call, and no toll charges are paid for accessing the ISP!

The on-line tools such as Netscape have a major disadvantage: the information is only available when you're connected to the specific site. As soon as you move to the next item, the current item is lost. Most browsers offer hot-lists, favorite places and other tools to remember how to return to the information located, but you need to be connected to the Internet to access the information again.

Galahad has a great advantage. It downloads the information and stores it on your hard-disk. You can access it at any time even when you don't have access to the Internet. For example, when you are travelling on a plane with your laptop computer.

The Internet is quite slow during the peak hours between 8am to 5pm and from 6pm to 12pm. The hours most of us access information on the Internet! During this time, it can even be difficult to connect to your ISP because all their modems are in use. Galahad can be scheduled to wake up when everybody else is asleep. Connect to the Internet and download the latest information. In the morning, while others are waiting for the information to be retrieved, you can read and act on the information stored on your PC.

Commuters love this feature of Galahad. They pick up their laptop and head straight for work. During the commute on the train they can do useful work.

A lot of information is only useful for a limited time because it is updated periodically. For example the news, company reports, TV guides etc. Get up-to-date info at regularly scheduled intervals with Galahad. Galahad automatically updates web pages and ftp directories so you don't have to remember when and where to go.

The most irritating part of surfing the net with an on-line application such as Netscape is the time it takes to wait for information to arrive. It takes seconds to get connected to the site, then the information trickles in, and is slowed down further by the downloading of images and other fancy effects.

Eliminate the wait. Galahad can display the information as fast as it can render the page. The only limiting factor is the speed of your PC, not how many users are accessing the net.

We expect that on-line tools such as the Netscape browser will migrate away from the PC. Combined with a high speed cable or ADSL modem and the $500 Internet set-top box or network computer (NC), they will be ideal tools for interactive games, digital radio broadcasts, internet telephone, video conferencing and in the future even for video on demand services.

All these applications will run well on a TV and do not require high resolution monitors or even a keyboard. However they do require high-speed bandwidth (>1.5Mbps) which is something only a cable or ADSL modem can provide.

Don't expect this before the year 2000 when the infrastructure is upgraded, and those modems are available to make this a $50/month option on your cable/telephone network. For now, using a 28.8 or even an ISDN modem for entertainment type web browsing is severely limiting the applications.

However once the high-speed links become available, you will likely seek the convenience of your home entertainment center to watch a movie on demand or surf the web alone, with family or friends. But to read and respond to your E-mail and Netnews, update your bank account and trade stocks no doubt your Personal Computer (PC) remains the tool of choice.