Recently, something has caused all my images to load at a low resolution, regardless of whether I use Firefox or IE. When I place my cursor over the image, a text box tells me "Shift+R improves the quality of this image. CTRL+F5 reloads the whole page." I haven't found any workable solutions via Google, so I thought perhaps my Obner family could help me resolve this pesky problemo.

I dunno, Bob.

I did re-set my modem and it's back up to normal, now though.

Did you recently install new software on your computer? Specifically, a new firewall, virus protection, spamware, etc? That might be the cause of your problem.

Am I the only one who's encountered this dilemma?

you may have to bump this one tmrw when the smart kids go back to work

[grumbles]stupid smart kids[/grumbles]

yea, you got me...never heard of this one

Tania's advice sounds good, try to figure out what has changed

If they are so smart, then why are they working?

Did you recently switch internet providers or start using some kind of internet accelerator? Something is compressing your images in order to increase your speed.

The only thing along those lines I've done of late is to install a Sprint AirCard issued by my employer to enable access via cellular reception. I've gone into that software and could not find any settings to adjust image compression, etc. I suspect this software may be the culprit, but can't figure out how to resolve the issue.

Bingo! Using the internet over cell networks like GPRS is very slow so they use compression to speed it up a bit. They do it by using a proxy server that scans where you surf and compresses the images before it gets sent to you. I've never used one of those cards, but I just did a quick search and there should be a way to disconnect from that network so you can use your faster connection.

Walk into your bosses office and launch your laptop at him like a frisbee.

Or call "IT" guy.

Or maybe you can disable the AirCard when you are not in need of a cellular connection.

Or say "fuck it"; the internet is overrated anyways.....

why are you so worried about images?

nobody uses the internet for images...

Is it a 1xrTT card, or the new EVDO card? I don't think Sprint has popped for evdo yet, and it's pricey. The 1x loads at a MAXIMUM speed of about 130k, whereas the evdo will load at 300-500k if usage on that cell/switch is low. And that's when you're on an evdo-equipped tower, and those are only in big cities so far. Otherwise, it drops back down to 1x.

For Verizon, we had an *optional* side program called Venturi that would compress images like that, but it was a separate disc, and most people didn't bother - it sucked. Otherwise, we didn't compress for you, so everything looked normal. Sprint might do it manually tho.

Yeah, I've now discovered that it is the Sprint card causing the compression, but apparently only when I use that connection. It's definitely not one of the new super-speed ones, because it's very dial-up-esque in terms of (not having decent) speed.