*Thanks to all of you who have offered good wishes for my upcoming mission trip to Bolivia. It's only about a week and a half away, and I don't know how I'm going to accomplish everything I need to get done between now and then.

*We've had a phenomenal response to our call for bloggers for the new Times-Gazette web site which will debut this summer. I think we'll be able to bring you an exciting variety of voices and perspectives. Watch for more details soon.

*If you are still on dial-up Internet, and live within the city or relatively close to a telephone exchange, you may be interested in a new deal being offered by AT&T.

When AT&T bought BellSouth at the end of last year, it had to agree to certain conditions in order to prove that the deal was in the public interest and convince federal regulators to agree to it. One of these was expanding the reach of reasonably-priced broadband access. So, starting this weekend, the slowest speed of DSL will be offered for an advertised price of $19.95 per month, $5 less than its old price. There will also be a web-only deal of $10 per month if you have AT&T phone service, if you don't already have AT&T broadband and if you sign a one-year contract. The company isn't doing much to advertise the $10 price, which is comparable to what most people pay for dial-up access. The $10 price will be offered for 2 1/2 years as a condition of the merger, according to the web site Broadband Reports.

The company is also increasing the speed of that basic entry-level service tier for everyone, whether or not they are paying the $19.95 price. The new speed will be about three times as fast as the old one.

I run into some people who say that they have no need for broadband and that dial-up Internet is just fine. But as more and more web sites offer video and audio content or have bulky, slow-downloading Flash menus, it becomes harder and harder to surf the web at dial-up speeds. (The new redesign of the Times-Gazette web site, by the way, will offer video content from The Associated Press when it debuts later this summer.)

Getting DSL or cable internet (which comes from cable TV companies like Charter Communications) frees up your phone line, so you can make or receive calls while you're online. And it's always connected -- you don't have to log on or log off, just go directly to your web browser or e-mail program.

The trouble is that DSL and cable Internet aren't yet available everywhere. You must be within a certain distance of a telephone exchange in order for DSL to work properly, and not every rural road has cable service. There are satellite-delivered high-speed Internet services like WildBlue or Hughes Net, but they can be more expensive.

You can check the AT&T DSL (fastaccess.com) and Charter (charter.com) web sites to see if their services are available at your location.

John I. Carney is city editor of the Times-Gazette and covers county government and other topics. His home page is lakeneuron.com.