General :: Alternate Way To Update Ubuntu?

I searched the forums and used hours googling this, so sorry if there`s already a topic about this. Here is my problem: I do not have a broadband connection, I actually have to log on the internet using my android as a wi-fi hotspot, works great, except that it is slow and unstable (download rate at 19kb/s), I just re-installed ubuntu 10.04, the first thing you do is to update, so I set it to update, then went to sleep, it said to be finished in 2 hrs ( yeah..I know), during the night I lost the connection to the internet and it was ALL lost..everything, even what was already downloaded, so my question is, is there another way of updating the system so that I don`t loose all I have already downloaded in case my connection go a.w.o.l ?