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More people in the US now use the web as their first choice to
look for information.
The average person would now rather use email instead the
phone to contact relatives and does so far more often.
An individual workng out of her home can look as big and
competent as a fortune 500 company with a well-conceived and
executed website.
On the internet, you can now listen to a zillion music or
other kinds of radio stations, view movies, learn the latest
news, chat live with another person of your choice and see them
and they you usiing webcams, write
your senators, congress people and the president, send and
receive faxes, letters, pictures and movies, read millions of
peoples' diaries (weblogs or
blogs for short), view near-live shots from space
(www.nasa.gov), compare prices
on a specific product with a few clicks of your mouse, discover
and write your ancestral
tree, shop for just about anything, read the US Constitution
and the Bill
of Rights, peruse the Library
of Congress (not yet complete), prepare living wills, file
your taxes, pay your bills, view your checking and credit card
accounts' activities, register to vote, register for school,
register your vehicle, gamble (not recommended), play
fun games, earn CEU's or a degree, find almost anyone's
address or phone number (I know, I know... invasion of privacy),
get a recipe for any kind of food in the world, learn to program
or how to build a web page, and a ton of additional stuff I can't
even think of at the moment.
A few internet tips:
Purchasing on the Internet is extremely
convenient. A couple of clicks, especially on a website where
you've purchased before, because they already have your credit
card number and other pertinent information, and the object of
your desire is on its way. I encourage people not
to use their versateller card. It links directly to your
checking acount and if stolen, leaves you totally liable. Usiing
your credit card offers some limit on your liability, but it's a
good idea to check occasionally on your account to be sure there
is no strange activity. Additionally, make sure before sending
any personal information that you are on a secure web page. In
Internet Explorer you know the page is secure by the presence of
a little yellow lock at the bottom of IE's window.
Giving
out your email address. Spam is a serious problem and is
costing the business community billions of dollars each year
just to have to deal with it. Yet it continues to expand. Before
I give my email address on a web page form I look for and read
their “Privacy policy.” If I don't like it or it's
not easy to find I leave immediately no matter how much I wanted
what they were offering. Many people create a temporary hotmail
account just to use for giving out on accasions like this.
Never respond to
spam. That's what the sender wants. By clicking on the “To
discontinue receiving this or if you received this in error,
click here” link you verify that you have a valid email
address and the amount of spam you get will suddenly
increase as your email address gets sold as a part of
dozens more lists. The exception to this is a legitimate
emailer, perhaps a newlsetter you have been receiving that you
no longer want. Legitamate groups also have phone numbers
you can usually find on their websites.
High Speed Access is a wonder after living with
dial-up for a while. In the Pass Area we have both DSL and Cable
but neither on is available in all neigborhoods. I signed up for
cable as soon as it became available through Earhtlink.net. It
is actually administered through Time Warner but i get it
cheaper because I signed up with Earthlink. We are a multiple
computer home and used to maintain 3 phone lines and two dial-up
accounts. Now, the PC's are networked together and all access
the Internet through a single high-speed connection which saves
us about $40 per month. There are always local people who can
help you get connected no matter which way you choose to go.
Building your own website can be fun. Most ISP's
(Internet Service Providers) give their users space and access
to create personal web pages. Or if you have a little money, for
$15 per year you can buy your own domain (like
“ourfamilywebsite.com”) and for as low as $5 per
month you can have your new domain hosted on a server where you
don't ever have to mess with it unless you want to update your
web pages. It doesn't have to cost much more to create an
effective business site either, unless you are going to
experience a lot of traffic or you want real fancy graphics or
to sell something directly from your site. But here's a clue.
Some of the most successful sites on the web are relatively
simple. There are several excellent tutorials
for leaning html if you wish to jump in and do it yourself. And
there ae a lot of very good site builders who develop websites
for reasonable rates.
All search engines are not created equal.
Beaucoup, Yahoo,
and Alltheweb are excellent
searchers but they are very different. Each has its strengths
and weaknesses. Beaucoup is a meta-searcher, querying several
search engines at once, then culling through and refining the
responses before relaying them to you. Yahoo is actually a
directory, using manual site checking, very effective but slow
to update. Alltheweb is attempting to catalogue the whole world
wide web. It pays to use more than one search engine, especially
when your favorite doesn't seem to be giving you quality results
on a specific search.
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