The Internet offers lots of free, advertising-supported services. In the Net economy the first step towards making money is often to give away services as fast as possible. Probably the most useful product of this great giveaway is email. Granted, websites offering email gratis pile on the ads, but then nobody is forced to click on them. Web-based email means the user is never isolated. Once there is a computer with an Internet connection around the mail is accessible. Picture the scene: under palm trees behind a temple in Bangkok, tourists gather to relax and drink beer, but no-one is talking - it's a cyber-cafe and everyone is emailing the people at home. Travel isn't the only reason to go for Web-based email. People who have email in work may feel it is wiser not to use the company system for their private communications. It also makes life easier for anyone who changes Internet service provider frequently, or for students who cannot access college-based email out of term.
When choosing a free Web-based email, it is easy to take the line of least resistance and opt for the giant: Microsoft's hotmail.com. However, many others offer a better service than Bill Gates's baby, which is often out of service these days, as users wait (and wait) for the promised face-lift. Once a user has registered with an email service, email for them is delivered to a mailbox at the service. The user logs on to the service website using a password to access it. Most of these Web-email services are free to the user and supported by advertising revenue.
As with any email account, the user should keep online connection costs down by connecting just long enough to download messages to disk and then composing replies offline. Another connection can then be made to paste reply text into the messages being sent. First, decide you're looking for. Is this email account for fun or business? Do you want a lot of storage space to keep messages? A forwarding service to your home or work email? An automatic responder to send replies when you are on holiday? Make sure to get the basics such as a personal address book, a spell-checker, filters (to prevent unwanted email) and at least 2MB mailbox space. If you want an email address to reflect your personality, hobbies or sports affiliations, and feel that Tom3469@hotmail.com just doesn't say enough about you, try flairmail.com. With 700 domain names to choose from, there's bound to be something to express your special qualities - how about joe@lochnessmonster.com, Jane@citybabe.com or Dave@ plaincrazy.com?
Then there are aspirational names. Would being at @alberteinstein.com make you feel more intellectual, or Susan@santaclaus.nu more generous? Or opt for a US state, national monument, sport or starsign. For names such as @gladtobegay, @hungover or @loveamac, take a look at imaginemail.com.
Advertising doesn't have to be irritating - for ads to feel good about check out caremail.com. Apparently, 10 per cent of all advertising revenue generated by the site goes to animal wildlife charities and a donation is made every time the ads are viewed. Another handy feature is a selection of egreeting cards, including animations, music and original art. These can be scheduled months in advance so the sender is not caught out by forgetting that special birthday. Email addresses on offer include @animail, @wildmail and @whalemail. For anyone who worries about not bringing all the necessary documents on a business trip, or someone who works in various locations during the week, there is portableoffice.com. This plain but functional virtual global office provides 5MB of disk space to store files, 5MB for emails, portable bookmarks, a personal calendar and bulletin boards. For contacting colleagues abroad or checking on details back at the home office, it offers an online private chat room. Ever mislaid a floppy disk? Or worried about colleagues accessing your files on a shared hard-drive? Freedrive.com has the answer - a "virtual briefcase" with 25 MB storage space accessible over the Internet. This could be handy for anyone with the diskette-unfriendly iMac who needs to access files in different locations.
Although cyberstalkers are something of a myth, women who have received any spam (unwanted email) may feel more secure at women.com. It is also perfect for anyone who wants to put an end to e-junk mail clogging their mailbox. As with most services, women.com will block messages from specific addresses, or with a specific subject, but it also provides the option of receiving mail only from people in your address book or from people to whom you have previously sent a message. The start page can be personalised to receive news, a market update, personal diary and horoscope.
"I never know if my email messages have arrived," is a common complaint, but returnreceipt.com can prove messages have been received and opened. Recipients of mail sent through its service receive an email notice that a message is waiting at another location. When they open the message, the sender receive a "delivery receipt" post-marked with the precise time it was opened. Other services will check mail at an "ordinary" Internet service provider account from a distance. To check a "POP3" email account like this go to thatweb.com or mail2Web (which also has a security feature for the extra cautious). The darker side of the Internet is hinted at in sites such as anonymizer.com, which will send mail anonymously: "To enable you to speak and communicate more freely without worrying that your words if objectionable will cause consequence to your person".
Some email providers also offer online personal information managers (PIMs). At jump.com and calendar.yahoo.com, the PIMs in- clude a task list, contacts, personal and group calendar and reminder service which can all be synchronised automatically with desktop PIMs such as Microsoft Outlook.
smarriott@irish-times.ie