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This is the first of two articles about some truly
useful and free software and services.
Kilen Mathews Special to the Middle East Times Where to start? Well, first I'll confess: nothing is truly free. Sometimes you have to pay... attention. Lots of the good free stuff on the Internet comes with advertising. But you already live with that. So many web sites include banner ads and "browser cookie" based offers (that needs another article itself) that it is becoming second nature to ignore those ads and let your subconscious pick out the ones you want to check out further. So what is out there? First of all the "big ticket" would be free Internet. Well if you are a student or faculty you probably get that from your school. Beyond that you pretty much have to live in the States. Let's make that California. There are several regional West Coast companies providing free Internet service with just a sign up fee of about E£200. As usual the cost is borne by advertisers on the system. OK, so we have to pay for our own Internet account in Egypt. Let's see what out there for the rest of us.
From here on the requirements are that you have an existing
e-mail address. So get an account with a local ISP
(Internet Service Provider) first and then hit the
Free-dom trail. Free (extra) e-mail address What happens when you finish school, change jobs or move or just get fed up with your local (ISP)? Well, you are faced with changing your e-mail address. We don't need that stress on top of everything else. As long as you have a valid e-mail address somewhere, you can set up a 'for life' e-mail address with one of many free services. My address is kilenm@bigfoot.com. But there is no mailbox at bigfoot.com. It just automatically forwards my mail to my secret hiding place. Let me make this a little clearer. Just point your browser at http://www.bigfoot.com. Click on "Bigfoot for Life" and type in the name you want for you e-mail address. Choose carefully - it is for the rest of your life. As long as no one else has asked for the same name before you have a new permanent email address. Bigfoot will then send you a confirmation email with your Bigfoot password. Go back to the Bigfoot web site, log in using your email address and password. You specify where they should forward your e-mail. You can change the e-mail address to forward to at any time as long as it is a real address. Bigfoot will immediately start to forward your e-mails. For free. Forever. If you change your email address, just go back to Bigfoot and give them the new email address to forward your email to. Simple. It works. Why do they do it? Bigfoot also sells premium services they hope you'll buy, but you have no obligation and they do not hassle you.
Bigfoot is also a 'white pages' or directory service.
This is like a telephone book for everyone with an
e-mail address. Again, that service is free (and useful).
Do it today. How to sign up at (just about) any e-mail forwarder There are many other services like Bigfoot. I'll just list their sites, they all pretty much work the same way: *Go to the web site and register with your current e-mail address to get a password. *Retrieve the password from your e-mail within an hour or so. *Go back to the web site and log in and set up the mail forwarding.
*Read about their other services and take them or leave
them.
By the way, you really should take time to check out
their other services. Most of those are free too. Free (extra) e-mail mailbox on the web Some companies (see box) for the price of reading advertisements offer you a sophisticated e-mail box via your web browser. This is real free disk storage out there in cyberspace. Here again, the price is advertising, and most services also add a one line self promotion message at the end of any e-mail messages you send. So at the bottom of your e-mail will be a line something like... Free web based e-mail from Http://www.we-give-it-away.com. I usually take what's free, answer only the required questions and they don't bother me. But while I'm there I register with the directory services no telling when an old high school sweetheart might go "on-line" or a distant relative may leave you a million bucks and they have to find you. I'm not hiding. These services are updated all the time, usually toward newer and better technologies (like Java). That means that in most cases you must have Internet Explorer/Netscape at least version 3.0 and in many cases you have to move to Windows 95 (to support Javascript properly). To reach any of the services below just put "www." in front and ".com" after them to construct the web URL (Uniform Resource Locator = a web address).
Almost every one of the main free e-mail providers is
part of or associated with a "white pages"
Internet directory service. They offer to let you register
with their affiliated directory service and then offer
for-pay services. Help! I've got too many passwords Well, if you get some or all of these accounts, you are going to have to keep track of an awful lot of passwords. I suggest strongly that you do not use the same password for all of your accounts (at least on these). Why? Well just in case your password leaks out of one of these accounts you don't want someone to be able to hunt around and invade every other account you have. And by the way, never tell anyone else your password for any account even if they claim to work for the company. (Except the system administrator at your ISP). So how do you make up and remember all these passwords? One way is make variations on a theme. A better way is to type them into a little file on your PC and print them out and tape them to the wall beside your PC at home. And put a copy in your lockable file cabinet at work. Almost all of these free e-mail services provide you with a "second chance" to get your password. They allow you to answer a personal question (city of birth, mother's maiden name, etc.) and will reveal your password to you. So at least write down your account names. You may not be able to get your favorite variation of your userid on every service.
Next week: free web pages and an update on the Internet
in Egypt. Internet questions? Need help finding someone or something on the net?
I'll help: e-mail: kilenm@bigfoot.com Other e-mail forwarders Here are some companies that provide e-mail forwarding (and more) like Bigfoot: www.iname.com www.netforward.com www.carribean.com www.broadcast.net www.atlink.com www.friendlymail.com www.fwnb.com www.calsign.com www.populus.com www.hempseed.com
www.beer.com Free e-mail boxes HotmailRocketmailNetaddressExciteMailcity Free disk space (megabytes)3334N Browser "cookies" must be allowedNYNNN
Can retrieve e-mail from other accountsYYYYN Associated "white pages" directory services also free! Free email providerDirectory affiliationsNotes www.hotmail.comNoneThis system works great, is often upgraded with neat new features, and although the ads are sometimes pretty dominant Hotmail maintains a very high user satisfaction rating. It works with older browsers (Netscape 2), has a frameless option and works well from Windows 3.1. www.iname.comNoneFor $1/month they will turn off the advertising. www.netaddesss.comwww.whowhere.comYour e-mail address will be: your-id@usa.net. You can also just have your e-mail forwarded, like Bigfoot. For $25, they will turn off the advertising forever. www.MailExcite.comwww.whowhere.comE-mail forwarding promised as an upcoming feature. Has noframes version that works with Windows 3.1. www.Mailcity.comwww.whowhere.comMailcity is a beta (test) release and although cookies are not required by this site they have so many they are very annoying if you have your "warn before accepting cookie" setting turned on. Accept them once and they go away.
www.rocketmail.comwww.four11.com
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