Vol. 2, No. 18 -- Week of May 14, 2000

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Welcome to Learn the Net News.

Would you like to check your e-mail from anywhere in the world? Tired of lugging around a laptop computer? With free Web-based e-mail you can leave the laptop at home and log on to your mail from any computer with Net access. With summer vacations quickly approaching, set up this service now. This week, we show you how in our Web-based e-mail tutorial.

What would you do if all your data was destroyed? The old "Ounce of Prevention" cliché may be worn a bit thin, but it certainly holds true. In our ongoing campaign to keep your computer virus-free, Larry Magid has some timely advice for everyone who hasn't acted yet. Protect your data, or pay the price!

Our Web Tour this week is lead by an American expatriate who took up residence in Europe for a quarter of a century. She highlights colorful sites for armchair travelers and anyone planning a trip to the Continent.

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"Top Ten Things You Can Do on the Net This Week" include:

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I recently returned from a trip to South America and was surprised to see all the "dot-com" activity. Huge billboards for Internet companies lined the boulevards of Buenos Aires. The newspaper had stories about young entrepreneurs who shun family businesses for Internet start-ups. At one restaurant, a teenager couldn't wait to finish dinner so she could go home to "chat."

It seemed that every other block in La Paz had an Internet café. Tourists were checking their e-mail and well-dressed businessmen were doing research. In the Bolivian capital, many offices don't have Internet access yet, so cybercafés offer coffee and connectivity.

Seeing all this made me realize how quickly and how profoundly the Internet has imbedded itself into modern life. It's been barely five years since the World Wide Web really took off, yet it's hard to imagine life without it. For about US $1 for an hour at a cybercafé, I was able to go online, read my hometown newspaper, find out about local events, send messages to friends, family and colleagues, and get travel advisories from the State Department. How convenient and what a bargain.

With all the hype about e-commerce, it's easy to forget that the Internet isn't just about buying pet food and music online. It's really about global access to information and instant communication. That's certainly more in tune with what the "inventors" had in mind when they first conceived of the technology. And as I discovered, it's given people all around the world a low-cost way to keep in touch.

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Michael Lerner

Publisher

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