by David Hakala
Occasionally while Web browsing or checking email, you may get an error message to the effect that your browser or email program “cannot find the server at…” some address. Therefore you can’t get the email or Web page that you want. There are several possible causes and cures for this problem.
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by Tina Gasperson
Computing was much simpler before the days of the World Wide Web, but it was probably a lot less fun too. These days, most of our computer time is spent online, connected to other computers, looking for information housed on some other computer that might be halfway around the world.
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by Gabe Goldberg
Anyone who uses email regularly, whether for business or personal communication, gets serious jitters when cut off from it. Fortunately, there are many ways to stay in touch away from home; the biggest problem can be explaining to people you’re visiting or traveling with why you want to.
One reason to stay caught up is that some ISPs impose limits on the amount of email they’ll store for you; if you exceed your quota, subsequent email will be rejected and bounced back to senders. That’s especially bad when it happens to mailing list traffic, since you may be unsubscribed. So, while it’s tedious, it’s sometimes worthwhile to suspend list mailings while you’ll be away.
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by Tina Gasperson
It’s important to keep your important computer files backed up, because almost inevitably your hard drive will fail and all the data on it will be gone forever. In fact, if you can back up your documents, photos, and videos in more than one location, you’ll be doubly safe. Archive CDs and DVDs only last for just so long and can be lost or broken, so having a “backup backup” online might be the solution you need. Fortunately there are many online backup services you can take advantage of. I recommend that you look for a service that has been around for a while and has a good reputation. One such service is Mozy.com.
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by Tina Gasperson
Even a fairly casual Internet user has a list of several different passwords for things such as email, banking, shopping, and discussion forums. Do you have trouble keeping track of your passwords? Or are you one of those who have decided to use the same password for all your accounts? It’s easy to see why someone would want to do that, but it’s a very insecure way to manage your Internet life. All a cracker has to do is figure out one password and they have access to all your memberships and accounts. It’s much better to make and maintain separate, hard-to-guess passwords for each and every online login you have.
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by David Hakala
So, you want your own Web site. Most people get started with a free hosting service such as Yahoo!’s Geocities, or a blog on a blog hosting site such as WordPress.com. But the domain names of such sites can be cumbersome, i. e., mysite.geocities.com or myblog.wordpress.com. If you want to be seen as a “land owner” rather than a tenant on someone else’s property, you should register and use your own domain name.
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by David Hakala
Email is as vital as a tongue to some people. They can’t imagine getting through a day without communicating via email. For others, checking email is just an occasional thing. But in either case, when people click that “send/receive” button they expect something to happen. When, instead, you get an error message that says in part, “cannot connect to server,” here are some potential solutions to try.
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by Gabe Goldberg
Back in the Internet’s pre-history, AOL was the leading online service, providing connectivity, software applications, content, news, games, and support. But as Internet availability and diverse content grew, the need for an all-inclusive “walled garden” — as AOL was charmingly called — diminished.
Even now, though, AOL provides many people’s entire online experience.
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by Tina Gasperson
In perhaps its most technologically advanced move ever, the IRS made it possible to file taxes online through partnership with several private sector companies. Whether you’re an individual, business, corporation, or nonprofit, there is an option for you at the IRS’s eFile Web site.
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by Tina Gasperson
PDF stands for “portable document format,” and that’s just how we need our documents to be: portable. It’s inconvenient to spend time creating a file only to find out that the recipient cannot open or view it. The beauty of PDF is that anyone can open, view, and print these files, as long as they have one of several free PDF reader applications, such as Adobe’s Reader. But what can you do if you want to be able to distribute files in the PDF format? It’s not quite as obvious how to make PDF files – but it’s not difficult, and you can do it for free.
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