Last Updated: 22 September 2005

What's this about? Well, I've been cruising the 'net for a while. I'm a technophile (lots of gadgets), but I find my friends and family are always looking for some help where to look for answers [and perhaps some questions!] - here is a short list of resources that I have found to be the best.  ALL ARE FREE after all, I am a cheapskate!  

If you've found something better than one of the below,  

Places To Go 

A Place of Your Own

  • Free E-Mail [Yahoo] Nice thing about free mail services is that you can read it from the web .
  • Build it yourself Home Page with News, etc. [Yahoo] Sign up for free mail with Yahoo first (first bullet above).
  • If you want to create your own web pages, there are lots of choices. For simple starters, I recommend "Front Page Express" which comes with older versions of Internet Explorer. If you have Internet Explorer, click the "Help->Product Updates" and follow directions. Netscape also has a pretty simple page editor. Microsoft Word can do the trick, but does dirty rotten (Microsoft only) tricks that are best avoided.

Finding Things

  • Chat with a friend ONLINE  AOL Instant Messenger, Yahoo Messenger, MSN Messenger, ICQ.  You can then chat with them, send 'em messages, files, web addresses, etc. In fact, check below and you'll notice if I'm online or not.
  • Find a Person (or a business) via SwitchBoard (or try PeopleFinder a fee based service)
  • Find a Subject:
    • Google The best search engine bar none.
      beware, you may get "nasty" results from innocent searches.
    • MetaCrawler searches using the other search tools - usually with good results.
      beware, however, you may get "nasty" results from innocent searches.
  • Find a place (maps, driving directions) [Yahoo]. Google has some nice maps, too.
  • Find a Business (in any area) [yp.yahoo.com]

Booking Travel Reservations

  • CheapTickets.com Good interface for finding deals.
  • Yahoo Travel Network (aka Travelocity)
  • Expedia [Microsoft Network] reservations (must register)
  • And don't forget to check with some of the airlines themselves as the often have specials available only to web users who go directly to their sites. Alaska, United, American, Southwest, ...

Play GAMES Online

  • Check out games.yahoo.com for some good Java based games. You should first sign up for Yahoo Mail, though.

Family Resources

 

Things To See 

Cool Pictures

Humor

 

Tech Stuff 

E-Mail, SPAM, and Mail Forwarding

I now have a separate treatise on dealing with SPAM, protecting your privacy and managing your E-mail.CHECK HERE