Eight Weeks to Web 2.0 - Week 2   

Get a New Email Account

Shortly, you're going to get online and connected in new ways.  You're going to subscribe to new services and you may not want to clutter up your main mailbox.  So, create a new email account.  Why not?  There are many services that are free and they have huge functionality for you.

When you're going online, please be careful about protecting your privacy.  Guard what information that you hand out carefully.  The internet is full of spammers and so controlling your identify is very important.  Having specific email accounts for specific purposes only makes good sense.

	Yahoo! Mail
	Google's GMAIL

 Additional email application suggestion(s)

Thunderbird

These are two of the biggies and come highly recommended.  Join one and log in to your mailbox.  You'll probably find a welcoming message to the service and information about just what your new email address is.  You may elect to have all of your Web 2.0 mail routed through this new email accounts.  There's nothing wrong with that.

These are two major services who offer gigantic storage space.  In fact, their claim is that you may never have to delete your email again.  I'm not sure about that.  Have they seen my inbox? 

As with all internet services, you need to be aware that nothing is ever completely private.  The information is stored on a computer somewhere and presumably backed up regularly.  You should never store messages or conduct activities that could be ordered revealed by a court or other complainant somewhere.

But, doesn't this give me another email address to check?  Well, maybe.  Yes, you'll have another email address.  You can always log back in and check your email.  However, if time is of the essence, you may wish to aggregate all of your mail in one location.  Check out the settings and look for the Mail Forwarding feature.  If you only have time to check one email account, then forward all of your email to that account!  What could be easier?

You can check your email right in your web browser without having to "go anywhere" to get it.

How fast is it?  One of my favourite quotes is from Arthur C. Clarke:  "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic".  Check the magic.  Send a message from one of your email accounts to the other.  Can you close the sending account and open the receiving account before the magic happens?  Just think of all of the email that's bouncing around the internet and your test message was just part of it.

Note your new email address.  We're going to use it later in this course to subscribe to additional services.

Extensions

An email address is but the first step to Yahoo! or Google's services.  Spend some time in your new browser wandering around see what your new account gives you access to.  Online calendars, news, sports, a default home page, Widgets and Gadgets and so much more.  Just remember that you only have one week to experiment and then we're moving on.

To get started, you might want to check my resource in this Wiki entitled "Do you Google"  It will take you for a quick tour of some of what Google has to offer.   Need more?  Check out Peter Been's "Google A-Z" document.

For more, watch this video about Google Docs.

Eight Weeks To Web 2

Check in

What functionality does your new email address give you?  What MORE on the web are you able to do now?

On to Week 3