MOUSE CLIX
By Hobie Lunin
"Waiter, I'll have the free lunch, please!"
Wait a minute! I thought there is no such thing as a "free lunch!" Frankly readers, there never was. After prohibition and during the depression, bars often put out a sign in front, "free lunch." Yes, there were some dried out sandwiches and a pickle in there, but you better buy a beer or two to wash it down or heaven help you.
The question then is "what is the cost of a so called freebie?"
Take the subject of Internet Service Providers (ISPs). These are companies that are the middlemen between your computer and all the web sites out there on the Internet.
Let's begin with the first such company, CompuServe. In the mid-1980's their fee ranged from $6.00/hour (off-hours) to $12.50/hour (prime time). Today's top charge of $21.95 per month may seem like a free lunch in comparison.
There are many services that charge less than that. Quite a few are free! Most of these have an ad banner that runs the width of the screen and is about 1" in height. You can move the ad banner around on your screen but if you turn it off, your service usually turns off as well. Some have smaller ones and some only pop an ad up occasionally. You can close it as soon as you see it.
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Is this really free? I have to say, "yes, comparatively." When one of my students saw the banner on a screen, she said, "well that's a lot smaller ad than I get on my AOL!"
Most people find that there is a favorite spot to "park" the banner so that it is not obtrusive. And most of these banners will be in the same place you put them each time you log on.
It is also true that there are some of these services that do not have ad banners at all! Talk about a free lunch! To find a list of many free services including those that do not have ad banners, point your browser to: http://www.dailyedeals.com/free_internet/access.htm#free_isp_comparison
What are the names of some of these ISPs? BlueLight, FreeAccess, Freei.net, NetZero and
Juno, to name just a few. If you are able to reach the Internet page shown above you will see even more. The page offers a comparison of the services that each of the providers offers.
If you already are using an Internet service, you can try out a free service by down loading it on-line and then following instructions. If you don't want it to be your first choice when making a dial-up connection, be sure not to declare it the default service.
If you have no Internet service now, then you will need to get a disk in order to load it into your computer. An easy solution to that is to get BlueLight, available free at the K-Mart on Lincoln Highway.
In Windows 98, when you put a CD-ROM in the drive it should start up by itself. If it doesn't, follow the instructions on the package.
Keep on following the instructions on the screen while the CD-ROM asks you a few questions about who you are and asks for you to supply a username and a password.
Please try to understand the difference between a username and a password, as many people seem to get them confused. More about this in another article
At some point the CD will direct your modem to call an 800 number to access the company's list of local phone numbers. You will be asked to select your state and a nearby city. Please select one where there will not be long distance charges involved. (If you plan to be on the Internet frequently, make sure your local phone service includes "unlimited local calls.")
After you have selected the number, write it down while it is still on the screen so that when you start using the service you can see it is using the correct number to dial. Some people have run into a problem with this not realizing that they, or someone using the computer, have inadvertently put in another number.
After that session is over, there will be an icon on your desk top that you can double click to get the service when you want it. There may or may not be a screen asking you for your user name and password each time depending upon whether the service allows it to be entered automatically or not.
Once you are on-line and you reach your starting page, look around and get familiar with it. It can be your portal to many other web sites.
One additional note: Some of these services do not provide an e-mail account. This can be solved easily by using a "web-based" e-mail box such as Yahoo, Hotmail, NBCi, and others provide. Until I do an article on Web-based e-mail, you can contact me at the address below to learn how to get a free e-mail account.
Now you can see for yourself just how much a free lunch costs. I think you will find that the ad banner is not a particular nuisance or that it is an inexpensive "price" to pay to save over $400 a year.
Of course, you may conclude that it is NOT a free lunch. And you can either uninstall it or just not use it, dragging the icon to the Recycle Bin.
Then tell the waiter you changed your mind!
Hobie Lunin is a Computer Instructor and Consultant, and can be reached at hlunin@email.com. To see previous articles, point your browser to http://mouseclix.tripod.com