Lesson5.Email and the Internet

Lesson 5. Email and the Internet

Time	This lesson takes approximately 15 minutes to complete.
Goals	To configure your Mac to give you email access and Web access, so you can send and receive email and search the World Wide Web.

My guess is that the ability to send email and get on the Internet are two of the main reasons why you bought a Mac in the first place. (Okay, they're probably the reasons why you bought a computerbut you bought a Macintosh computer because it's more fun, easier to use, more reliable, and you wanted to avoid all those icky things that PC users wrestle with every day, like viruses and spyware. Right? Right.) Well, my friends, you did the right thing, and you'll know that for sure, because in just a few minutes, you'll be doing both of those things: sending and receiving email and surfing the Web (even though the term "surfing" as it relates to the Web is so overplayed that we don't really use it anymore. We'll just say we're "on the Web" and leave it at that). Now, the first step to getting on the Web (and sending email) happens before you even start up your Mac. Basically, you need to find a provider (usually your phone company, your local cable TV provider, or an Internet service like AOL or Earthlink) that will allow you access to the Internet, so you'll need to do that first, before you even start this lesson. If you can get high-speed Internet access, do ityou will love iteverything happens so quickly. It makes the Internet an entirely different experience, as opposed to the otherwise slow and sometimes frustrating world of using your regular phone line (called "dial up") to access the Internet. But the important thing is that you get access to the Internet (basically a user name and a password) before you go any further. Once you have those handy, you're ready to get "on the Web."