Of course, there are many things that you should do to have a decent internet experience. You want to have a decent computer with as much memory, processor and disk as you can afford. You need to somehow connect to the internet. And you have to have an internet account and perhaps an email account. If you want to create web pages, you must find someone to host your site. And the list goes on and on.
The first thing you will need is a computer, of course. My recommendation is to get the best computer that you can afford. Don't settle for a cheap system if you can avoid it - you will regret it later. I like the Intel platform with the Windows operating system family - other people like the Imac. The brand is really up to you.
Give your computer lots of memory, at least 256 megabytes. All of the new browsers and web creation tools use memory like crazy, so if you don't have as much as you can get your system could perform very slow.
Most newer systems (even the cheap ones) come with enough disk space. I know it's hard to believe, but you'll want at least 5 gigabytes.
Once you have a computer you will need to get connected to the internet. I prefer a fast line like DSL or cable modem. It is critical to check out your ISP (internet service provider) before you purchase a long term contract. If you cannot try it for a month or so, then do some research and verify your ISP has what you need. The reason for this is simple. An ISP not only gives you access to the internet, but it gives you a free homepage, access to email and newsgroups and should have a certain quality of performance.
Now you need to choose a browser. Yes, I know your computer probably came with Internet Explorer, and that's a fine browser, but you can and should download Netscape and check it out also. This is especially true if you are going to create a web site or home page - you will need to have both browsers at a minimum to make sure your web site works well in each of them. Also, believe it or not, there are some web sites that simply do not work properly in one or the other browser. In that case it's nice to have them both installed.
Okay, now choose your email client. There are many different programs that you can use. If you've purchased Office 2000 you should go ahead and consider Outlook 2000, which is excellent. Other options include Eudora and Outlook Express, as well as the email client which ships with Netscape.
You should also sign up for one or more free web-based email accounts. This is important when you start posting to newsgroups and become more active on the internet. The advantage of web-based clients is you can cancel them when the spam gets too thick without the hassle of changing your personal email account address. My favorite web-based client is Mail.Com, but you can also choose Hotmail, Yahoo mail and a plethora of others.
Newsgroups are a very powerful way to communicate with people. If you are going to use them, you will need to choose a newsgroup reader. Some people just use the free web-based readers while others actually use a client. Personally, I use a binary reader called Newsgrabber for pictures and such, Outlook Express for just plain reading and Remarq for posting.
When you finally decide you want to create a homepage or a web site, you must choose an editor. I like Frontpage 2000 and Dreamweaver for many reasons, but you have many, many choices here. The best thing to do is to take some classes on HTML (over the internet or at your local college), get some experience with different editors, download some trials, try them out, then use what's best for what you are working on. Don't make the mistake of just deciding what's good based upon anything but how well it works for you.
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