There are many ways to get e-mail, Mom

June 28, 2001

I don't own a computer, but my family is spread out, and they want me to communicate with them on the Internet. At age 74, I find it overwhelming.

Matriarch

DEAR MATRIARCH: The only thing overwhelming about computers is the price. At least you're willing to give it a shot. You don't actually need a computer to do e-mail. There are several e-mail appliances available for about a hundred bucks that can do the job. They all look like small keyboards with dinky, calculator-like screens, and they plug into a phone line to connect with an e-mail service, which generally runs about 10 bucks a month.

Get your lazy kids to do some research for you. Have them start with the Cidco MailStation or Mivo 150 (www.mymailstation.com), the Vtech e-Mail PostBox Companion (www.vtechconnectusa.com) or the Landel MailBug (www.mailbug.com).

If you don't want to spend anything, see if your library has computers available for public use so you can subscribe to browser-based e-mail providers like Yahoo! or Hotmail. Your family can even send snapshots to those kinds of accounts. Of course, if they really loved you, they'd call more often.

Whenever I type the first letter of a site, the entire address pops into the browser address window. How do I get rid of this? It is very annoying.

Wrong address

DEAR WRONG: Um, it's supposed to do that. Somehow, you activated Internet Explorer's AutoComplete function, which is trying to save you from typing in the same stuff time and time again. If you don't want the help, go to Tools/Internet Options/Content and click the AutoComplete button to reconfigure IE.

Dr. Bombay: drbombay@star-telegram.com; Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Box 1870, Fort Worth, TX 76101; fax, (817) 390-7257.

DR. BOMBAY COMPUTERS

Source: http://www.charlotte.com

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