E-mail Without a Laptop

You're away on holiday, seeing the sites, communing with distance relatives, driving more miles than you thought possible, and it happens. E-mail withdrawal! What argument on the list serve this week? Is your friend in Outer Mongolia still with her cyberlover in Key Lime Florida? Any great spam offers? You gotta have it and you don't own a laptop or palm pilot or any of that fancy stuff.

It can be done, sometimes even for free. First you need one of the free E-mail accounts that let you access your mail from any computer. One of the best is @mail.com. You can have the mail from your home or work account sent to your account at mail.com. You can also have your mail.com messages sent to your home or work account. They are free services.

Be careful that you don't sign up for the paid POP3 service at mail.com. You use that only if you want to use your home computer Outlook program to pick up your mail.com messages instead of getting on the net and going to the mail.com site.

One handy thing about mail.com is that you can sign up as yourname@doctor.com or yourname@accountant.com if you want. My account for instance is Jane@columnist.com. This means there are a lot of free names available so you don't have to be say, Jenni435@mail.com like you do if you use a service such as Netscape or Hotmail.

Now you have your free E-mail account, you have to find a place to access it when you are on your trip. Addict that I am, I have used the National Museum of Science and Technology in Ottawa for my fix. Science and other museums will sometimes have a display showing you the wonders of this new technology called the Internet. Why ride the bicycle that lights a bulb or wonder at the physics displays with the kids when you can be on the Net?

While some hotels have business centers that you can access, the cost is out of this world. If you're that rich, why don't you have a laptop? At a conference, unless it is a computer conference where a business or two show you the wonders of the Internet, it really isn't polite to ask the organizers if you can use a staff line. Instead, find an Internet Cafe or a Free Internet Access Point (called by some, The Public Library).

Internet Cafes charge a fee per hour. This can range from five to ten dollars and up. You can also get food and drink at some of them while others specialize in gamer clubs. Cafes can be found by doing a search on Yahoo under Internet Cafes Location. For example, I found a list for Canada by typing in Internet Cafes Canada.

Public Libraries can be a free access. Some will ask for your library card but others simply have a sign up and waiver.Depending on the area, an out of state or province library card can range in price from five dollars up. And you can take out books to read at the beach too. Once again, you can find a list by using a search engine. Type in public libraries internet access. Here is a list I found for Australia.

Where there is a will to get on the Net, there is a way.