A notebook PC just for email

When I visit my friends Gwen and Larry for dinner, I sometimes earn my keep by helping Larry clear away the latest obstruction blocking his use of his notebook computer. Larry's main reason for replacing his cranky old 286-based PC was to be able to communicate electronically with his email-savvy children and grandchildren. "I want to do email" is a common reason I hear when I ask people what they want to do with their computers. But it's often complicated to arrange things so you can "just do email". Exchanging Internet email requires the installation of sophisticated computer hardware and software, and the coordination with a service connecting those components to the Internet.

Larry's one-bedroom apartment had just a small desktop surface available for a computer, so a space-saving notebook was the obvious choice. Larry wanted to sample manufacturers alternatives firsthand. He was able to do that at a neighbourhood IBM computer store (where he was one of the last customers to get advice on Big Blue's PCs before that company decided that customer service was not the way for them to make Big Profits, and they closed their retail stores). There he was able to check out several IBM notebook PCs, and at a computer show he was able to see some alternatives from other vendors like Dell, HP and Acer. He concluded that the IBM notebooks had the only displays that he could easily read. (Like many of us "past a certain age", Larry had trouble reading small, under-illuminated text.)

The timing of Larry's purchase (mid-2001) meant that his new computer came loaded with the (mercifully short-lived) Windows Millennium Edition (ME) operating system, which turned out to be not the most usable hammer in the Microsoft tool box. He was only going to use his computer for email, and hopefully the ME operating system's many well-known problems shouldn't cause him too much trouble.

Following my advice, Larry ordered Sympatico "high speed" access to the Internet. I've heard good and bad reviews about the two leading high speed service providers in my part of the world, Bell Sympatico and Rogers Cable. For an inner city location like Larry's, I've found that Sympatico is usually the better choice. A week after his order, Larry's Sympatico installation kit arrived. But they had shipped a (for him) unusable Ethernet-connectable modem, because the order-taker hadn't asked him whether his notebook included an Ethernet card (which was not then, and is still not today, a standard component of all notebook PCs). I told him to call them and ask for a USB-connectable modem.

A few days after it arrived, I earned myself another dinner. I translated the step-by-step technical gibberish on Sympatico installation card, and showed Larry how to run the Sympatico Access Manager every time he booted. When Sympatico said his Internet connection will be "always on", they were apparently using an non-standard definition of the word "always"; these days (2006) their modems find the DSL link without the Access Manager. Once we got connected to the Net I showed Larry how to use Internet Explorer to access websites from Google, and his church community. After mining various IP addresses from the Sympatico installation card, I helped him set up his preferred email client, Outlook Express. Before I left, Larry was able to download an email message from his son, which included a photo of his newest, smiling great-grandson.

When everything works properly, computers can sure be amazing! (Click here to read about another new computer user who had a more difficult time getting started.)