Ah, the internet. One of the most talked about things ever. Indeed a lot has been said about the internet. About the opportunities it avails. About how it changes live everyday. About billionaires born on the internet. I could really go on and on. But what does all this mean to you and me; to the average Joe?

I can say that the most important thing about the internet is that it empowers us. The internet gives all of us the power to access information from all over the world. Since lots of people like to say “we are now in the information age,” this should be a good thing right?

That is all well and good. Still lots of people continue to have many questions. “What’s all the fuss about internet? What do people do on the internet?”

The internet is vast. It is an international network of networks of computers. There are millions of ‘places’ to go, ‘people’ to meet and ‘things’ to do on the internet Yet many people typically just check their email, visit some news sites and check some sports news. People tell me all the time that they can’t spend more than 30 minutes on the internet because they get bored. Scandalous!

Does our beautiful country gain anything from the internet? Certainly. Does our lovely country gain as much as it should from the internet? I think not. Why? As an answer to this I would like to tell you about something I believe in with every bone in my body: no computer literate person is justified to sit his behind down and claim that he is unemployed. Unless, of course, he is just lazy, stupid or simply must have that blue collar job that he so badly wants.

Anything is possible on the internet. I’ll show you how. Join me as we explore the wide, wild, web and expose the possibilities it brings knocking at your door.

This being the first step of the journey lets look at the usual things you can and should be doing on the net.

Let’s face it. Email is faster, cheaper and in many ways simply better than snail mail. There are many free email providers out there but I recommend Yahoo! Why? Started as Jerry’s guide to the World Wide Web – possibly with a rather interesting backronym: Yet another Hierarchical Officious Oracle, yahoo is essentially a web portal first. Therefore, a yahoo email account gives you access to much more than just an outstanding email service. You also get access to other yahoo services: yahooligans, yahoo personals, geocities…..

As noted earlier, the internet is very, very large. Finding specific information can be tricky if you are not using a search engine. In such endeavors, I highly recommend googling. Google isn’t just the most comprehensive and efficient search engine (you can search in Kiswahili!); it is also one very big technology company offering many cool services, and, with a corporate motto: ‘Don’t be evil’ it’s, quite frankly, my search engine of choice.

You may also like:

Using the Internet: How to Get Started and Find What You Want for Business, Education and Pleasure

Steal This Computer Book 4.0: What They Won’t Tell You about the Internet

Now, to bust some jargon:

Snail mail – plain old postal mail
Web portal – a site that acts like a kind of gateway or directory to the other sites
Backronym – a kind of acronym that was originally an ordinary word but later interpreted as an acronym e.g. kisses may mean Keep It Simple, Stupid.
Search engine – a service for searching internet.
Googling – using the Google search engine.