Here is lesson nr two in my little mini computer school.
‘Can I have your Hotmail address?’ Recognize the question? I’m sure you do. It doesn’t mean, as you might think, a wish to have that person’s Hotmail address. No, it simply means any email address at all, except for their work email or (if they’re students) the university email address.
Actually, believe it or not, there are plenty of other email providers. Web based and those that can be set up to send your email straight to your own mail program.
That’s the next word that might need explaining. You can get your email sent straight ‘home’ to your computer. The web based accounts can be accessed in a web browser (see the last lesson). If you want, you can also get a email address with what is called Pop Access. It means that if you can overcome the difficulties in setting up your mail program, your email will come straight to your mail box (on your computer).
Here’s a little personal opinion: you might need more than one email address. What will you do if your email account isn’t working anymore? If you can’t send or receive emails? Or – in some cases – you can’t even access your old emails?
Besides, you might want to keep some friends and acquaintances separate. Or you might want to sign up for some newsletters (of course they’re usually more or less all commercial and who would expose themselves to that voluntarily?)
So you get yourself a few mail accounts – maybe two or three. That’s usually enough for most people.
Though if you’re the kind of person who takes pride in only checking your email once every three months, just forget about having an email address. You won’t be accessible so you should stop claiming to be. Your friend might actually think that means they might be able to reach you at your email address.