I have decided to provide you Viewers with a few tips you might find useful and make your InterNet Surfing much more enjoyable. Ok, many of you already know some of these tips, but remember back to when you were new to The Net and you didn't know anything other than how to turn on your computer. Well, there are still people like that coming on The Net each and every day. It is my desire to enable those people with a few little tidbits that will make things easier for them. I'm not about to give away all my secrets on design or anything of that nature, but I may, over time devulge a few. So you might want to check this section every now and then. For now, simply enjoy!

• Free InterNet Access...Yes I said FREE InterNet Access! Why pay money for something that someone else gives away for free? Chances are you already pay anywhere from $9.95 to $25.95 per month to go online. Stop wasting your money, especially if you live in the Tidewater area. Freewwweb.com provides absolutely free access to the InterNet including your email and it takes no more than 5 minutes to complete the application process even if you're a "newbie" to the net. AND the ONLY stipulation is that you make your HomePage their HomePage. That's all...no pop-up banners or extra banner advertising anywhere and you pay nothing. Just follow their simple instructions and in less time than it takes to drive from The Scope in downtown Norfolk to Wards Corner, you will be online for free! An added plus I have noticed is that you are NEVER thrown off line unless the power shuts down! So what are you waiting for...or would you rather keep throwing money away every month?

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• Fonts...Fonts are lettering styles and they can make your surfing very enjoyable if you have more than the few that are installed on your PC (or Mac if you swing that way). Obtaining more fonts is very easy. You simply go to a few sites that create fonts and download them to your hard drive. I utilize over 300 font styles in the sites I design and if you don't happen to have them installed on your PC, you will see them as your "default font", which is probably "Times New Roman". What a boring font that is, but in some instances, useful. To get some fonts for your self, here is a place I go to for new fonts:1001 Fonts. Go there and look at what they have then download them and place them in your Font File, usually in your "C Drive".

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• Browser RefreshHaving problems viewing new images on many sites? There is a simple reason. You need to tell your Browser what to do.Your browser may be set to refresh pages only on startup. Check under "Tools", then "Interent Options", then on the "General" tab click the "Settings" button under the "Temporary Interent Files" section. The option for "Check for new page:" option should be set for "every visit". It's that simple. Once you've done this simple procedure, you will be able to see all new changes in all sites around the world.

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• Blue Lettering...In the above information you see blue lettering. This usually means you can click on it to go directly to another site. Sometimes however, a site designer will alter the color, but under normal circumstances blue is a linking color.

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• Search Engines...What a valuable tool these are. They allow you to navigate around the web rapidly by locating whatever you are looking for. There are hundreds of search engines out there. Some of the most popular are Yahoo, AltaVista, NorthernLights, Excite, InfoSeek and on and on. I personally use iwon.com to start my searches, then go to Yahoo. It's simply a matter of choice. But don't neglect them. When looking for something...say pictures of the Grand Canyon, you just enter "Grand Canyon" and "pictures" or "images" all on the same line. You don't need to use capital letters and you don't always have to spell it correctly. The location of the sites will appear and then you click to visit them.

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• Chat Rooms...These are not exactly my cup of tea, but many people enjoy them. It is a good way to meet people but it is very impersonal even though many "chatters" get pretty personal in what they say to you. I wouldn't provide my email addres to anyone in a Chat Room were I you, or my real name. There are weirdos out there you know.

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• ICQ...ICQ is an interesting tool and probably better than chat rooms (unless you're a perv) because you can chat with people you know while surfing the web. It is only one of many means to chat or keep in touch. Use your SearchEngines to locate more. ICQ is a fairly heavy program and tends to disconnect some PC's when online, so be careful.

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• E-Mail...Ah email, sometimes the heart of it all as you don't have to put a stamp on a letter. It can be unnerving sometimes however when someone sends you an unuaually heavy image and it takes five minutes to load, but what a great tool. You should have your HTML turned on so you can get things in color. Your AddressBook inside the program is very useful too as you can seperate saved email addresses and make them into groups, like relatives or clubs you might be in. Email is great and hopefully it will never be taxed like some jerko's want.

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• WinZip...WinZip is a must to have on your PC so that you can open the many files you will want to download once you've gotten started. It is a "self-extracting" program that anyone can operate within two minutes. Go to WinZip to download it now.

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• Alt Button...Your "Alt" button is useful as one thing you do with this is move back and forth between pages you are viewing. Let's say you just looked at a page and want to go back. You don't have to scroll to the bottom of the page you're on to do that if you don't wantto; simply hold down the alt button and then click the "left arrow" and back you will go. You can go forward that way too.

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• Ctrl-Alt-Delete...In that precise order you may stop any program you are running or remove pages you have at the bottom of your browser. The more pages you have in your browser, the slower your PC will run. If you do this twice in a row it will shut down your PC, so be careful.

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• Floppy Discs...Great things these...if you don't want to crowd your space on your PC, copy your images onto a floppy disc and you can view them anytime you wish. You can store virtually anything on a floppy, but only up to 1.44MG which isn't a lot of space. There are other floppy systems that have more space like SuperDisc that holds up to 120MB and some with even more space on them. They don't come cheap however.

That's all for now, but I will place some more tips here next week. For now continue your journey through this site and be sure to check out the Link Page if your a music lover...lots of good links there. Must run now!