Question:  Aaron, hopefully you can help me figure out how to check my e-mail from anywhere.  I travel a lot and I’d like to be able to check my e-mail from any computer at any time without a lot of headache.  Can this be done?

Answer:  With a little setup and decision-making, you can easily check your e-mail from wherever you are.  But first you’ll have to know a few things about how e-mail works.

There are two methods for checking e-mail.  The first is by downloading the e-mail to a program (Outlook, Outlook Express, Thunderbird, etc) on your computer and viewing it there.  This is called client-based e-mail.  The other type is where you visit a web page (AOL, Yahoo, Google, etc) and log in to your online mail account.  That’s called web-based e-mail.

A good number of users out there get their e-mail from their ISP and it gets configured client-based.  Typically it gets set up client-based because it’s most convenient, it’s the first thing people think about, and the learning curve is very low because it looks the same no matter where you get your e-mail from.  The program stays the same.

Most ISP’s offer both client-based and web-based e-mail, but like I said above you’ll have to learn how the interface works on the web site.  It will be a little different, but the learning curve on the new system should be minimal.  The worst part is different web-based e-mail providers all look different.

I always suggest to customers that they don’t use their ISP’s e-mail account because if they get mad and change their ISP, the ISP will shut down the e-mail address.  Instead I suggest that you go for Yahoo or Google to get your e-mail.  Yahoo is nice and I’ve been using it for years, but Google has some nice bells and whistles too.  I say try them both (they’re both free) and see which one you like.

The bad news on switching your mail provider is that your e-mail address will change.  However, this will be the last time you have to change your address, and it may be a good thing if you happen to get a lot of SPAM.

Once you have web-based e-mail you’ll be able to log into the web site from any computer on the Internet and send and receive e-mail with ease.  All your contacts, sent mail, received mail, etc. will be there.  If your computer crashes it won’t be a problem because nothing is on your local computer.  Of course back up your computer for the pictures, documents, music, etc.  I always have to throw that in.  Good luck and enjoy the freedom of web-based e-mail!