My "INBOX"
              by Mr. Alex

"Where you can find answers!"

Since Mr. Alex never seems to have enough time to answer every question on the air, you can email your questions to him directly at:
internethour@earthlink.net

You will find many of your questions answered right here by Mr. Alex himself! So check this page weekly to see if you can find the answers to your questions.

Dear Mr. Alex:

How and where would I go to get a domain name such as "steveswebsite.com" instead of having a URL like, members.tripod.com/~steve?

Steve:

All new domains need to be registered with a body known as InterNIC. InterNIC charges you $70 for the first two years of having your own domain, up front and $35 per year thereafter. But registering the domain is only half of the story; now you need a host for your web site. The host provides you with space on a server that has full-time access to the Internet so that people can find your site.

Although you can register your site with InterNIC yourself, most Internet service providers will take care of the paperwork for you. EarthLink has an especially good value on unique domain names called a Starter Site.

10 megabytes of space on the server with a unique domain name and other features are only $19.95 per month. See http://www.earthlink.net/company/
startersite.html for more details.

Dear Mr. Alex:

Hello. I Just signed up for my 6 mb web site and somewhat have an idea about HTML. But for some reason, I can't get it to work Is there a book you can recommend on HTML?

Donald:

There are tons of great books on getting started with HTML, and I certainly have not read them all. You can go to any decent bookstore and look the stack over.

If you already have some kind of web page design program, like FrontPage or PageMill, you should look for a book aimed at teaching that particular program.

Personally, I have always had good luck getting started on a new computer skill with IDG Publishing's "Dummies" books. I have used several of their books and I find they are a great way to learn the basics fast.

Dear Mr. Alex:

I have elementary school children in my home and I heard on your radio show today that there is filtering 'software' that I can incorporate into my newly established Earthlink account? Can you please teach me how?

Thanks!

Tony:

As I mentioned on the air, filtering software is designed to allow parents to monitor and restrict their children's access to the Internet.

I recently tested one filter program and my conclusion is this: Filtering software can be a useful tool in helping parents oversee their children's time on the Internet, but the inherent flaws and limitations in all filtering software means that

1. you, the parent, must remain involved in your child's Internet activity,

   and

2. after a certain age, your kids will figure out how to get around the software. By that time, you will need to depend more on your skills as a parent than any software package to govern your child's time online.

Each program installs a little differently, so follow the directions carefully when installing it on your machine. Also, all of these programs will ask you to set an "administrator" password of some kind so that you, the parent, can go in and change the program's settings or remove it. I will say this very clearly: DON'T LOSE THAT PASSWORD! If you forget your administrator password, it will be a huge pain to get the program off your machine later.

Thank you all for your questions!

Mr. Alex

Got a question about the Internet?

Email it to Mr. Alex at internethour@earthlink.net!