COMMUNICATION OVER THE NET
COMMUNICATION OVER THE NET
If you think email is handy,it's time to check out the other cheap ways to make contact using your net connection
Email
is the obvious way to stay in touch with people over the internet, but it's
not the only method. There are plenty of other ways you can use a PC with
a net connection to keep in touch with people - sometimes even face to face.
With calls to the internet working out at around a penny a minute in the
evening it can be a very effective way to stay on top of your social or business
life.
Although it's electronic, email is lust like the post - you sometimes have to wait ages for a reply to your missives. And if all you want to know is whether or not someone wants to meet for a drink later tonight, that can be frustrating.It's no surprise then, that one of the most popular types of program on the internet is instant messaging. It's a bit like the short text messages you can send on a mobile phone - you type a message in, click Send and within a few seconds, up it pops on the recipient's screen. The most popular program is called ICQ (I Seek You), and on page 16 you can see how to install and use it. You can have real-time conversations with one or more people by creating a chat room of your own to arrange business or social events. And it's free - small wonder, then, that there are now more instant messages sent over the net than emails.
Face to face
Although you can send messages to people via ICQ, sometimes that's not enough.
Pundits have talked about videophones for years and if you're on the internet,
they're here already. All you need is a web camera on your computer. With
software like CU-SeeMe, you can even have a teleconference, watching up to
12 people converse at the same time!
You can receive calls from other people even if you don't have a camera on
your own PC, so if your grandchild is growing up on the other side of the
world, don't despair! You can still see them, lust by
downloading some
free software like NetMeeting or CU-See Me.
WAYS TO KEEP IN TOUCH |
| CU-SeeMe
www.cuseemeworld.com Videophone
software for PC and Mac users - chat one-to-one or with a whole room Delta 3 www.deltathree.com Phone calls online, or via a calling card ICQ www.icq.com Send messages and exchange files in seconds with the most popular instant message system Jfax www.jfax.co.uk Get yourself a fax number in one of 85 countries round the world, with messages coming straight to your PC over the net Netmeeting www.microsoft.com/netmeeting Speak face to face with other users - a videophone for your PC Net2Phone www.net2phone.com Phone calls over the net  TPC fax www.tpc.int Send faxes free of charge via internet email |
Other methods
In business, fax is one of the most popular ways to swap information, but
what if you do have a fax machine? No problem. Get on the net and sign up
with an internet fax gateway like Jfax. You can choose a contact number in
dozens of cities around the world and faxes can be sent to you at local rate
for you to read as emails. In the opposite direction you can send emails
to fax machines anywhere for free - courtesy of the companies who put a small
advert on the cover sheet.
Something that opens even more doors is 'IP telephony' - a way of having
a conversation over the net using a microphone headset.
Two
of the biggest companies that provide this service are Net2Phone and Delta
3. All you have to do is
download their
software onto your computer and sign up for an account. Once you've done
that you can call other net users with the same software free of charge,
or call from your PC to any phone in the world.
When calling an ordinary phone the voice information travels as far as it can over the internet and then uses the ordinary phone network to make the final connection. You just pay a small fee to the internet phone company.
This technology can certainly save lots you of money - but if you have a slow connection to the net, don't expect high quality. You'll also need a good sound card some cheaper ones won't let both people speak at the same time, so it's a bit like using a two-way radio.
How much can you save? It depends where you're calling, though remember that other ways of calling, such as calling cards, can work out cheaper. Including the cost of accessing the net, calling France costs about 6p a minute over the net, compared to BT's 24p, and South Africa is 23p instead of 68p.