*** ANSWERMAN INTERNET EXTRA *** Monday, August 19, 1996 This is a weekly newsletter for the community of Internet users on America Online. It is brought to you by AnswerMan, AOL's area for those learning to use the Internet. Come see what's new at keyword ANSWERMAN. Got comments about this newsletter? We want to hear them! Send 'em to Kevin Savetz, 'savetz@aol.com'. ||| IN THIS ISSUE || | AnswerMan's Update -- Electronic mail attachments Purple's Picks -- Sarah Goes Shoppin' for Wheels Upcoming AnswerMan Chats -- Learn why e-mail is your friend! The End -- How to contact us or unsubscribe ||| ANSWERMAN'S UPDATE || This week's Focus: Electronic Mail | Greetings once again, Internauts and Internettes. The new net.help forum and improved AnswerMan area are just days away! I think you'll be very impressed with the ease that you'll be able to find help and information about the Internet. You'll be the first to know when it's all ready, stay tuned. With the new AnswerMan, we are debuting a feature called Weekly Focus. Every week, the AnswerMan area will focus on one particular facet of using the Internet -- starting with the newsletter on Monday (which will include an article relevant to the topic,) and ending with the live chat on Sunday (which will close out the week with something related to that week's focus.) In addition (this is my favorite part,) there will be a button at keyword ANSWERMAN that will lead you to a variety of other resources on that topic. AOL member dmandry asked, 'The problem that I have experienced is with sending e-mails with attached files. Occasionally the recipients have indicated that the attached file appears to be arriving embedded rather than attached to the message.' In other words, the recipient gets the attachment, but it looks like many lines of garbage following the text of the message. Some background: AOL uses a standard called MIME to attach messages: it's simply a system that says 'Hey, there's a file attached to this message. Here it comes!' If you are sending mail to another AOL user, his AOL software will recognize the attachment. But if the recipient is somewhere out on the Internet, it is up to his e-mail software to notice that there's a file attached to the message. If his e-mail program can decode MIME messages, it should automatically save the attachment on his hard disk, without any problms. If his e-mail program can't decode MIME messages, then he'll see a lot of junk where the attachment should be. You should tell your friend to ask his Internet provider how he can decode MIME attachments (it's a little different on every system.) -.-.- Last week's newsletter talked a bit about how to send a free fax from the Internet. Thanks to the several readers who let me know that AOL has discontinued its fax/paper Mail services. (It may be back eventually, official word is 'We are looking into alternatives as a replacement.") I guess that made the article about Internet faxing that much more timely. I sure wish I had planned it that way. :) There's another choice, if you need to send and receive faxes regularly from your computer: you can get yourself a fax/modem. They're affordable, and some even include voice mail and speaker-phone capabilities. You can investigate online at keyword MODEM SHOP. -.-.- Finally, HelenW8262 asks, 'Just finished reading your latest Internet Extra and was wondering if there is any place I can advertise a health product "FREE", it seems I can.' That is officially out of my department, but I can tell you where to go for help: just go to keyword IN BUSINESS. There, Internet business guru Jill Ellsworth can show you the ins and outs of advertising and doing business on the Internet. If you have questions about using the Internet, go to keyword ANSWERMAN and use the ASK ANSWERMAN message board. If you have a comment about the newsletter, please e-mail it to savetz@aol.com ||| PURPLE'S PICKS - Shopping for a Car || by Sarah Nehrer (CJ Purple) | Hi everyone! This week, in keeping with the theme of yesterday's AnswerMan chat regarding classifieds on the Internet, and in keeping with the fact that my car was in the garage twice this week :-(, I thought we'd talk about Web sites that help you buy a car. The first site I visited is Autosite - The Ultimate Automotive Buyer's Guide (http://www.autosite.com). The four main areas here are New Cars, Used Cars, Garage and Library. In the New Cars area, you can use the AutoFinder to find a car that matches your specified criteria; look up a model by manufacturer, alphabetically or by vehicle class; or even do a side-by-side comparison of two different models. You can also calculate loan vs. lease costs, figure out your monthly payments and the total cost of the car, and read up on buying and leasing tips. At Used Cars, you can find links to Web classified ad sites, best buys and best values. In the Garage, find out information about how to care for the various parts of your car, some trouble shooting tips, a vehicle checklist, an illustrated repair guide, and an auto repair encyclopedia. The Library has links to FTC brochures; consumer contacts and hotlines, including manufacturer's 800 numbers and technical repair hotlines; safety recalls and links to manufacturer Web sites. This site is free to browse through, but if you want to receive full reports on the models you want, as well as wholesale and retail book values of used cars, you have to register at $9.95 for 30 days unlimited access. The creators of this site suggest using Netscape to view the tables correctly. (They even include complete instructions on how to do this via AOL for you Windows users. :->) The second site which I'll discuss this week is Edmund's Automotive Buyers Guide (http://www.edmunds.com). This site is jam-packed with information about new and used cars. Hot Information for Car Buyers includes ordering information for Edmund's Buying/Leasing Guide on CD-ROM ($9.95); information on 96 models as well as 97 models, when that information becomes available; current incentives and rebates; and auto repair manuals. New Car Information includes MSRP and dealer invoice prices; reviews of different models; car insurance information; and recall information on models since 1989. Used Car Information includes a guide to buying and selling a used car and information on what factors affect used car prices. The Safety Information area includes discussion of daytime running lights and why your insurance company maybe dropping its reduction for ABS brakes. (Yeah, I was wondering about that... :-/). Three other areas on this site are New Truck Information, Buyer's Advice and Town Hall, which is a discussion forum for car-related topics. Once you've done all your homework, and know what car you want to buy, here are some sites that can help you find the best deal near you: Auto-By-Tel (http://www.autobytel.com) allows you one free purchase or lease request form. You fill out all the info on the car you want, and they send your request to a dealer who will contact you within 48 hours and make a firm commitment to a car and price over the phone. This site also offers invoice information and used car pricing, as well as auto information providers. DealerNet - The Source for New Car Information (www.dealernet.com) and AutoWeb Interactive (http://www.autoweb.com) offer links to dealers in limited states. The latter also allows you to place free ads in the auto wanted section or the car for sale section. Finally, for those of you who live in northeast Ohio, there's AutoSuperstore (http://www.autosuperstore.com) which has information on dealerships selling used cars throughout this area. I'm off for a short vacation next week so I'll see everyone back here in two weeks. In the meantime, you can write me at cjpurple@aol.com if you have any questions or comments. ||| UPCOMING ANSWERMAN CHATS || Chat live with AnswerMan in these hour-long sessions | Pick an interesting topic & bring your questions | How do you participate? Just log in a few minutes before the session is scheduled to begin, then go to Keyword: AM CHAT. (To go to a keyword, just pick KEYWORD from your GO TO menu.) Then press the button to enter the auditorium. 20 things you didn't know you could do with e-mail! - Sunday, August 25, 6PM ET don't think e-mail can be very useful to you. This session, AnswerMan will show you ten things you might not know that you can do with e-mail -- like send a free fax, play games, and get free technical support for your computer software. If you think e-mail is ho-hum, this session might change your mind. Learn to Create a Web Page - Sunday, September 1, 6PM ET Itching to create your own home page World Wide Web but don't have the faintest idea how? During this session, AnswerMan will take you on a crash course on the basics of HyperText Markup Language, creating a web page, uploading it to America Online, and getting the world to beat a path to your homepage. This is the fast track to your own spot in cyberspace. The Internet is Your Library - Sunday, September 8, 6PM ET If you know where to look, a trip the Internet can be more useful than a trip to the library. You can research what cars are safest, download a copy of Alice in Wonderland, find out how to fix a leaky toilet and more. But for certain kinds of information, you're better off heading to the library. This hour, AnswerMan will show you how to make the Internet your personal research center. How to Find People in the Net - Sunday, September 15, 6PM ET There are a dozen different Web sites that can help you find the e-mail address or phone number of a long lost friend. But how can you make the most of them, and give yourself the best chance finding someone on the Internet? This hour, AnswerMan will share search strategies to effectively let your fingers do the walking on the Internet. ||| THE END || | That's all for this week. Please send any comments or suggestions about the AnswerMan Internet Extra to "Savetz" (from AOL,) or "savetz@aol.com" (from the Internet.) To unsubscribe from this mailing list, send an e-mail message -- To: LISTSERV@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Subject: UNSUBSCRIBE Body: UNSUBSCRIBE ANSWERMAN This newsletter copyright 1996 by America Online and Kevin Savetz. All rights reserved. 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