In the old days, everyone knew of the mail (some still use it even today!) It was quite a simple process whereby you wrote a letter, put it in an envelope and mailed it - hence the term MAIL! But things changed, and suddenly everyone jumped onto the bandwagon of mail, and slowly but surely came just snail mail... then there was air-mail, there was... the ordinary male and fe-male (I think they preceded mail though!), as well as e-mail (without the 'f'), then began Hotmail (others tried 'hotmale', but it's not the same!) and Yahoo! Mail, and then gee... there came Gmail!

Of course when it comes to obtaining our email we can do so today through a variety of programs - many of which are totally free. Others have fancy smiley icons and the like and one has to pay for these unique programs. Everybody can choose what they prefer. To each his own.

For the purposes of this article we're going to be working with Gmail.

Having personally worked with Gmail, I have found it quite suitable for the work I do. And because my style of teaching about Internet utilities relates to ways of using it to generate income, I'm fond of recommending those tools I've seen to work easily and comfortably - making my business use of the Internet a pleasure, and helping me to generate an income. Gmail has done it for me!

As a start, It gives over 7 Gigabytes of storage space. I can't really put that into the amount of images, videos and documents you can put into it, but if you're still getting into using all these fancy things, rest assured, 7 Gigabytes will keep you busy for a very long time! The great thing is that your email is stored on a secure computer somewhere in cyberspace. This means that you can safely turn your computer off at any time, and return to your email any time you want. If you're on holiday somewhere without your computer (something quite unusual by today's standards) - you can check in to an Internet café somewhere and retrieve your email from there.

All your clients will think you're still at work, sweating it out as you earn your living, but you know better, and are actually just off the beach-front in your swimming costume enjoying the warm sun in Hawaii! Gmail will take all your emails and keep them stored for as long as you need them to be and what's really great, is that with just a few steps, you can find practically any email you want to... in seconds - even if you received it years ago!

You're going to need a good email program to work with when it comes to sending and receiving email, and you don't want to have to find yourself in the unfortunate situation of your computer giving you a message of something like "Compacting Your Email Folders" to find after it's finished that it deleted all your messages! Gmail won't do this. It's easy to use. The interface is attractive and now it's even got a variety of fun themes so that you can customize to fit your needs exactly! Plenty of storage space makes working with it a pleasure, and never having to worry about compacting folders and the like really helps!

Whenever you register for any of the programs we have already discussed about in previous articles, or will discuss about in future articles, you're going to have to give your email address for registration purposes and th like. Choose yours now so that you'll be able to work with just one email on everything - instead of having to find yourself with email addresses on every email program you ever use! Another advantage of Gmail is that you can set up two or three easy to remember emails which you can use for different programs in particular - if you so wish. But still, keep everything under one roof!

Gmail also supports a number of languages. It also places all messages related to one email filed into one "long email!" The great thing about this is that all communication relating to one particular thread of discussion is always in front of you when you need it. Older email programs list messages separately, which means you have to hunt down older messages that were related to the same topic!

One thing I really like about Gmail is that it belongs to Google. What I mean by that is that Google have a variety of applications one can make use of. I enjoy being able to have a standard and like to know that everything works fine with everything else. Compatibility is always an issue on computers today and it seems like everyone is out to making you have to fit in with their style - or else forfeit using their things. The market is quite pushy with this all.

Google on the other hand are quiet about everything they do. You wake up one morning, look on the Internet, and suddenly find they've done something new. When one is connected with them - then all their programs simply work effortlessly. So, personally, I like keeping a standard with everything. Google is simple to use with clean, neat interfaces, and I know I'm able to keep everything together using their applications. And there's never a charge. Hopefully we'll talk about this in a future article. Their set up of advertising is simply so brilliant, that they don't really have to charge, because everyone ends up paying them in any case!

So, how do you set up your Gmail account so that you'll be ready for others to send you messages, and in return you'll be able to reply?!

SET UP GOOGLE - NOW!

1. Log in to gmail.com

2. Click on "Sign up for Gmail" (on the right hand side of the screen.)

3. Fill in your details. (Really straight forward... just read and follow instructions!)

4. Don't forget, choose a strong password. As for your username, choose something meaningful and easy to remember. Something like "Justcallmethemillionairemanoftheinternet" may work and be accepted. It may even be meaningful, but it's going to be hard for people to remember when communicating with you. Instead choose something catchy and easy like "JohnSmithMillionaire" or the like, making your email This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it It's probably taken, so don't be upset about that!

5. DONE!

You'll get an email which will ask you to confirm your details, and you're all set up. So hurry, get set up, and get into enjoying emailing friends and family. And if you're feeling lonely and not receiving anything yet - why not email yourself?!