Tutorials Online
General tutorials
["Start" > "Help and Support" > "Networking and the Web"]to find lots of helpful information about email, connecting to the Internet, security and fixing problems. Click
["Start" > "Help and Support" > "Windows basics"]to learn more about using your computer and fixing problems.
You may feel like Little Red Riding Hood -- this porridge is too hot, this porridge is too cold, This porridge is just right -- when it comes to computers. Sometimes it's hard to find answers at your level. Sandy's Classroom explains things "just right" for people in the middle.
GeekGirl's "plain-english computing" is a good place to learn more than just the basics about PCs and the Internet. It's well written and well organized.
Vic Laurie, a retired chemistry professor who is now a volunteer instructor at the SeniorNet Learning Center in Ewing, NJ. has a well done website on many computing topics.http://vlaurie.com/index.html
There are a wide range of computer courses and tutorials to choose from at Learnthat.
AARP has a number of interesting topics, for example, Getting Started with E-mail, in their How to Guides.The PC Guide is more encyclopedic than tutorial. I've included it here because it compliments the PC tutorials very well. There is an extensive set of guides here on just about any computer topic.
Smart Computing is a computing magazine written in plain English. It features computer articles, tutorials, and hardware and software comparisons, along with reviews, tips, and troubleshooting advice. If you are a subscriber, you can find and use hundreds of articles and tutorials there.
Internet tutorials
It's relatively easy to learn about virtually anything -- using your computer, brewing beer, laying tile, celestial navigation, genealogy, fixing appliances, even the Internet itself -- just by using the Internet. The hard part is knowing where and how to get started and what to do on the Internet.
Some people learn well by just poking around. Most people could extend their basic Internet skills more quickly by using a structured process. There are online tutorials that can help you do that, and they're a good place to start if you don't have much Internet experience.
Internet 101.org © is probably the best site for new users to learn about the Internet. It's thorough, yet easy to follow.
Internet for Beginners and particularly Internet 101: Beginner's Guide to the Internet are two excellent places to get help on the Internet.Learn the Net offers tutorials (free) and classes (fee). It's comprehensive, well organized and well written.
AARP has a well done series of tutorials on learning the Internet. Start with the Basic Browsing tutorial, and move on to Intermediate Browsing.
Zen and the Art of the Internet: A Beginner's Guide to the Internet is more for *advanced* beginners, but if you want to look up a specific topic quickly, it's a good place for anyone to go.Email basics
There's an excellent series on "Email Basics" Part 1 - Part 2 - Part3 at TNPC."Netiquette has a nice guide on how to do email right.
Microsoft has a useful article titled Compose and Send E-Mail Messages Using Outlook Express
If you just can't resist forwarding that joke, a tutorial by Somewhere in Time shows how to forward it properly using "Bcc".
Inside OE Home is a definitive site that covers all aspects of Outlook Express.
Search engines and searching tips
Searching is one of the best ways to find things on the Internet. Some people keep only a few key "favorites". They just rerun their search when they want to find a site again. You can even save those search results as a favorite. It does take a bit of experience to get useful results from searches though.
Fortunately, there are plenty of places on the Web where you learn about searching.
TechTV --"Search Basics"
Search Engine Watch --"Searching Tips" along with some fun facts, such as what people search for.
Lookoff.com -- "Search Engines & Tutorials"