Free email addresses are everywhere these days, but which one to choose? There are so many! Below I’ll talk about some of the more popular free email sites out there and how to sign up for them.

1. Hotmail: Hotmail is run by Microsoft. This email integrates perfectly into all of Microsoft’s products like MSN Messenger (soon to be replaced by Skype), Bing and the MSN games site. But aside from easy integration with other products and services, having a Hotmail address also gives you access to SkyDrive (free online storage space) and easy access to your email 24 hours a day 7 days a week.

To sign up for a Hotmail address simply go to the Hotmail website click where it says “Sign Up Now”. Fill in the information it asks for and click “submit”. The hardest part of this process is coming up with a name for your email. You’ll have “somename”@hotmail.com or “somename”@hotmail.ca but because Hotmail has been around so long the easy ones are already taken. It’s likely you’ll be putting in a fair amount of numbers and special characters to find one that’s not taken.

Hotmail has terrific up-time and it will integrate with your smartphone nicely. That said it has a very high rate of spam. The junk filter does a good job of filtering most of it, but it’s not perfect yet. This definitely isn’t recommended as an account for children to have access to, but if you can deal with the spam, it’s a good, stable choice.

2. Gmail: This is a Google product and will give you access to all of Google’s services and apps. Much like Hotmail you will have constant access to your email and Gmail will work with your smartphone without a problem. Google is also not nearly as prone to spam as Hotmail is.

To sign up just go to the Gmail website and click on the link that says “Create a New Account”. Again you’ll follow the prompts and have to come up with some name for your account. Your address will be “somename”@gmail.com. This can be a difficult process as well because of the number of Gmail accounts that have been created. Just use numbers and underscores to find one that works for you.

3. Yahoo Mail: This is run by Yahoo. The nice part of this one is you can use it to access all of Yahoo’s games! It will also integrate with your smartphone and is accessible from anywhere with an Internet connection.

Yahoo hasn’t caught up with all the services that Hotmail and Google have, but the email is straightforward to use. You can even use a Hotmail or Google address to sign up with Yahoo and it’s available under the Yahoo Canada website which will give you a Canadian email address.

If you’re just getting started with email, Yahoo is probably a good choice. It’s just email. There is nothing extra to it. It’s simple and easy to use and won’t overwhelm you with a whole bunch of products or services you don’t want.

Most emails, these three included, will ask you for a secondary email in case you lose your password and need to recover it. If you’ve been using the email that you can get from your Internet Service Provider (ISP), you can use that as a recovery email. The other option is to sign up for two free email accounts so that you have a recovery email for both. If you don’t provide a recovery email and you lose your password, it usually means you have to create a new email address.

Once you’re signed up all you have to do is share your email with your friends and start using it. Free email is a great alternative to the email provided by your ISP. In the next article we’ll talk about the reasons why you should use a free email address instead. Happy emailing!

The market is abuzz with the news that Apple developers are working to developing the latest iOS version. It is being said that work on iOS 7 has already begun. Although it is not clear about the specific features that it might incorporate. The official announcement about this new version is still on hold, it will only be available around June 2013. Until then one can only guess and hope that this new version is what one wants because it accommodates the iOS 6 features as well as several other new features.

Let us try and have a look at the probable features that the new version might have:

Adding Widgets

The most essential feature that any technology user might agree upon is the widgets. It not only makes things easier but also helps in fetching the latest updates immediately. Any technology user including an Android or even a Windows user would agree upon its inclusion as an essential part in any software. Additionally, with so many latest updates in the software field it becomes necessary for Apple to keep up with the trend and include it. Apart from this a user wants to access everything immediately on the home screen itself including functionalities like Wi-Fi, brightness, 3G and other such options.

Active Feeds on Home Screen

Apple has yet to incorporate a life feed on its home screen. This is what is disappointing. It would make it easier to scroll through the list of active feeds that appear on the home screen instead of checking them out from the menu.

Battery Alert Settings

iOS 6 has faced many issues related to battery power. Issues like easy battery drain and battery consumption are the key ones. Additionally, if more features are included in the phone then it might consume more battery. It seems as though in the new iOS battery consumption is again going to haunt a user. However, to overcome this issues Apple might like to incorporate battery alerts that are customizable. A user should be able to receive alerts against low percentage of battery, for example, as soon as battery is low by 40% a user should be sent an alert.

Automatic App Updates

The best feature that one can think of is incorporating an automatic app update. Going into the store and checking out the latest update on app is tiring. Instead, Apple should include an auto-update of apps as soon as there is an update in the store for any app.

Better Functionality of Siri

Siri is good as far as voice assistance goes. However, it is up against Google Voice. This is what makes it lag behind, especially when it comes to performing certain activities. For example, you cannot command Siri to launch a website in Google Chrome. Apple needs to make more changes in its new iOS so that Siri is able to take more commands and launch more operations.

Customizing Themes

It is not possible to customize your fonts or themes on the iOS 6. However, being able to do so is empowering a user to make more changes accordingly. Apple should think of including customizable themes, fonts, color schemes and other such things. Users are not pleased with the graphical look of the Apple.

Selective Privacy Settings

Changes in technology have lead to providing users with making privacy changes. It is about time that Apple too should think about providing selective privacy protection to apps and folders. As for the current OS, a user can only make general settings by Settings> General. This does not enable private data protection of a user given the amount of data that a technology user stores on a device.

Including a File Manager

An intuitive interface is a brilliant idea but users will be more thrilled if there is a file manager in Apple device. Being able to control file settings by drag and drop, renaming, editing is all what a user would like to take control of on their device.

All the above are some of the features that we might hopefully see in the iOS 7 by Apple.

Computers can be found just about everywhere and dominate the economy. Nearly every employee must work with some type of digital devices on-the-job. How in the world did computers become such a big deal? Most people don’t know.

Here’s the simple answer. Computers altered the relationship between labor, capital and raw materials in the production of goods and services.

Once I owned an advertising business. It consisted of a computer and monitor inside a furniture quality wooden cabinet. Passers-by could activate the device by pressing a button on a keypad. A menu would appear that listed my clients and displayed their businesses. The users of my computer box could select the company they wanted to learn more about, Uncle Bill’s Antiques, for example. Uncle Bill’s custom-designed display screen would appear with its message.

Users could browse the screens for other advertisers for as long as they wanted. My revenue was generated by charging my clients $35.00 a month.

My monthly operating expenses included my own time (I did all of the graphics work) and money spent on gas to travel to a potential client’s location to preview a customized display ad.

Now, let me ask you a question. How much money did I have to lay out for a client’s screen for the second month? If you answered “nothing” you are correct. Even the electricity to “run” the computer was paid for by the owner of the establishment in which the computer-advertising box was placed.

All of the labor was already completed on the customer’s display ad. The money had already been spent to build the cabinet and to purchase the software. Rightfully so, a pro-rated amount for the cabinet, hardware and software could have been considered a monthly expense but that figure would have grown smaller each month as more clients were added and time passed. Truthfully, very little money, if any at all, was spent on any one client’s ad once it was activated on the computer.

My clients, therefore, were paying me a monthly fee to display information on their businesses and I wasn’t laying out any money for labor, capital or raw materials – all because of the computer. In days gone by, signs would have had to be painted, hand-bills printed and distributed, and display ads created for various publications and printing costs would have been high. Now, we have virtually the same thing with web sites.

Computers truly have, forever, changed the basic relationship between labor, capital and raw materials. Entrepreneurs, once they have computers functioning the way they want them, can continue to do the same thing over and over again with proportionately less financial outlay.

You can think of hundreds of examples where computers have replaced human involvement in the production of goods and services (i.e. quilt making, furniture making, drafting, publishing, banking and finance). The list goes on.

The point is that we can achieve higher production with computers for dramatically less money and labor. That reality is a game changer. And that’s why computers are such a big deal.

People who know how to use computers to achieve business and social goals are in high demand. Computer jobs are expected to grow tremendously between now and the year 2020. The trend isn’t going to go away.

Shown below is a link to a free report, An Overview of IT Careers. You are welcome to visit The Learning Net and download the report.