You amy wish to connect them to the Internet or to access their e-mail while you are in France. Although France is currently making a lot of bold statements about joining the Internet world, they are in fact way behind the USA, Canada, Australia, the UK, Germany and most of the rest of the world. Officially 10% of French people have access to the Internet. My guess is a fraction of this is the truth.

There are many reasons, the use of French as a main language, pride in an earlier and now obsolete technology (Minitel), high telephone charges by the France Telecom monopoly and the general attitude that if it is not French it is not good (often true).

If you are near us you are welcome to use our servers to access your mail, if you bring your laptop and wish to log-on then these notes may help you.

Telephone plugs in France are strange, huge sockets. You can buy for about 60FF an adapter for the standard US plug.

Voltages are 240 volts at 50 Hz, most portable power supplies are automatically adaptable so this is not a problem. But a plug adapter at the airport for European sockets.

Bring spare battery packs if possible.

Learn how to configure your Dial Up Networking (DUN) wizard on your computer. If you have a problem mail me.

You will need a server, Paris is more sophisticated, but the (ghastly) France Telecom monopoly means you pay for every second of local calls. You can get a CD-Rom from France Telecom (Wanadoo is their ISP) or several others from any computer store but their browser will take over your computer and everything will then be in French. If you really want a French version of Internet Explorer at version 4.5 then carry on, but I warned you.

Most ISP's give a free trial period, this may see you through your visit.

If you are renting a home with a phone in it, the owner will probably have set it for incoming calls only. You can dial out using your credit card or by buying a pre-paid card, see the first link below. You can configure your DUN to accept the card numbers in front of the server number, sometimes you need to add commas (,,,,) to delay the dialing.

There are some free services on a pay per minute rate. This is expensive but may be a good solution if you are traveling

Here is a link to a list of ISP's in France, I am sure it is not a complete list but it may help.

Other links related to Internet and computers.

Dotster.com

http://www.hypersend.com/ When you've got an important document to send from point A to point B, don't rely on your e-mail client. No matter the file size, HyperSend will become your digital courier. Privacy and proof of delivery are provided.

Netfirms Your link in an e-book - FREE!

1-Go My own site and my philosophy of website design

Cluetrain Anyone designing websites should visit this site

Wanda Loskot A straight talking marketing person with lots of common sense about internet and stuff.

Mediterraneanbeaches A fine collections of domain names.

Ifreebies Free Stuff

grc.com Gibson Research Corporation, If only all software was this good. Check your security, firewall, disc recovery and mailing software and a lot of it is free.

Zonelabs The Zonelabs firewall software is good and still free.

PegasoWeb Web promotion software and ideas.

http://www.free.cf Free domain name