Took first trip out of US in 15 years last month. Tried emailing from internet cafes but not successful. Home email account is with msn. <BR>Any suggestions on setting up email account that can be accessed anywhere in Europe so emails can be sent and received while on trip? Am traveling to Italy in Sept, Prague/Budapest next March and Sweden/Norway next August. (Yep, I'm hooked now)! (Don't know why I waited so long)Thanks

<BR> <BR>Yahoo is easy to sign up and you can access from any internet connection (internet cafes and such) plus, if you have POP3 e-mail (MSN does not) you can also check that as well. <BR> <BR>Hotmail is another one although they seem to flood the inbox with more junk mail than Yahoo. <BR> <BR>I use Compuserve to access the net from my laptop because they have local numbers just about anywhere in the world. I think AOL has the same. <BR> <BR>Hope this helps . . Rich

<BR> <BR>Opps . . now my daughter tells me that Hotmail does allow you to access your MSN account and vice versa, (contrary to what I said above) . . <BR> <BR>Both of these are free by the way, I omitted that in the first post. <BR> <BR>Rich

I returned from Prague and Budapest about two weeks ago and had no problem accessing my MSN e-mail at cyber cafes. I am not a computer whiz, but if you can get to www.hotmail.com at a cafe, you will be able to obtain your email with your msn.com mailing address. Don't ask me how, but it some how worked for me.

I neglected to mention in my last post that you must request an english keyboard at the cyber cafes.

&lt;&lt; "must request an english keyboard" &gt;&gt; ?? <BR> <BR>or just look around on the keyboard they provide you - - every key you want is there - - it just might be in a different location.

Well yes and no. Some keys that we use may be assigned to something unique to that language. I've used Hungarian and French keyboards -- I can't remember what letters specifially I was having trouble finding, but I know that the "@" character was NOT "@" on both keyboards. It can be a very disorienting experience

I have yet to come across an internet cafe which would have alternative keyboards available, nevermind having to change all the settings. On the other hand, there is always someone who knows where the keys are. Just ask. If you don't speak the language, write the symbol down.

Dori, <BR> <BR>We were recently in Europe for a month and had the greatest fun with our Pocketmail device that we took with us. It cost around $45 to purchase +$10/month access fee. This nifty device meant that we could compose emails when and wherever we chose - on the beach,in the train etc then sen them via public phone boxes using telecards. <BR>We sent them to our daughter's hotmail account. She then emailed them on to our friends, relatives etc as a group. Doing this last step kept our call costs down as copying to a list takes longer. <BR> <BR>Much of the time we didn't see cyber cafes where we were anyway or at the end of the day etc who wants to queue for emailing - we could just lie on the hotel bed and email! <BR>Friends leaving next week are our borrowing our device! All said how much they appreciated getting the emails. <BR>If you're interested I'm sure they have a web site. You can use it when travelling at home too. <BR>Warning - using a mobile or hotel phone to send these could work out very pricey! Stick to the local cards. <BR>

Sam, <BR> <BR>I have indeed seen cybercafes that offered different machines with different choices of keyboards ("American" - - and "not"??) - - this is not the same as offering to provide a "choice" of keboards on a GIVEN machine - - but it is true that you might be able to ask to be seated at a computer with an American keyboard. <BR>

And do cybercafes in the US have European keyboards?

Phil, of course not! Americans are too ethnocentric to even think of it! (And I'm an American!)

You don't need a different keyboard because you can change the keyboard settings on your computer. I do a lot of overseas correspondance, so all I do is get into the control panel, and change the keyboard default. Simple. <BR> <BR>Also, I don't get any junk mail in my hotmail account. I get TONS of it with my AT&T account.

To Ann: <BR>Learn something new every day. Changed my default keyboard. Voila! Just like you said. <BR>Thanks much. <BR>John

Changing the settings is fine if you can type without ever looking at the keyboard. If not, it's quite confusing, since the letters on the keys are different from what actually appear on the screen.

I used a wierd keyboard in Turkey. It had two 'I' keys, the one in the usual place ( although 'labelled' as 'I' ) produced the letter 'Y'. This resulted in gibberish 'Y'm havyng a great tyme...' etc. The actual 'I' key was somewhere around the bottom right as I recall.