Question 4) What is a Discussion Forum?

Answer: discussion forums are really a slow-motion form of chat. Forums are designed to build online communities of people with similar interests. Also known as a “discussion group”, “board” or “newsgroup”, a forum is an asynchronous service where you can trade non-instant messages with other members. The other members reply on their own schedule, and do not need to be present while you are sending. Every forum is also dedicated to some specific community or subject, such as travel, gardening, motorcycles, vintage cars, cooking, social issues, music artists, and more. Forums are very popular, and are renowned for being quite addictive because they put you in touch with many similar-minded people.

Source: NetforBeginners.com

Normally, email accounts reside on a remote computer. To save online time, you need an email client program to be able to download emails from the remote server and store them on your computer. This way you can download all your emails at one go, close the Internet connection and read the mails when you want to. You may also write your email offline and later, when you next connect to the Internet you can instruct the client to send the emails you have written. An example of a client is on Windows, is Microsoft Outlook Express, very easy to use and comes free with the Internet Explorer browser from Microsoft.

Here are the basic things that a good email client has: (a) the ability to send and receive emails quickly, (b) the ability to easily attach pictures, sounds, and other non text based files using MIME; (c) and an address book in which you can store email addresses of your friends, family members and others.

Nowadays, it’s not enough for most people to keep their photos to themselves. There are many ways to store your photos and exhibit them for the whole world to see. This led to the popularity of photo sharing sites, which let you organize your photos, make them private or public, show them to groups, email them to friends and family, or allow them to come up in searches. By tagging your photos, someone looking for red boats at seas could find your shot of just that. Flickr, Photobucket, SmugMug, Shutterfly, Picasa and Webshots are only a few of these sites. Snap some images and upload them today.

Foodies unite! The web has proved a boon for gourmets (and gourmands) everywhere. With a virtually unlimited number of recipes in websites and even more on blogs, the web is a cook’s heaven. There are food sites, product manufacturers’ sites and trade association sites with searchable databases recipes. Start with the big ones such as allrecipes.com, foodnetwork.com and epicurious.com, which should be enough for most people. Occasionally, there are videos and how-tos that are much more helpful than plain text. If you still can’t get enough of chefs and test kitchens, try subscribing to video podcasts which have regular shows that show you how it’s done in 15 minutes or less. You’ll be amazed by what you can learn in under three minutes.

Viral videos or popular art form? You’ve seen them before–mashups of videos, images and sounds in new and totally unexpected ways, giving life to content that’s fresh and innovative. Nobody can stop you from making them yourself and sharing your creations to the world. Totalrecut.com provides you with the tools and know-how you need to get into remix culture. Forget the restrictions, scare tactics and issues meant to harass creative individuals. Show the world what you can do, learn about copyright issues and join contests. Let’s make the world a safe place for remixing and spread remix culture. The future depends on it.

There are still many people who do not have Internet at home or in the office. But whether or not you have online access anytime, much of the Internet remains unexplored. What newbies do not understand is that there is more to the Net than webmail and surfing. But how do you get started? Watch The Common Craft Show. “Explanations in Plain English”, creators the LeFevers call it. Using “paperworks” and simple language, the videos familiarize the viewer with different things you can access and do online, such as social media, podcasting, twitter, wikis and blogs. Click here for the videos on blip.tv and here for YouTube.

On September 20 and 21, the Convention Center in Las Vegas will play host to the 2008 BlogWorld & New Media Expo, the first and only industry-wide event on blogging with the largest blogging conference and trade show filled with seminars and talks from prominent figures in the industry. For bloggers, vloggers, podcasters and new media and social media people, this is the place to meet suppliers and developers, learn how to monetize, promote your blog and build your brand. Marketers, and Media and PR practitioners should also take advantage of the blogging phenomenon and find out how bloggers can bring in business.

Blogger or not, Technorati matters to you. Its authority on everything on the web is hard to question, what with over 112 million blogs on its watchlist. It tracks hyperlinks and gauges popularity according to these. For bloggers, Technorati is useful in looking for trackbacks and links from other sites and blogs through Blog Reactions, Rank and Authority. For the non-blogger, Technorati also has its uses. You can find out the top 100 blogs by fans and by authority. In addition, you can see the listings of the top YouTube videos, movies on IMDB, news item, and music, DVD, games and books on Amazon in the last 48 hours.