How to subscribe to daily e-mail news

How to subscribe to daily e-mail news

By Zatni Arbi

JAKARTA (JP): I received a record number of responses to my
article last week on e-mail management. The majority of those who
wrote to me wanted to know how to subscribe to the daily e-mail
news I mentioned in that article.

One thing that has struck me about these e-mails is that, in
spite of the complaints you might have read about the quality of
English language teaching at our schools and universities, most
of these notes were written in excellent English. Of course, you
could always edit a few things here and there, but, overall, the
senders managed to make their messages very clear.

All the e-mail messages that I've received so far seem to
support the old hypothesis that total immersion in a foreign
language will force us to learn that language more effectively
and efficiently. I've noticed that our young professionals,
especially those working in multinational companies, are able to
learn English very quickly, due to the constant exposure to the
language in their work.

Anyway, let's leave the debate on the best language teaching
methods to the experts. Today we will look at where we can get
lots of useful, and free, daily information on the Net.

General News

For general news, you can subscribe to CNN Interactive
(http://cnn.com/EMAIL/). All you have to do is fill in the form,
which looks like the one in the accompanying picture. Once you're
registered, you will receive their news e-mail every day.

You can choose to receive the daily updates in the HTML
format, which means you'll get all the graphics and animated
pictures. Or, you can opt for the plain text file, which will be
much faster. If your e-mail software is not capable of displaying
HTML files, then you'll have to choose the latter -- which I
would recommend, anyway.

What I like about CNN's HeadlineNewsMail is that the E-mail
contains brief summaries of the topics. Only when we want to read
the full story do we have to launch Internet Explorer and visit
the website. Other free news mail services normally give us the
listing of the sites only, and then we have to double-click on
the addresses to read them on the web.

Interestingly, CNN will also provide a custom news page for
you if you register. Just go to the home page (www.cnn.com) and
then click on Custom News on the left panel. You can select the
subjects you want to read about and CNN will place them on your
custom page. You'll need a login name and a password to access
it, though.

The 75-year-old TIME weekly (www.time.com) also has a free
service called Afternoon Update. However, the service requires
the new HP Instant Delivery System. At a pre-specified time, the
software will connect to the website, grab the pages in Adobe
Acrobat format and print it on your HP printer -- not a preferred
mode of receiving updates in light of our raging economic crisis
at the moment.

Another favorite daily update of mine is Hot Spots from Air
Security International. I happened to find their address
(www.airsecurity.com) in a past issue of TIME. Every day they
send me an update of hot spots -- places in the world where
trouble is brewing. It also provides the latest public
announcements from the U.S. State Department, which reminds all
traveling American citizens of possible dangers anywhere in the
world -- including, sadly, in Indonesia. To subscribe to Hot
Spots, go to their website and click on the Hot Spots button on
the left panel.

IT news

CNet news (www.news.com) has been the top favorite of IT
professionals and journalists for quite some time. It is packed
with up-to-date news on enterprise computing, e-commerce, the
Internet, personal technology, consulting communications and what
have you.

At the CNet site you can even check out job opportunities,
listen to their radio programs and even watch TV broadcasts. CNet
will send you a newsletter from time to time to let you know what
they offer. To subscribe, just type in your e-mail address in the
box at the bottom of the left panel, and click on the Subscribe
button.

As a computer user, you may also be familiar with PC World,
one of the most popular computer magazines on planet Earth. Their
websites are chock full of news, tips, software downloads and, of
course, advertisements. PC World will also send you their daily
Tipworlds that cover a lot of things including virus alerts,
Windows 95 tips, desktop publishing tips, hardware upgrade tips
as well as tips for SOHO entrepreneurs. To subscribe, just go to
their site (www.pcworld.com) and enter your e-mail address at the
bottom of the right panel. I find many of the tips they send out
quite useful.

PC Magazine and the other Ziff-Davis publications can be found
on their ZDNet website (www.zdnet.com). PC Magazine will send you
e-mails periodically, usually to draw your attention to the
contents of their latest issue. The newsletter is edited by Bill
Machrone (if you read the printed magazine, you'll be familiar
with him).

Another prominent group in IT publications is CMP (you must be
familiar with their magazines: Byte and Windows). You can
subscribe to CMP's daily e-mail newsletters just by going to
http://www.cmpnet.com/delivery.

And, since most of the software you are using is undoubtedly
the product of that company in Redmond called Microsoft, why not
get the tips and news and even software updates directly from
them? Good news here, as Microsoft has just made available the
contents of their US$229 TechNet CDs on their websites. You can
now get expert tips, product reviews, white papers and a plethora
of other goodies for free, as long as you register. Just go to
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/register/. They will also send
you their flash e-mail periodically.

These are just a tiny fraction of free news services that are
available on the Internet. The beauty is that you don't have to
go to their sites to obtain the news, they deliver it to you
gratis. Now, whatever you do, don't blame me if your phone and
Internet connection charges are sky high next month!