As a GoBigWest subscriber, one of the features that is included in your account is the freedom to use a substantial amount of space on GoBigWest’s server for storage of files or to post your own personal web page. The use of this space is a slightly more advanced topic than standard emailing or web browsing activities, but interested users should have no trouble navigating through the GoBigWest help pages.

According to a recent survey in which Internet users were asked about online jargon, a surprising percentage of users were not able to define the terms that are frequently used by the media and the industry in security warnings. Clearly, this can be a problem for Internet users who are unable to understand the warnings that are designed to help keep them safe.

Some of the findings from the survey indicate that more than 4 out of 5 Internet users could not identify phishing as a type of online scam that uses fake e-mail messages and only 1 in 4 users claimed to know what spyware is. Of those users who did claim to know what spyware is, however, 10% of them erroneously thought that spyware was a program designed to monitor the habits of unfaithful partners.

At one time it was the exclusive domain of Internet mavens basking in the muted blue glow of their VGA computer monitors, but today online instant messaging is almost as popular as e-mail when it comes to online communication. Instant messaging first became a widespread Internet application in the mid-90s with the introduction of ICQ (“I Seek You”) and has since become a commonplace tool in the home or the office.

Instant messaging was born from a desire to use the Internet to communicate in real time with anyone, anywhere on in the Internet and it does this very effectively. For many, however, it would seem that the time spent typing and sending an instant message is simply too much time to spend between communications. As a result, a large collection of acronyms and abbreviations has been created as a sort of instant messaging shorthand. This is great for saving time, but as you may have experienced if you are a new instant messenger user chatting with a long time user with a fully developed vocabulary of Internet shorthand, trying to figure out what others are saying can be quite a chore. Some of the shorthand is fairly easy to decipher such as THX , but I have to confess that I was stumped the first time I saw the letters ROTFL as a response.