How to Get an Email Address

What is Email?

• Email is a way to send and receive electronic mail. You do this by setting up an email account with one of many different email providers. For this example, we will use an email called Hotmail.

First you need to open up the computer’s browser, which is called

“Internet Explorer”. This lets you view webpages. It will probably look like a blue lower case “e” on your screen.

Once Internet Explorer is open, you will find the browser’s address bar in the upper-left

corner of the screen. Here you will type www.hotmail.com or you can click the phrase above

and you will be sent there.

Navigating to an Email Service

Signing Up for Email

Near left-middle of the page you will see a button that says “Sign Up”. You want to click on that button.

You will be given an option to choose the type of account you want. Click the red arrow under “Free”.

Choosing Your Email Address

Click in the box to the right of “Windows Live ID”. Here you can type in the ID you want to use. Don’t use any spaces or

symbols or punctuation. It can be anything you want, but since so many people have email address now, it may be hard to find

a unique ID. Click the “Check Availability” button to see if your choice is available. The box to the right says

“hotmail.com”, and this will be the last half of your email address. For example, if you choose your ID to be “ILOVECATS”, your full email address will be

ILOVECATS@hotmail.com.

Choosing Your Password

A password prevents other people from accessing your account and reading your mail. Your password must be at least six characters long, either letters or numbers.

It is also case sensitive, which means that if you use any capital letters in your password, you must use them every time you type your password in the future

when accessing your mail.

You won’t see your password as you’re typing. This is a safety measure. To be sure you typed it properly, you are asked to re-enter your password. If the two

don’t match, you will be notified and asked to re-enter your password.

In Case You Forget Your Password

You can ignore the first box that says “E-mail address”. This is not relevant for you. The box below says “Question”. If you forget your password, Hotmail will ask you this question and if you provide the

right answer, Hotmail will give you your password. Click the downward arrow to the left of the box to see the possible questions that you can choose from. Then enter the answer to this question in

the box that says “Secret Answer”.

Enter Your Information

Click in the boxes to enter your personal information. For the “Country/Region” and “State” boxes, click the downward arrow to

the right to select a country and state.

Confirming Your Account

As a safety measure, Hotmail asks you to enter in the letters you see in the box marked “Picture”. Type them in the box below it marked “Type Characters”. Make sure you use capital letters if necessary. Below this, you may choose to read the Hotmail agreement by clicking on the blue text. Then you can click the “I accept” button.

Email Subscriptions

Hotmail offers you the option to subscribe to various email newsletters. You can scroll down and check any you want to receive. Otherwise, scroll to the bottom…

…and click “Continue”

Congratulations!

You now have your own email address! You can send and receive email as well as keep an

“Address Book” of all your friends’ and family’s email address.

If you need help checking your email, see the next slide show entitled “Checking Your Email”.