Have Laptop Will Travel

[AlanW]

Please excuse the numpty question but in all my years I have never owned a laptop.  We now find ourselves in a position when we may be travelling to and fro (but mainly resident in France we hope) and we need email capability etc. to keep in touch with the family.  If we were to purchase a laptop in the UK (prefer the UK keyboard) we assume that we could use it for e-mails both here and there but would we need both a UK ISP and a French one?

 If so can anyone recommend a suitable ISP for a couple of ageing nomads?

[Dick Smith]

Your assumptions are correct. I use Free.fr - but I think its rubbish, so take someone else's opinion on that. I have set up my email accounts (in Entourage) so that I can pick up UK mail from the French account and vice versa.

Do you know if you can get Broadband in your area? I can't, which is very frustrating.

[AlanW]

No we're too far up in the hills for Broadband, dial-up only I'm afraid

[JohnM]

I use "Pay As You Go" Wanadoo.fr when I am in France. It does the job but is very expensive if I forget to disconnect! (But I guess that's the case with all of them ).

Similar to Dick I've set up MS Outlook retrieve from all my email accounts (I've got wanadoo.co.uk dial up for when I am in the UK but not at home) every time I'm logged in, wherever that may be. It works well. (Mind you, I think the only people that send emails to my french account are Wanadoo! )

 

[Richard-R]

Your best bet would be to buy a couple of internat mags next time you are in France plus there are software/conection disks in the computer section on large supermarkets.

We have travelled allover with our laptop and always try to have an ISP setting set up before we arrive. Be careful of the junk ( Browsers,etc) try try to load on your machine. It can be a real pain. Best to install all settings yourself.

[Clarkkent]

Just go into the electrical/computer department of your local hypermarket and pick up a free internet disk - most commonly Wanadoo or Tiscali and set up a new internet connection on your laptop (by the way you will need a suitable connection lead for a French phone - also at the hypermarket). You can have as many dial-up connections on your computer as you like. Since you will be spending only part of your time in France, don't take out a contract just do pay-as-you-go.

When I am in France I go via my French ISP (Tiscali) to the BT (UK ISP) portal and pick up my e-mails there. I don't bother with my French e-mail address (it's stuffed with junk anyway).

If you are unhappy with having a French homepage you can use Control Panel/Internet Options to set your UK portal as your home page.

[JohnM]

If you can do it without using a free disk I would go for that option. These free disks seem to want to load lots of c**p onto your machine as well as what you need.

 

[Loiseau]

I use free.fr successfully when in France, and have configured it so that my outgoing emails carry my usual (UK) email address.

If you know your French phone number, you can start the sign-up process on www.free.fr before you go, and hopefully the password etc that they send you will be waiting in your (real) letterbox when you next get there.
As stated above, it's best *not* to use the installation disk they send you; it might upset the settings on your laptop.  Once they have given you the local-rate dialup number and password and you have selected your username, that's all you should need.

You need a lead with the French telephone plug at one end, and at the other the tiny square plug that fits into a port at the back of your laptop. (I know somebody here is going to come right back with the technical term for this plug!). You could buy it at a local computer shop, or large electrical shop.

Angela