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At Hand Creations provide Golden Surfer access for free but while you're surfing you pay your phone provider for the duration of your phone call so it makes sense to use your online time wisely. This page contains valuable tips on how to reduce your Dialup Phone Bills leading to advice on obtaining and setting up Email services.

How to cut down your dialup bills

These Ten Golden Tips apply to most phone providers but may not apply to yours: They are shown here to give you an idea of what possibilities there are for saving money on your phone bills - you may even decide it's time to change your phone provider!
to compare phone providers
All information is believed to be correct at the time of publising but may have changed since then.

Ten Golden Tips

1:

Check your tariff for the cost of 0845 (lo-call) numbers.

If you're paying more than ½p/min for evening calls, it's certainly time to check out other phone providers as many of them ensure their prices are at least as low as BT's and BT now charge just ½p/min. The money raised for the the Golden Surfer's three charities is the same no matter how much or little you pay per minute for your call, so we want you to pay as little as possible!
2:

Surf during the evenings: 6pm-6am - but don't surf all night!

Even at weekends, surf after 6pm: many tariffs have changed so that all days of the week are treated the same so weekend surfing before 6pm could now be 4 times as expensive as you thought!
3:

Make the Golden Surfer your Best Friend

Many phone providers offer discounts for nominated numbers so you could save upto 20% of your internet phone costs by having the Golden Surfer number 0845 123 2004 as your Best Friend: 0845 numbers aren't usually allowed in your Friends & Family list but they do tend to be allowed for your Best Friend
for Talk Talk: Their Calling Circle offers 0845 calls as low as 0.33p/min
4:

Make a list of what you want before your surf

Websites often link to other sites that may be of interest to their viewers so once you've found an interesting site, it's easy to find yourself clicking on one 'interesting' link and then another and another - until you've forgotten what you were initially interested in!
Make a list of what you want before you go online and you're less likely to be distracted!
5:

Bookmark places of interest

When you find an interesting link, don't get distracted from what you're doing: Create a special "Check it out" folder in your Favorites and store interesting links there: You'll probably find that many links seem less interesting a day later!
6:

Make sure you disconnect

When you've finished surfing, make sure your modem has hung up correctly: if you leave a window open it may not disconnect. You can always pick up your phone handset and see if there's a dialing tone to make sure the modem has hung up
7:

Work offline when you can

Your browser's File menu (press the ALT key and 'F') often has a work offline option. Some web pages are cached so that they can be re-read without having to reconnect. For various reasons, other web pages demand that they should be reloaded and can't be read offline. Your File Menu is likely to have a Save As option allowing you to save the current page to a file. If you find a page with lots of text to read, you can use this function to save it out for reading once you're 'offline' (and so not paying your phone provider for the privilege)
8:

Avoid spam

Handling spam (junk emails) is time consuming: whether you skim through it online or download it, it costs you time and money. At Hand's praying.it email accounts (more details below) include outstanding spam control which can be a great saving to you. Being careful who you give your Email Address to is an important way of avoiding unwanted mail - avoid publishing it!
9:

Keep useful addresses At Hand

Typing in web addresses is time consuming and a security risk: You could type it wrong and end up on a site that is a fake version of the one your thought you were accessing. Bookmark your favourite links and use the start.praying.it Christian homepage to have your main sites a click away and lots of other useful links available via the site seeing and Go To Church sites.
to take a look at the start.praying.it Christian hompage
10:

Use Email Software rather than Webmail

Download emails to your Email Software and manage them offline so that you're not wasting online time reading and responding to emails. For this you need a POP3 account rather than a Webmail-only account: read on...

Free Email Account and free Email Address

The Golden Surfer service doesn't include an Email Accout: it points you to a far better idea:

There are many advantages to having an Email Account that's not dependent on your Internet Service Provider (ISP): What happens if you want to change ISP (for instance when people move on to broadband)? You usually have to close your email account, change your email address and start all over again - and you'll have to tell everyone - and risk missing emails sent to your old address - and you'll have to reconfigure Email Software and various online Internet Accounts - and you'll wish you'd read this first!

So, to avoid such restrictions, we have two suggestions:

suggestion 1:

The best that you can do


praying.it - Free Email Address, Account and Initiative

At Hand's praying.it initiative provides you with a free and very special Email Address: your.name@praying.it ! "Praying what?" you ask - and so do the people who see your email address in their inbox! The answer is on the site praying.it where a visitor will read about the Good News for people's lives today!

A praying.it Email Address can work alongside your current email facility - or replace it! It comes with its own free Google-powered Email Account, providing access to your emails via your Email Software and webmail: the best of both! With the investment and expertise of the Google giant behind it you can expect a professional, reliable and innovative service.

You'll find a wealth of options freely available with the praying.it Email Account: the only thing there's a lack of is 'limitations'! Features can be explored and used as and when you please.

A praying.it Email Address gives a positive message and has great potential for God's Kingdom. What an impact it would make if all Christians had one!

to visit the praying.it site and get yours today!

Please note: Unlike other free email accounts, adverts are not added to your emails, slapped all over your screen or spammed to your account!

suggestion 2:

Google
If you can't accept the terms and conditions of the praying.it initiative (if you're not a Christian for example) then you could sign directly with Google for a free Google Mail account @googlemail.com

to sign up for Google Mail

Most people use Outlook or Outlook Express as their Email Software: because they come with the Windows operating system.

Thunderbird is a great (and free) alternative to the default Microsoft offerings.

"POP" stands for "Post Office Protocol"

Free POP accounts are rare. Here's why:
Webmail accounts rely on advertising revenue for income but with POP3, you don't visit anyone's website so there's no advertising revenue to be had!

"SMTP" stands for "Simple Mail Transfer Protocol"

Golden Surfer's SMTP service is provided only if you connect to the Internet using Golden Surfer dialup: otherwise spammers could abuse the system (sending masses of emails) at the expense of legitimate users.

Hotmail Yahoo and Lycos are some well known webmail (online email) accounts.

Webmail accounts are accessed online through your standard web browser. They rely on advertising revenue for income, so even if your online mailbox is filtered from junk mail, it's likely you'll be surrounded by unwanted adverts while you read your spam-free mail!