Google Mail (GMail)

Google broke the pandora's box when it was the first to offer 1GB of disk space for web mail uses. Before that, web users were forced to contend with 5MB or 10MB, at best, from services like Yahoo Mail, Hotmail and so forth. When Google Mail (Gmail) appeared with 1GB, Microsoft and Yahoo had no choice but to follow suit, giving their web mail users larger disk space, although as of now, none of them give as much space as Google does.

To get a Google account, which was initially only by invitation, go to https://www.google.com/accounts/SmsMailSignup1 to sign up.

You will need to have a handphone (cellphone) in oder to get your activation code. Google says it needs to do this in order to reduce the number of spammers getting accounts on Gmail (you're only allowed to create 10 accounts from the same moble phone number). Choose your country, type in your handphone number and the verification alphabets and wait for the invitation code to arrive n your mobile phone.

Once you've received your invitation code, go to https://www.google.com/accounts/SmsMailSignup2.

Key in your mobile phone number and the invitation code and proceed to Step 3 where you can create your own username and password and you're all done.

Congratulations! You're now on Gmail. Enjoy the 2.8GB and rising disk space....

And if you need further information, read Steve Schwartz's Google Gmail (Visual QuickStart Guide) book