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I can get on Yahoo! but I can’t connect to the Internet

Let me begin by saying that it is never the purpose of our Shotgun articles to make fun our clients or make anyone feel ignorant. We often use examples from our daily adventures simply to point out common problems, misconceptions or new problems to watch out for.

Today I had a client who told me she couldn’t get on the Internet, she could only read her Yahoo! email.

When I hear something like this, I know that the client has a misunderstanding about something or I don’t understand the problem.

Since Yahoo! is on the Internet, you have to be able to connect to the Internet to use their services. When I got to her house I discovered that her computer helpers at home had put shortcuts to Yahoo!, Google and one that just opened the browser to a home page.

She was able to get the Yahoo! and Google shortcuts to work but her home page had been typed in wrong at some point so it came up to "Page can not be displayed."

I changed her home page to Yahoo! and also placed shortcut buttons on her tool bar to the other sites she likes to visit. I figure this way she can’t miss her destination.

Problems like these are my favorite to work with because the fixes are simple, and my client learns some of the basics about how computers work.