The Wonders of the Internet

… and why I like Gmail. I was working with some software today that I hadn’t used in a while, so I checked to see if there were updates. Sure enough there was an update. To download the update for free all I needed to do was give them my license key number or e-mail address used to order the software. I don’t know about you, but I have umpteen hundred different e-mail addresses, and I didn’t know where the license key could be found. Since it had been at least a year or two since I purchased the software, I had no idea which e-mail address I used.

Now comes Gmail to the rescue. Sometime back I smartened up and created labels in my Gmail account for things that I want to keep and find easily. One such label is “receipts” which contains confirmation e-mails of items ordered online among other things that I might want to keep as a receipt. All I had to do was click on that label and scroll through the dozens of e-mails there. Voilà — there it was — the order confirmation for that software. All I had to do was enter the e-mail address it was sent to and I got my free upgrade. Hooray!

Yes, I have said this before, but I think the Internet is fantastic. Let’s say, for instance, Norm and I decided to visit Pigeon Forge, Tennessee in the Great Smoky Mountains. We would probably want to rent a cabin, so I would use the Internet to locate Pigeon Forge cabin rentals. Isn’t that marvelous? Then, once we reserved our cabin, I could save the confirmation e-mail in my Gmail account which would be accessible from any computer connected to the net. We live in an awesome age.