You can do IT in laterlife

You can do IT is a regular feature of laterlife.com aimed at trying to help laterlife visitors make the most of Information Technology on or off the web. 

Jackie Sherman who runs the You can do IT Question & Answer section is an IT trainer and author. Jackie has spent her career in education and specialises in teaching IT to adults. Her courses for adults include such topics as MS Office, the Internet, e-mail and basic web page authoring.

Jackie has also written the books shown here - you can find more details about these by clicking on the cover images above. Jackie has also been running a course specifically for over 50s. 

Via laterlife.com Jackie aims to particularly help those new to IT and the web to build up knowledge and confidence, so no question is too basic. At the same time she will cover Q&As for the more experienced user. 

So if you would like to ask a question of Jackie, why not email her jackie@laterlife.com 

Or if you have discovered something which may be of interest to others in making the most of the web, then she would love to hear about that too..

View previous editions of YoucandoIT for more useful Questions and Answers

April 2011

Many of you will be trying to make some extra money by setting up small businesses or offering services of some sort. To do well nowadays, you need one thing: a domain name such as www.mybusiness.co.uk with an associated website where you can describe your business, offer goods for sale and have a contact email address.

In the past, you will have searched the Web on websites such as 1and1, 123-reg etc for a domain name not already taken and will have paid anything from £5 - £50 to own it for 1 – 2 years. You may then have used the simple free page to set up a single-page web presence (with only very limited facilities), or paid for hosting and created a many-page site.

Now, there is a new way.

1. Go to www.gbbo.co.uk This is the home of "Getting British Business Online" that is working with BT, Google and other agencies to offer new businesses the chance to have a FREE domain name and website for two years. After that time, there will be a (probably quite small) fee to retain your presence and you can decide whether to keep it up, close down or move elsewhere.

2. Sign up by selecting a name for your business that is still available and registering with the site.
3. Start to build up your pages. For now, you can pick a basic theme and keep the pages very simple as they can be edited later, including putting in Paypal buttons for receiving payments, establishing contact pages with maps and adding pictures, video or other objects.
4. There will be a bit of time needed to link everything together and get registered properly, but there are help screens and technical people to contact if you have any problems.
5. You will need an account with Google to edit your pages. This is very easy and free – just register with www.google.co.uk and you will get a free email account and access to Google Sites. Note – only one GBBO website is allowed per account.

6. When you follow this link, you will be able to view your pages in two modes – preview and editing. In editing, you can add or amend text, change pictures, add or delete pages and select alternative themes or colours from the range of templates available.

7. If you have a go, do write and let me know how you get on.