Project 2 involves Webmail providers. Webmail has become quite popular recently for reasons of ubiquity. It is true that Webmail offers this convenience over standard PC mail client software. This convenience alone has made Webmail an attractive alternative to the typical e-mail user. In this project the group was asked to open an account with Excite and evaluate the options offered. We, as a group have certainly experienced a wide realm of possibilities concerning Excite. Some of us agreed on some of the options and some did not. Some were not able to access Excite at all and therefore were not satisfied with the service what so ever. Because of this we were able to cover a wide spectrum of opinions concerning this Webmail provider. We enjoyed the variety options offered by Excite to include horoscopes, news headlines, weather reports, reminders and search options to name a few. We also enjoyed the availability of access to our e-mail from any computer, anywhere. What we didn’t like was the lack of customer service when a problem was encountered, or the storage quota involved with e-mail. We also were not fond of the recurrences of services being "down". Another inconvenience was the amount of time required to remain online in order to retrieve e-mail. As with any program there the good point as well as the bad, as we discovered.We’ll start with what the group agreed upon as positive qualities offered by Excite. For starters it was very simple to open an account. We liked how the service is available to anybody, anywhere in the world. We also liked how once an account was established it could be accessed from anywhere. There are no limits as to where and when you can retrieve your e-mail. This was quite a plus, especially for those who travel a lot and need to have the availability of access to their e-mail. We can certainly see where Webmail providers will be a permanent part of the computer industry. Their services have opened the doors to e-mail usage to people from all walks of life. One need not own a computer anymore in order to obtain the benefits of e-mail. This service will help those who are not so privileged to keep up with the technological wave that is rushing over the world. Webmail providers make it possible for people to communicate with others that they may not have ever had the opportunity to before. This is certainly a service that will gain recognition in the future.We also enjoyed the different options offered by Excite. It was nice to go to one page and be able to see your horoscope, the news headlines, weather updates, quick reminders (such as holidays or important upcoming dates), stock quotes, etc… I, myself, liked being able to plug in any zip code and get the extended weather forecast for that area. We also found the different search options to be useful. We were impressed with the convenience of the search options. Some of the search hyperlinks included: investing, job opportunities, real estate, classifieds, airline tickets, auctions, e-mail lookup, people finder, and yellow pages. Going to the real estate section allowed one to find a home or a builder in any area in the US. It also offered a home improvement section with tips as well as suppliers. We were able to access the classified section for any town in the US. What an incredible feature for someone heading back to the States and needing such information. We did have problems locating e-mail addresses in that particular area. But this is an area that will certainly be upgraded as the provider grows. With all of these options offered it made it quite simple to retrieve any information one would need at the click of a button. Of course, information searched was not guaranteed to be found, but it was nice having the initial guesswork taken out of a search. For the most part, we agreed that this Webmail provider was user friendly. Everything was point and click and fairly easy to figure out. Now that we have covered the finer points of this program, it is time to relay the problems encountered during this project.The biggest problem by far would have to be the inability of one group member to access his account at all. With repeated attempts to include changing his account more than once, this member was never able to access his account. We found this to be disturbing. However, what was more disturbing was the fact that there was little in the way of customer support to help this person. Something a Webmail provider cannot lack in is customer support. Without this important aspect to back up their program, Excite lost at least one potential customer, if not more via word of mouth. Even with all the enticing options offered by Excite, not having customer support available in a timely fashion is not acceptable. So much for ubiquity if one cannot access his account. And after all, ubiquitousness is what makes a Webmail provider what it is. Without it, the program is useless.Some other aspects of this program that we would not consider to be favorable were the limits of e-mail size. We were limited to an e-mail no larger than 3 MB. If one requires the ability to retrieve messages larger than the 3 MB limit they would not benefit from this Webmail provider. We were also not impressed with the limit of e-mail storage. It was difficult to remember to delete or save older e-mails elsewhere in order to continue to receive new e-mails. Surely one would adjust to this over time; however, it was somewhat of an inconvenience. We would hate to think of missing something important because of this limitation. We were also not pleased with the fact that each e-mail must be downloaded individually. This made for an awful lot of wasted time online just to read through your e-mails or an even more annoying continuous log-on, log-off method. With standard PC client software all your e-mails are downloaded as they are retrieved and you can read through them offline. This is a more efficient way of doing business. Another problem encountered with Excite was the amount of time the server was "down". We felt this was quite an inconvenience when messages needed to be sent or retrieved due to a time limit. At some point the server was "down" for an entire day. This was frustrating. "Down" times should have been scheduled and announced to prepare the customers. Trying to meet deadlines would be inconceivable due to this repeated process. Just this problem alone makes the entire program unreliable. We could see where this would keep many people from subscribing to this particular provider. In closing, we as a group would have to say that Webmail providers are a good source of e-mail ubiquity. There are, as with any program, good aspects as well as poor aspects involved. The good are encouraging. We would like to think that for simple e-mail, Excite is a provider that would live up to its claims. We were pleased with the added options that Excite offered as well. However, in all fairness to everyone involved we must admit that Excite has it’s problems. Of course not being able to access an account is a major problem, of which could be corrected with proper customer service. We also would like to see improvements on size limitations. And then there’s the "site down" problem as well. All of these problems can be corrected though. With that in mind we see a possible future for Excite that would offer what standard PC client software doesn’t offer, yet, and that is e-mail ubiquity.