Nerdsville at Mimi's Dollmakers Paradise is a collection of non-technical articles (about technical subjects) that will help you have more fun surfing the Internet.

Select a topic from the list below.

Common
Abbreviations

People are lazy. They also like to have a secret language, just like kids, to exclude others. The following abbreviations (all in capital letters) have become common.

Browser
Problems

This page contains information to help you get the most from Mimi's Dollmaker's Paradise. If you are having problems viewing our site there are some possible answers here.

What is the Internet?

The internet has web sites, mailing lists, newsgroups, forums, and chat rooms. If you're new to computers, It can all be very confusing. When you're ready to start surfin', check out Mimi's list of On-Line (Computer) Doll Clubs. In the meantime, here's what the differences are.

Internet Netiquet

Getting along on the Internet is usually fairly easy. There are only a few things that you should keep in mind.

What are
Smileys

When you're typing, people can't see your face or hear your tone of voice. To help avoid insulting people, smileys or emoticons were first developed for use in the Usenet news groups. The original smiley ":-)" (read sideways) indicated "'I'm kidding" or "'I'm not serious."

Dealing With
Unsolicited E-mail
(Spam)

Sooner or later, you are going to find an unpleasant surprise in you e-mail — an electronic letter from somebody you don't know trying to sell you a dubious or non-existing product or a fraudulent service, involve you in a chain letter or a get-rich-quick scheme, or trying to sell you dial-a-porn or child pornography.

The "spam" you receive may be as simple as unsolicited commercial e-mail asking you to patronize a certain stockbroker (who may be a fraud), or it may be the same kind of outright lie that you hear about every day when some unsuspecting person has their life savings "conned" by a sharp telemarketing fraud scheme.