Take the electronic exit ramp and pull into the Information Driveway with this comprehensive guide to the Outernet. America Off-Line is the world's fastest-growing reality service provider, with over 250 million members, and thousands more joining in every day. (That's more visitors than the Beavis and Butthead Web page got in all of 1995!) Known to virtually all as "Earth," the Outernet is an exciting universe located just outside your computer in which literally billions of people exchange mail, chat, play games, look up information, and much more, every hour of every day.

Enter the world of America Off-Line and you may never leave: there are chat rooms (also called parties), extensive user directories (called White Pages), and thousands of magazines and newspapers, updated daily. Best of all, you get unlimited free mail delivered to your house by a real human being every day of the week (except Sundays). Plus, this kit is an amazing value: it includes a complete user's book (pronounced like "Powerbook" but faster to say), 10 free hours of Reality, and a bonus America Off-Line word processor, also known as a pencil (it comes complete with unlimited fonts and requires no "Save" function). So unplug your computer and sign up now for the hottest new service in the galaxy.

A.J. Jacobs is a staff writer for Entertainment Weekly and the author of the humor book The Two Kings: Elvis and Jesus. He has also written for Spy, The Utne Reader, and The New York Observer.

128 pages
Paperback
Comes with free word processor
$8.95
September