This week my mailbox contained questions about WebTV, international cellphones and backing up a hard disk.

I just connected my WebTV this week, and I'm finding out that I can't get most audio, no streaming real-time video, or for that matter any Internet radio shows from around the country. What gives? I thought that once I got on the Internet through WebTV, I would have the same access as if I were on a computer.
Your ability to view or hear multimedia from the Internet depends on whether your hardware and software are compatible with the numerous audio and video standards used on the Web. Even when you use a PC, with a large hard disk and the ability to run lots of software, compatibility can be elusive, as standards change and the plug-ins your browser requires can be a pain to install.

WebTV boxes are more limited than PCs, and users can't individually upgrade them to comply with these changing standards. As with all Internet appliances, that responsibility lies with the company that sells the device and its integrated service - in this case, the WebTV arm of Microsoft. The company has been working on audio and video support, and WebTV currently supports several key standards, but not all and not always the latest versions. If you value streaming audio and video highly as a core part of your Internet experience, then WebTV may not be the best solution for you. You may be better off with a PC, at least for now.

I need a reliable cellphone to take on business trips everywhere in the US and abroad, which I can use to access my e-mail and the Web. I need your recommendation for one or more with a display that is easy to read and one that will be easy to use for e-mail responses. I understand that calling plan differentials are important here. But they, of course, can be somewhat irrelevant if the phone technology and capability is borderline.
Even if you only wanted a highly reliable phone for voice calling both in the US and abroad, finding a good one would be a challenge. Most US cellphones work on a different standard than those overseas. You can get a phone that will work in both places from a US carrier that uses the GSM standard, which is the foreign norm. Even then, however, you'll need a special model that can handle the different GSM frequencies used in the US and abroad. As for using your phone to receive e-mail and browse the Web, I don't think any wireless phone available in the US today does an adequate job, so I can't recommend any of them. All of the screens are too small, all of the navigation is clumsy, and entering text on a phone's keypad is painful.

Also, even if a phone has Internet access in the US, that doesn't automatically mean it can accomplish the same feat in other countries, because the service depends on the carrier. You may be able to find one that works on the Net and can be used on both sides of the ocean. Just don't expect a good experience.

I recently started a business and my 9-gigabyte hard drive has approximately 3.5 gigabytes of data on it already. I do want to back up my data but I don't know what the best way to go about this would be. It seems that a CD-RW or a tape drive would be the best. I can do an initial backup and then subsequent backups at the end of each day with the changed information. Does this seem to make sense to you?
Absolutely. Just make sure that whichever medium you choose is supported by whichever backup software you choose. Backup software is far better than manually copying files because it can automatically detect changes in data and maintain a backup schedule. However, most backup software was built to support tape. Because CD-RW is newer, it isn't as commonly supported.

Another alternative is to subscribe to a Web-based backup service, but these only work well if you have a persistent, high-speed connection, and they can cost a lot if you store more than about 100 megabytes.