Computer Clues Read Online Free PDF

listen to stuff about snakes and dairy farming? But even those things sounded more fun than barns. At least Molly would get a badge. That was what counted.
    At the next Pee Wee meeting, Mrs. Peters collected the reports that were finished. “Molly, you got my favorite subject—old barns! Did you have a good time doing it?”
    Molly nodded. She didn’t tell Mrs. Peters about erasing Dad’s file. And she didn’t tell her how ESP had helped solve the problem. Molly thought it was best to keep some things to herself—at least for now.
    “Well, we are on the way to our computer badge!” said their leader with asmile. “When we are finished, you will all be computer experts!” Tim was frowning. “Well, at least you’ll be on speaking terms with the machine,” she added.
    “Now, today we are going to learn all about E-mail. It is just like writing a real letter and mailing it, but it’s much faster. The
E
stands for
electronic
. We mail these letters electronically. If we write a letter on paper, we have to find an envelope and write the address on it. Then we have to seal it and buy a stamp and go to the mailbox and mail it. And we often have to wait several days until it gets to where it’s going. Sometimes it even goes to the wrong address.”
    “That can’t happen with E-mail,” said Rachel. “When my dad was in Israel, I wrote him an E-mail, and he got it just like this.” Rachel snapped her fingers. “If I had mailed it snail mail, it would havetaken over a week to get there. He would have been back home before it even reached him!”
    The Pee Wees were impressed.
    “How could a letter get there just like that?” said Sonny, snapping his fingers the way Rachel had.
    Mrs. Peters smiled and turned on the computer. She clicked the mouse on the “Internet” symbol. When a row of small pictures came on, she clicked on a symbol that said “E-mail.”
    “This is all you do,” she said, showing the Pee Wees how to use the mouse to place the arrow correctly. “Now we will click on ‘new message.’ ” She did. Something that looked like a piece of stationery appeared on the screen. There was also a little picture of an address book.
    “I’ll put the little arrow on ‘address book’ now and click once,” she said.
    The Pee Wees watched. A list of names came on the screen. They looked just like the names in Molly’s address book at home.
    “Now, you choose who you want to write to and click on that name. It will pop to the top of the sheet and the machine will send your letter to that address automatically.”
    She clicked on the name “Mrs. Duff.” Molly’s mother’s name appeared in the address box. “All I do is write a letter.”
    “Dear Mrs. Duff,” she wrote. “We are at our Scout meeting and we are learning E-mail. We decided to write to you at your office. Are you working hard? Have a nice day. Love from the Pee Wees.”
    “Now,” said Mrs. Peters, “our letter is finished. What do we need to do next?”
    Hands waved. “We have to print it out, like our reports,” said Tracy.
    “No, we don’t have to print it out,” said their leader. “Then it would be a regular letter needing a stamp. What we do is mail this, right from the machine!”
    “Wow!” said the Pee Wees.
    “It’s like magic!” said Kenny.
    “We just put the little arrow on this picture of an envelope with wings,” she said, “and click once. Then we click on the word ‘send.’ ”
    As the Pee Wees watched, she did this. A little picture of an envelope with wings sailed across the screen from one side to the other. They read words that said, “Sending message.”
    “And now,” said Mrs. Peters, “Mrs. Duff is reading her letter.”
    “Naw,” said Roger. “No way.”
    But in a few minutes, as the Pee Weeswatched, a note appeared on the screen. It said, “Receiving one message.” And then, just like magic, there was a new letter. It was a letter from Molly’s mother.
    “Dear Pee Wees,” it