This machine will soon reflect your personality, beliefs, talents’ even your favourite colour. So if you aren’t crazy about the giant Mac smiley face or the scenes straight out of Innerspace, you’ll want a new desktop pattern or picture.

How does a computer file become everything from a letter to your Auntie Flo to a six storey advertising billboard? The digitised information has to be sent to an output device — be it your modem, your colour deskjet or a commercial four colour press.

HTML emails are the darling of commercial operators for several reasons — not only do they look better, it’s easier to track how many people read them. And there’s no reason you can’t send HTML emails to show family photos, portfolio samples to a prospective employer or just to entice people to visit your own website.