Remember back when the Internet was new, and all the newspapers were reporting you'd be able to use it to do things `from the comfort of your own home'?
Did you know it's come true?
The Internet hasn't reached the stage where you can do everything without getting out of your chair ... but if going down the shops is a major expedition for you then the Internet can be a great way to save energy.
These are some of the links that I feel could be most useful to people who are partially or completely housebound and in Victoria.
Online Shopping
These places have their catalogues online, and you can order online using a form through your web browser (Netscape or Internet Explorer). You'll have to give them your credit card details, but they all have `secure servers' which means this is as safe as reading it over the phone if you were using a mail-order catalogue.
- Fruit and vegetable shopping was one of the last things to hit the net, because it has to be local. However, technology and our tastebuds have recently been re-united, with the similarly-named GetFresh (http://getfresh.com.au), and EatFresh (http://www.eatfresh.com.au) having sprung up in the last few months.
- There is a pharmacy where you can order online, PharmacyDirect (http://www.pharmacydirect.com.au/). If you have prescriptions you'll have to order by mail as you need to send them the prescription. As a bonus, the prices are much cheaper than usual pharmacists - my Neurontin usually costs \$175.00 a box and PharmacyDirect had it for just \$106.00. That's a big difference.
- I know of only one health-food stores with an online presence, Golden Glow (http://www.goldenglow.com.au), It's mostly a mail order place, but allows you to order online or over the phone too. I get all my supplements from Golden Glow and they have never been anything but helpful. As an addded bonus, they pack the bottles in popcorn instead of polystyrene beads, so I get to have a lovely afternoon at the park feeding the birds every time my stuff arrives!
- You'll find many other places are linked from Telstra's online shopping site at http://www.yellowpages.com.au/shop/.
Useful information
The sort of thing you might usually pop down to the shops to pick up ...
- The TV Guide is online at http://www.sofcom.com.au. You can even sign up so you tell it what sort of shows you like, and it will email you every week or every morning (whichever you select) with a list of shows it thinks you'll like!
- The Age (http://www.theage.com.au), The Herald Sun (http://www.heraldsun.com.au) and The Australian (http://www.news.com.au) are all available online. The editions might be a little different from what you see in the newsagent though, because the online editions are national and not personalized for Melbourne.
- Both the Yellow Pages and White Pages are online, and they have a nifty search facility too. You can find them at http://www.whitepages.com.au and http://www.yellowpages.com.au.
Online banking
Online banking is fairly new, since they wanted to make sure it was as safe as possible. I only know Westpac's system personally, but it seems to be safe and well set up - you have to phone them to get a password, and the whole system's under a secure server. I realize that most people might not understand what that all means, but in short I'm confident that a `hacker' wouldn't be able to get at your money, so don't worry!What sort of things can you do with online banking? The same things you can do with phone banking, mostly. You can check your account balances, move money around between accounts, pay off your credit card from your savings account for example. You can see what your previous few transactions were, and order a statement. Mostly I use mine to check the balance and pay off my credit card each month.
These are the banks that I know are online:
- Westpac - http://www.westpac.com.au
- Commonwealth - http://www.commbank.com.au
- ANZ - http://www.anz.com.au
- St George - http://www.stgeorge.com.au
Misc
There's a new site called Maxi (http://www.maxi.com.au) which lets you pay bills, change your details, order reports and make appointments for a selected group of services. Maxi are hoping to expand, but currently cover these services:- Births, Deaths and Marriages
- Eastern Energy
- Manningham City Council
- City of Melbourne
- Moira Shire Council
- VicRoads
- Victorian Electoral Commission
- Yarra Valley Water
This article - and updates that didn't make it into the printed version - can be found on the internet at my Fibro/CFS Foothold website at http://www.tertius.net.au/foothold/, to save you re-typing all the addresses. Look for the link marked ``Resources''.
The internet is growing at a huge pace and there are more places coming online all the time, so this list is probably incomplete. You are welcome to email me with any information I could add - I love hearing from people.
