Earlier this year, Yahoo News interviewed Republican candidate John McCain. They asked him a simple question: "What kind of computer do you use? Mac or PC? His answer? "Neither. I am an illiterate who has to rely on my wife."

Scary stuff if you ask me. In an era where terrorists have laptops in their caves and Bin Laden organizes his followers through the internet, the idea of a President who can't log on is terrifying. Not being plugged in is the equivalent of being Out Of It according to Anna Quindlen in her recent Newsweek column. And being OOT just isn't an option for any of us regardless of age.

The majority of Americans ARE online with many older Americans using e-mail for years. My mother is 87 years old and regularily surfs, answers e-mails, and maintains a webpage. She is not alone. Surveys of the older, well educated population finds that three out of four use the internet on a regular basis.

I finally did it. I bought myself a cell phone. Not only did I purchase one for myself, but I bought one for my wife also. The best part of my purchase is the price I'm paying for the phones. They are costing me nothing and they're being shipped to me for free, in return for contracting with Alltel Wireless for their service.

Yes, I know that you can get deals like this every day, but I shopped long and hard for cell phones which would satisfy the needs of both my wife and myself. The LG AX275 meets all our requirements with only a small compromise on the camera resolution I was looking for. When shopping I ended up at a site called Letstalk.com and I'm quite satisfied with the results.

The phones normally retail for about $245 each. We're getting two of them without cost. Activation of each phone will cost $25 apiece, a one time fee we'll pay up front. It's a full featured camera phone, Blue Tooth- enabled with speaker phone function to boot. The camera resolution is an acceptable 640 by 450 pixels, not what I wanted but certainly acceptable for snapping pictures for blogs.

I can't give you a full product review because we don't have the phones in hand yet. Suffice it to say that if we're happy with them you'll hear about it, and if we're dissatisfied, you'll probably hear all about that instead