dial-up connection problems

Use a recent version of Firefox, then download the "Readability" addon- it gets rid of a lot of the peripheral garbage (banners, annimated adds, etc.) on most web pages. If you don't like the way it presents the page, you can easily switch back to the original...

I think all the MailClients [Webmails] has the option not to load the images.

Are you using Outlook-Express for mail?

I have Internet Explorer and use HTML to load gmail. I can load still images if there aren't very many, and some websites (like CR4 newsletter) offer the option to display images or not. I'm afraid I'm not very computer savvy, but as per your suggestion, I did try the "enable/disable signature icons" option that comes up under the Internet Explorer icon, with a right click, but it had no effect. I think it has to do with validating digital signatures and wouldn't be applicable. I like the avatar pictures. It would be ideal if I could get them to display as some websites do, with a little red x in the upper left corner, so pictures can be selected individually. Thank you for your help.

Thank you for your suggestion. I'll try it as soon as I can get out of the holler to a place where I can download software to bring back on my flash drive.