I've read through the recent thread on netbooks for travel, and I'm sure it's very informative, but the problem for someone like me who has never even touched a laptop or netbook is that there's too much information, and that information assumes at least some experience with these things.

Could someone please post, or point to, a words-of-one-syllable, complete-idiot's style explanation of some of the really basic points on these things, such as:

• How do you connect to the internet? (I told you this would be basic.)
• If you have a DLS modem connection at home, can you hook it up to that?
• I know about wi-fi connections, though I've never used them. I understand that you can use these things right out of the box if you are in a place with wifi, right?
• I've seen these little carrells in airports that seem to have jacks -- is this for connecting your netbook to the internet? Does a cable to do it come with the netbook? Does it cost anything?
• Likewise hotel business centers -- can you connect to these jacks there?
• How do you usually connect in hotels -- is there wi-fi? Are there wi-fi or jack internet connections in hotel rooms? Are they expensive?
• I understand that increasingly there are ways to connect a netbook via the cell phone network but that it can be horribly expensive. Any comment on this?
• If you want to print something from your computer while traveling, what are your options for doing so?
• It looks like the most highly regarded netbooks are the Acer and Asus. Can someone give a very brief summary of the advantages/disadvantages of getting one or the other?

I know that's a lot to ask, but there are probably a lot of people like me who are just getting into this and could use explanations. If there's a book or web site that explains all this, and I mean for the complete ignoramus, it would be very useful for people like me to know about it. I've searched, but everything I can find seems to assume at least a basic knowledge already, which I don't have.

(Maybe I should add that personally I'd be most interested in using a netbook for international travel outside the US.)

Thanks for any enlightenment -- if the above list of questions seems daunting, even replying to one or two of them would be useful to me and probably others.