I downloaded Internet Explorer 8, but, unlike the old version, it isn’t presenting my bank’s Web page properly. Should I uninstall it and go back to the old version?

Not necessarily. There’s a compatibility button in IE8 you can click that may help render the bank’s page properly. It appears in the top toolbar, just to the right of the address field, when the browser detects that you are on a page that requires it. The button looks like a torn piece of paper.

This button is needed because older editions of Internet Explorer used some nonstandard, proprietary techniques for rendering Web pages. Some Web sites were designed with these techniques in mind, and only worked properly in IE, as opposed to other browsers. Ironically, with the new IE8, Microsoft is moving away from these proprietary technologies. So the compatibility button makes the new version of IE work like the older ones when it encounters a page that expects this.

Do I need a regular wired home phone line to get high-speed Internet service?

No. You can buy high-speed, or broadband, service from a cable company, which supplies the service over the same wire that brings in your cable TV signal, instead of a phone line. You can also obtain broadband service from some satellite services, or from a wireless phone company.

I have a one-year-old 24″ Apple iMac. I would like to burn my movies to Blu-ray discs to play on my Blu-ray player. Do I need an external Blu-ray burner/drive?

Yes. The drive inside your iMac can burn only CDs or DVDs, not Blu-ray discs. But there are external Blu-ray drives available for Macs.

• You can find Mossberg’s Mailbox, and my other columns, online free of charge at the All Things Digital Web site, http://walt.allthingsd.com.

My mother is 80 years old and would like to purchase a device whereby she can send and receive emails only. She does not surf the Internet. Do you have any suggestions?

Unfortunately, I don’t know of a simple gadget, like the now-discontinued MailStation, that just sends and receives emails. However, there is a service and device, aimed mainly at those seniors who aren’t comfortable with computers or smart phones, that allows the receipt of email, and even photo attachments. The drawback is that this system is one-way — users can receive email and pictures but can’t send emails.

The service is called Presto, and it uses a special Hewlett-Packard printer that connects to a phone line. Your mother would receive a Presto email address, and any emails and photos sent to her would materialize as printouts. A broadband connection is neither required, nor compatible. The device costs $100, and the service costs $100 a year, if paid on an annual basis, or $10 a month, if paid monthly. Information is at presto.com.

I have boxes and boxes of old photos, and about 20 home videotapes and old movies. Some of the photos are fading and showing wear, so I would like to find a company that can convert them to a DVD. Doing it at home would take too long. Have you reviewed such a company?

. Some years back, I reviewed and recommended a service called YesDVD, from a company called YesVideo, that converts videotapes, movie film and photos to DVD. It worked well in my tests. The service operates through retailers, such as Walgreens, CVS, Best Buy and Costco, where you drop off your materials and then later receive the DVD, plus your original stuff. More information is at yesvideo.com.

I enjoyed your review of Xobni. Will it work on Outlook Express or Entourage?

No. Xobni, which creates personal profiles and social networks from your stored email, doesn’t work with Microsoft Outlook Express for Windows or Microsoft Entourage for the Mac, or for any email program other than Microsoft Outlook 2003 or 2007, on computers running Windows XP or Windows Vista. The company is working on a version for Yahoo Mail.

You can find Mossberg’s Mailbox, and my other columns, online, free, at the new All Things Digital Web site, http://walt.allthingsd.com.

Here are a few questions about computers I’ve received recently from people like you, and my answers. I have edited and restated the questions a bit, for readability. This week my mailbox contained questions about using an iPhone overseas for data purposes, running Microsoft Office 2000 on Vista and using broadband-provider email in two locations.

You recently wrote that iPhone owners using the device overseas must roam on AT&T at high rates, because the iPhone won’t work with SIM cards from foreign carriers. You noted that AT&T has a monthly plan that cuts these per-call voice rates somewhat. But what are the options for using an iPhone overseas for data purposes, such as email and Internet browsing?

Until Apple initiates iPhone service with foreign carriers, which is expected to be a gradual process that will begin in Europe, iPhone owners traveling abroad will be forced to roam on AT&T and to pay through the nose for data as well as voice calls made over cellular-phone networks. They won’t be able to buy cheaper service from a local foreign carrier and enable it by simply replacing the phone’s AT&T SIM card with the local carrier’s.

In addition, it is important to note that, even if you are willing to swallow these huge voice-and-data rates, you must call AT&T (formerly Cingular) before you leave the U.S. with your iPhone (or any AT&T phone) to modify, or “provision,” your calling plan so it will even work overseas.

Here are the details. Note that these prices and plans apply to many other phones AT&T sells, not just the iPhone.

To recap the voice-calling situation, AT&T charges very high fees, which can be mitigated a bit by adding a special $5.99 monthly add-on feature, called AT&T World Traveler, to their plans. This voice feature allows you to roam in 190 countries and gives you discounts on calls from 80 countries. For instance, in France, Italy, Germany, and Britain, you pay a still-high 99 cents a minute, compared with an even worse $1.29 without the plan. In Hong Kong or Israel, you pay a whopping $1.99 a minute, instead of an even more outrageous $2.29 or $2.49, respectively, a minute.

For email and the Web, the best bet for iPhone owners is to avoid using cellular networks and employ the phone’s Wi-Fi capability, which can cost nothing extra. Try to find a free or reasonably priced Wi-Fi hot spot in which to check email and do Web browsing. You may even be able to make cheap voice calls this way using Internet-based calling services like JaJah (mobile.jajah.com) which, in my domestic tests, worked properly via the iPhone’s Web browser.

However, if you need to check email constantly or frequently, you are unlikely to be able to depend solely on the Wi-Fi method. You can rely on AT&T roaming to do this over foreign cellular services, but, as with the voice call situation, it will cost a fortune.

AT&T offers an add-on plan for $24.99 a month, called the “PDA/Smartphone/iPhone International Data Plan.” This is on top of the $5.99-a-month voice plan, and is also additive to the $20 a month for unlimited data when in the U.S. that is built into your base plan. But it isn’t unlimited. You get only 20 megabytes of overseas data use a month, and pay a stiff $.005 a kilobyte for all data use above that.

Plus, this international-data plan only works in 29 countries. Outside those countries, the cost is an astounding $.0195 a kilobyte, or roughly $20 a megabyte. To put that in perspective, a single email with a medium-resolution picture attached could amount to a megabyte. More information is at www.att.com/wirelessinternational.

One more note: apparently AT&T can and will cancel your roaming service overseas if it notices what it considers an unusually high number of calls being made. One reader with an iPhone reported that, after arranging belatedly in Europe to get the voice-roaming service, he was suddenly cut off when he reached India, with AT&T explaining the cutoff as an attempt to prevent suspected fraud.

According to this reader, AT&T said he had been cut off “because there were ‘too many calls from India and other countries’ and they did not think it was possible anyone could be doing that for real, so to protect me, they cancelled the service.” An AT&T spokesman says the company can’t comment on the details of this particular case without knowing the traveler’s phone number.

You say Office 2003 runs OK on Windows Vista. I have been using Office 2000 and it does everything I need. Will it also run OK on Vista?

Microsoft doesn’t officially support Office 2000 on Vista. It may work, but I haven’t tested it.

Is there a way that I can use my same email address both at my home in New Jersey and at my winter place in Florida, even though I have broadband Internet service in New Jersey but am limited to dial-up Internet access from a different provider in Florida?

Some broadband providers also make available a supplementary dial-up service for their customers, which may be free or cost extra. Check with your broadband service to see if it offers this option.

If not, you could simply use an email account that isn’t necessarily tied to an access provider at all, such as Web-based email services from Yahoo, Google or Microsoft. You could switch to one of these permanently, and use it in both locations, or you can forward your main email address to one of them while you are in Florida. People who send you email wouldn’t have to learn a new address and many Web-based services allow you to set your main address as the “reply-to” address for emails you send.

You can find Mossberg’s Mailbox, and my other columns, online free of charge at the new All Things Digital Web site, http://walt.allthingsd.com.

Write to Walter S. Mossberg at mossberg@wsj.com

Here are a few questions about computers I’ve received recently from people like you, and my answers. I have edited and restated the questions a bit, for readability. This week my mailbox contained questions about waiting for the new Mac OS, using an iPod with an old version of Windows and getting broadband in rural areas.

I am planning to replace my aging Dell desktop with one of Apple’s iMac machines. Now that Apple has announced that the new OS X Leopard will be released next spring, is it advisable to wait for Leopard’s release to buy a new iMac? Or will the current iMac be able to run Leopard when it is released?

If history is any guide, an iMac you purchase now, or in the next few months, should easily be able to handle Leopard, which is the sixth version of Apple’s Mac OS X to be released since 2001. Since Apple upgrades its operating system far more often than Microsoft does, the upgrades tend to require less of a jump in hardware capability. (Microsoft’s forthcoming new version of Windows called Vista, due in January 2007, is the first major overhaul of Windows since 2001.)

However, Apple hasn’t promised that every new feature of Leopard will run on any iMac sold now, and the company has coldly cut off users of older models in the past. So, if you can wait, do so. It’s always better to buy new machines with a new OS preinstalled, even though Apple’s OS upgrade process has generally been much quicker and more reliable than Microsoft’s. Another benefit: Apple typically charges existing users $129 for an upgraded OS, even if their machines are only, say, six months old. But new Macs next spring will include Leopard free of charge.

Even if you can’t wait until spring (you said your Dell was “aging”), consider waiting a few months to see if Apple brings out a new iMac with Intel’s latest processor, the Core 2 Duo, which is faster and more efficient than the Core Duo in current iMacs. I have no information that this will happen, but you should know by November or so.

I’ve got a new iPod I want to use with my Dell Dimension 4100 running Windows Me, but the iTunes software will apparently run only on XP or 2000. What’s my best bet for software to load files onto my iPod?

Try a product called XPlay 2, by Mediafour. It is specifically designed to work with older versions of Windows, including Windows Me. It costs $30 and can be downloaded at mediafour.com/products/xplay/. There is a free trial, but it is limited.

We live on a dirt road in rural Virginia with no cable and can’t get DSL. How can we get broadband? We would prefer not to do a satellite connection because you still need a phone modem to send material. Is there some kind of fast wireless connection we could get from our PC to our ISP? I see laptops with wireless antennas sticking out of them around here and they must transmit to somewhere.

Satellite Internet access has improved, and no longer requires a dial-up modem for the return path — in fact no use of the phone line is needed at all. Of course, as with any satellite service, your house must have a clear line of sight to the area of the sky where the particular satellite you use is situated. For more information, see www.hughesnet.com.

Another option, if you have good cellphone coverage, is a broadband cell-phone modem. It uses the cellphone network to connect you to the Internet at speeds roughly comparable with a slow home DSL line — which is still much, much faster than your current dial-up connection. This is probably what all those laptops with antennas are using.

These cellphone modems, using a technology called EVDO, are offered by Verizon and Sprint, and Cingular is slowly building a similar wireless broadband capability. For more information, see the Web sites of the phone carriers.

In some parts of the country, but not Virginia, a company called Clearwire is offering wireless broadband to rural homes.

* * *

Because of the volume of email I receive, I can’t routinely answer individual questions by email, or consult on individual problems or purchasing decisions. I read all questions I receive and select three each week to answer in the column.

Write to Walter S. Mossberg at mossberg@wsj.com

Here are a few questions about computers I’ve received recently from people like you, and my answers. I have edited and restated the questions a bit, for readability. This week my mailbox contained questions about switching between software provided by camera companies, Web-based tax-preparation software and scheduling antispyware sweeps.

If you have a question, send it to me at mossberg@wsj.com, and I may select it to be answered here in Mossberg’s Mailbox.

I have been using Olympus digital cameras for years, so I have a library of Olympus digital photos using Olympus software. If I were to switch to a Canon camera, how easy is it to also switch software? Is there an easy way to transfer the Olympus photos into the Canon software?

Unless you are doing something unusual, all your photos from both cameras should be in the standard format called “jpg” and I assume either company’s software can handle all of them. However, I don’t recommend using the software supplied by camera makers. They may be fine at making cameras, but, with the exception of Kodak, they usually create lousy software. Instead, I suggest getting a good, general photo-organizing program, and making that the center for managing your pictures — whatever camera you use.

Every Macintosh computer comes with a superb program called iPhoto for organizing, sharing and editing photos. Windows computers don’t come with anything as good, but you can download a free program called Picasa from Google, at picasa.com. Or, you can download Kodak’s very nice EasyShare software, at Kodak.com. It’s free, comes in versions for both Windows and Mac, and doesn’t require a Kodak camera or printer to use. Paid software that also does the trick on Windows includes ACDSee, at acdsystems.com; and Corel Photo Album, at corel.com.

In 2002, you advised against using Web-based tax-preparation software, writing, “Your tax data are highly sensitive and confidential, and I think the Web is just too susceptible to hackers and crooks to make it a fitting repository for such information.” Do you continue to have these concerns?

Yes. If anything, the incidence of identity theft and other security problems on the Web have grown worse since 2002. I am not criticizing the tax-preparation companies, which I assume have good security. And I am not advising people against normal e-commerce, or the use of credit cards online. But I would be personally loath to put the broad and deep financial information required for a tax filing on a server controlled by someone else and connected to the Internet. I would instead download or buy traditional tax-preparation software, which keeps your data on your own hard disk.

I have the Spy Sweeper antispyware software that you recommend, and am wondering how often you suggest scheduling it to automatically scan my computer for software. I was thinking once a month.

Once a month isn’t good enough if you are an active Internet user, or your computer is on a broadband connection and stays on, and connected, all the time. I run both spyware and virus scans nightly on my Windows computers, and I advise all Windows broadband users to do so. There’s no downside, if your computer is on all the time anyway. I also advise setting the software to run in the background, guarding your PC against new intrusions.

Write to Walter S. Mossberg at mossberg@wsj.com