E-Mail Accounts

I was just helping a friend set up her e mail account.  She and her husband have been building their new home next to us and are gradually getting all the services in.  Everything, of course, takes longer to do in the country but the only thing they now need is the phone.
Another draw back of a rural area is the limited access to high speed internet. Our only choice here is satelite and, while it is not as fast as cable,  it is light years ahead of dial up. And, of course, there is only one person who does the installation so just getting everything in can take weeks. However,  she finally had everything done except the her e mail account.  Her  previous one was provided by her service provider and that will be cut off in a couple of weeks.   I have always been of the opinion that you should have two accounts, one of which is a free service like Yahoo or Gmail which you can take with you no matter who is providing your service. If you keep all your e mail contacts in both accounts, it saves a lot of work if you change service providers.  The same is true for your list of favourites, saved e mails, folders etc.  I do so much on line that it would have been torture if I had had to print everything before moving or save to disk or whatever.
Do you have any favourite techie tips?
Blessings