I am an elderly woman and completely computer illiterate, so I would be very grateful for replies in everyday language!
I am moving back from France to England so I will be cancelling my subscription to Orange/Wanadoo and signing up with an ISP in England. I will be taking my current computer with me but I will be buying a laptap once I am settled back in England.
I have lots of sites on my Bookmark which I would like to keep, plus old e-mails which I might want to refer back to sometime.
What is the easiest way for me to save my data and eventually transfer it to my new laptop?
Many thanks.

It would be much of help if you could tell which Operating System you use and which distribution. Also it would be nice to elaborate on how do you save your emails. Do you use email clients and if yes which? And you saved your bookmarks but which browser do you use for browsing?

Just as I feared - a helpful member but I don't understand what you are asking! I use Suse Linux and Mozilla Firefox. My e-mails come through my ISP, Orange/Wanadoo messagerie.
As I said, I don't understand any computer jargon! Sorry. Can you ask me in normal everyday words?
I appreciate that most of you are happy with technology, but I am still listening to the wireless, so you may as well be talking to me in a foreign language.

email client = Thunderbird for example, or Evolution or Kmail.

Sometimes emails are left on your ISP's machine and you only read them from your computer, which means you need to save them on your computer before cancelling your account. Some email programs/clients, such as Thunderbird can save emails on your local computer.

Some people have an extensive mailing list of their "contacts", people you have emailed. This list can also be either on your computer or only on your ISP. You need to save that also before cancelling your account.

Mozilla Firefox can save your Bookmarks. I'm not sitting in front of a Firefox equipped machine right now, but I'm sure someone can walk you through the necessary steps. Go to the menu in Firefox and select "Manage Bookmarks" and find "Export" and save them in a file, call it "Mybookmarks" or something.

The information you provided is all the previous poster asked for. I can answer for the Bookmarks part: you can simply save your bookmarks in a file and transfer that file to the new machine. Here is the step-by-step instructions:

1) Open Firefox
2) From the Bookmarks menu in the top bar, click on Organize Bookmarks. This will open a new window from where you can manage your bookmarks.
3) In the top panel of this new window you can see "Import and Backup". Click on it and choose Export HTML.
4) In the next dialog you're asked to save your bookmarks as a file called "bookmarks.html". Click Save.
5) When you're ready for the transfer, save the file on some support like a USB stick to physically transport it from the old computer to the new computer.
6) Once you've copied it on the New Computer follow the step from 1 to 3 above, but this time click on Import HTML.
7) Now you have access to your old bookmarks on the new computer!

Reagarding the e-mail part, if I correctly understand, you manage your e-mail from the website of your ISP provider. Well, you should find a way to download all the e-mail from the remote server onto your computer. You can do this on the new laptop directly. I mean, on the new laptop you can install an e-mail client, that is a program which let you download and manage your e-mails on your own machine. For example Thunderbird.

When you will have an e-mail client installed, you can just add your Orange/Wanadoo account and download all the e-mails. For example in Thunderbird you have to click on the Edit menu and select Account Settings. Then you have to compile some fields, including the address of the Orange Wanadoo pop server (this information should be available on their website) together with your username and password (usually the same you use to check the e-mail online). If all is correctly setup, you can click on the "Get Mail" button and all your e-mails will be downloaded from the Orange/Wanadoo server onto your local machine.

I strongly suggest that you don't cancel your French ISP until you are happy with your UK one. So long as you maintain your subscription to them, you'll be able to access any of your emails on their server.

You can cancel them when you are happy that you have transferred everything to your new computer. It's a small price to pay for security.

I have an ancient account with demon.co.uk but BT are now my ISP. However, I can still access my emails at mail.demon.co.uk

You should be aware that your email address is not necessarily transferable if your email is hosted on the domain of your french service provider. Even if you dispose your french Internet connection service, you still might want to keep their e-mail services - at least until you notify all your contacts about your new England-based email address.
Another option is to set up a free gmail account, which is entirely independent from ISP service providers.

Debian

Maybe consider getting gmail since you could import some of your contacts to it as well as use the account from anywhere in the world.

-------French------

Si vous pouvez nous doner plus d'information sure votre systeme, sa pourrait etre plus facile pour les autres a vous aidez. Pouvez vous nous decrire comment vous accede vos emails?

Thank you all very much for explaining it in a way I can understand. I have asked Orange to let me keep my e-mail address.
I will save my bookmarks as suggested.
I have been told I can buy a memory stick that goes in my USB port (they told me what that is!) and I am going to ask at my local computer shop.