making the Internet a better place to virtually be

Knowledgebase: Email

This section:

| Reading email online | Squirrel Mail summary | Horde Mail summary | NeoMail summary |
| Configuring Outlook | Configuring Eudora |

What this article does not discuss:

If you are looking for information about the Email functions in the server's Control Panel, to create, manage, and delete accounts - this article does NOT deal with that.  Consult the server Control Panel documentation.

About your email                                                                                                                                                                               

Introduction to Email and Web mail

With your server, you have ultimate email functionality unsurpassed in the industry.  Your email be downloaded from the server to your PC by email clients such as MS Outlook or Eudora.  You can then read, reply and write your emails offline and send it away whenever you connect online again.  But, also provides web mail facilities.  Web mail acts like Hotmail or Yahoo email - you read your email online, on the server, and your email is stored on the server.  You are therefore limited to composing, answering, and managing your email only as long as you are online and connected to the server.  Web mail is however the greatest thing since sliced bread for those of us who cannot be at our desktop PCs and are sometimes away from the office for a while.  You can read, and manage your emails with the web mail facility from anywhere in the world, from anyone's Internet connection.

An analogy:  The server acts as a post office.  Your email client (Outlook or Eudora, etc) is your mailman. Normally your mailman would go to the post office and collect your mail, and deliver it to your desktop.  You would then reply to the mail, write new ones - give it to the mailman to take to the post office - and the post office will send your correspondence out to the various addresses you specified.  Of course, with Internet technology the way it is today, a letter from California to Johannesburg takes on average 4.87 seconds to be delivered.  Now keep in mind that you can tell your mailman to tell the post office to keep copies of your email for a specified period -just in case something goes wrong.  After the specified period the post office will automatically 'shred' the copies - but you have to decide these things, its your mail. 

Let’s suppose you are not at your desktop, and therefore have not asked the mailman (your email client) to fetch your new mail - but you still want to read your new mail.  This is where web mail comes in.  From any internet connection in the world, go to your server's post office address, which is usually www.yourserver.com/webmail and login to your email account.  Now you can read the mail presently in your mailbox at the post office, and you can write and send emails.          

Reading your e-mail online                                                                                                                                                                       

 offers you not one web mail client, not two - but three choices.  You may use any one of these applications.  You can read your online e-mail using NeoMail, Horde, or SquirrelMail.  All of these popular web mail applications allow you to read your e-mail, save them, keep an address book, and perform all of the other basic e-mail functions that you are used to. The main difference between web mail and offline e-mail applications, such as Eudora or Microsoft Outlook Express, is that all of these functions are performed online, rather than on your own computer, and offline applications generally provide more features.

Web mail is optional. You can still use your favourite offline e-mail application, if you prefer. You can even use a combination of web mail applications and another tool - you can check your e-mail online, perhaps when you're at work, and download your e-mail to your computer when you get home. You can configure Outlook Express other mail applications to read your e-mail offline.

To read your e-mail online:

1. Using your Internet browser go to www.yourserver.com/webmail

2. A login window will popup to ensure a secure login to the correct account.

3.  Use your full email address as username :- example joe.moer.duik@joeserver.com and insert the password of your email account.

3. You are now in the web mail window for your e-mail address. Refer to the below summaries if you need more information about the web mail application you are using:

SquirrelMail summary                                                                                                                                                                   

SquirrelMail is a full-featured e-mail application. The text below describes the main buttons in SquirrelMail and what they do. This is provided as a summary reference, and not a detailed description of how to use SquirrelMail. If you do not know how to use some of the features, have a look at the SquirrelMail home page.

SquirrelMail functions:

· Compose - Write a new e-mail message. There are several options available, such as using an address book to choose the recipient(s) of your e-mail, adding attachments, and choosing a signature.

· Addresses - Stores e-mail addresses of contacts.  Click on any e-mail address to create a new e-mail message to that person.

· Folders - Organize your mail messages into different folders.  You can have as many different folders as you want.

· Options - Set a large number of options on how you use SquirrelMail. Please read the description of a setting carefully before applying it.

· Search - Search for a particular e-mail message.  You can search by any field in the e-mail and search through any folder.

· Help - Displays the SquirrelMail online help.  Please read this help when you have any questions or problems.

Neo Mail summary  

NeoMail is fairly self-explanatory. The text below describes the main buttons in NeoMail and what they do. This is provided as a summary reference, and not a detailed description of how to use NeoMail. If you do not know how to use some of the features, have a look at the NeoMail home page.

Note: You can not use HTML code in NeoMail - plain text only.

NeoMail functions:

· Inbox - Choose a folder to display. The default folder is your Inbox.

· Compose - Compose a new e-mail message and send it using the Send button. You can not use HTML code - plain text only.

· Refresh - Refreshes the displayed page. Use it to check if new mail has arrived since the window was opened.

· User Preferences - Displays the Preferences page, which allows you to set a variety of options, such as default language, number of messages displayed per page, and your e-mail signature.

· Address Book - Displays your Address Book of saved e-mail addresses. Click on an address to create a new e-mail with their e-mail address automatically added.

· Folders - Allows you to create new folders and delete old ones. Useful for organizing your e-mail.

· Empty Trash - Empties the neomail-trash folder.

· Logout - Closes the connection between you and NeoMail.

· Page Navigation - Navigate to the first, previous, next, last, or specific page of e-mail.

· Move - Moves the selected items to the displayed folder - the default folder is the trash. Click on the on the tick box next to the specific message to select, or click on the All tick box to select all messages in this window.

Horde Mail summary                                                                                                                                                                             

SquirrelMail is a full-featured e-mail application. The text below describes the main buttons in Horde and what they do. This is provided as a summary reference, and not a detailed description of how to use Horde. If you do not know how to use some of the features, have a look at the Horde home page.

Horde functions (available from the top menu bar):

· - Displays your inbox with all your current mail that have not been viewed, moved, or deleted.

· - Write a new e-mail message. There are several options available, such as using an address book to choose the recipient(s) of your e-mail, adding attachments, and using special characters in the e-mail.

· - Organize your mail messages into different folders. You can have as many different folder as you want.

· - Set a large number of options on how you use Horde. Please read the description of a setting carefully before applying it.

· - Search for a particular e-mail message. You can search by any field in the e-mail and search through any folder.

· - Displays the Horde online help. Please read this help when you have any questions or problems.

· - Stores e-mail addresses of contacts. Click on any e-mail address to create a new e-mail message to that person.

· - Logs you out of the Horde application. You should always do this when you have finished using Horde.

Additional Horde functions (available from the bottom menu bar):

· - Displays a calendar on which you can enter events.

· - Create notes for your future reference.

· - Create a list of tasks that you need to perform.

Configuring Eudora or any other standard email client to read
e-mail  

Basic settings needed for any email client.

In order to setup your email client to deal with your email you always need to know a few basic things.  Below are examples of what these usually look like:

• Your POP or mail server: pop3.example.com
• Your SMTP or outgoing mail server: smtp.yourISP.com
• Your e-mail login name: joe@example.com
• Your e-mail address: joe@example.com
  
  Now you are ready to get started!

More about the outgoing server: Outgoing servers are usually SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) servers.  You would probably know if you are using a different type of outgoing server.  Usually specified in the setup in the form smtp.yourISP.com  If this standard does not work for you, check with your ISP because some ISPs may choose to use another configuration, like smtp1.yourisp.com *

More about the incoming server: This is your server's name.  Incoming servers are most often POP3 (Post Office Protocol) servers usually specified in the setup in the form pop3.yourISP.com.  Some versions of Eudora do not require the pop3. prefix to be typed in because Eudora automatically puts it in.  If your email address is joe@example.com then your pop3 server would most probably be pop3.example.com

More about Eudora setup:

• You can get a free version of Eudora from http://eudora.com
• Step by step instructions to setup accounts in Eudora are found here: http://eudora.com/techsupport/kb/2363hq.html
• Everything you need to know about managing your Eudora: http://eudora.com/techsupport/tutorials/

Other Email clients:

There are many good email clients on the market, many of them virtually free and all of them run lighter on your PC than Outlook Express does.  Here is a link to some of these http://freemailguide.com/freewares/freeware_email_clients.html but please note, we do not vouch for any particular product.  Some are as old as the Internet and some are junk, some are free and good, and some are expensive and junk.

Configuring Outlook Express to read
e-mail 

Configure Outlook Express when you have no other account on it:

1. Open Outlook Express. Under the heading Email, click Setup a Mail Account.

2. Click on Create a new Internet Mail Account. Click Next .

3. The next window asks for the display name of the email account.  This is the name that will show in the From: field of your email. You may want to put in something like Accounts Department or Bobby Smith, or your own name.  Click Next.

4.  The next window Internet Email Address.  Insert your email address.  Click Next.

5. The next window asks the Email Server Name.
Select POP3 in the My Incoming Mail Server is a: drop-down box. 
The incoming mail server is your server name in the form yourservername.com
In the Outgoing Mail SMTP Server field add smtp.yourISP.com or check with your ISP* because some ISPs are setup to use only smtp1.yourISP.com.  Click Next

6. The next window Internet Mail Login. Insert your complete email address as the account name (login) and the password for your email account.  You do not need the SSL secure login feature because our servers deal with security in another way.  Click Next.

7. Congratulations. Finish.

*Your ISP is your dialup, cable or DSL service provider.

Configure Outlook Express when you already have another account on it:

1. Open Outlook Express.  Click Tools.  Click Accounts. Internet Accounts. Click Add.  A window with three options will appear choose Mail.

2. The next window asks for the display name of the email account.  This is the name that will show in the From: field of your email. You may want to put in something like Accounts Department or Bobby Smith, or your own name.  Click Next.

3.  The next window Internet Email Address.  Insert your email address.  Click Next.

4. The next window asks the Email Server Name.
Select POP3 in the My Incoming Mail Server is a: drop-down box. 
The incoming mail server is your server name in the form yourservername.com
In the Outgoing Mail SMTP Server field add smtp.yourISP.com or check with your ISP* because some ISPs are setup to use only smtp1.yourISP.com.  Click Next

5. The next window Internet Mail Login. Insert your complete email address as the account name (login) and the password for your email account.  You do not need the SSL secure login feature because our servers deal with security in another way.  Click Next.

6. Congratulations. Finish.

---

Thank you for using knowledgebase, hope this document helped you enjoy your Internet experience.