Using Email

Email is not just for short messages anymore. You can use it to send documents, pictures, music and videos, which can make it a powerful communication tool.

Email has become a fantastic medium for staying in touch with friends, contacting companies and sending jokes, but managing multiple mail accounts can become hard work. Windows Mail (or Outlook Express in Windows XP) makes this task easier by providing a place where you can
check all of you email addresses at the same time. Your first email address will probably be set up automatically by your Internet Service Provider (ISP) but most people gather multiple addresses as time goes by. Adding these to Windows Mail (Outlook Express in Windows XP) is easy using the Wizard provided by Microsoft – as long as you have the necessary information. To start the Wizard, open up Windows Mail (or Outlook Express). If you have not created an email account in there already, the wizard will start automatically. To start the Wizard at a later date, click on Tools, Accounts then the Add button.

Once the Wizard starts, type in your name. It doesn’t have to be your real name but everyone who you send emails to will see this name. The next thing you need to do is type in your email address. Your ISP should supply you with at least one address. It’s normally in the form of
username@isp.co.uk or something similar. You will then need your incoming (POP3) and outgoing (SMTP) mail server information. This is also available from your ISP. Now for the easy bit – type in the email username and password that your ISP has given you and that’s it. Your
email account is set up!

Most people will have a free account, like a hotmail account for example, which will not come with the POP3 or SMTP server information required to integrate it into Windows Mail. For a small fee per year, you can upgrade your account and receive benefits like account preservation, increased storage, POP3 and SMTP server information so you can access your email from from any PC.

How The TechGuys can help

If you aren't sure about setting up your email account, or anything else for that matter, you can hire yourself a TechGuy! Your hired help will fix problems, set up your email account and do anything else computer related. Just tell them what needs doing and it's done!