- A Quick Look at E-mail with Microsoft Exchange
- A Quick Look at E-mail with Eudora Light
- What's Next
One of the first things you are going to need for your Web site construction project is e-mail capability. You have to be able to communicate with ISPs as you go through the process of selecting one to open your account. Then you'll need to write back
and forth with them about things such as optimum modem settings, local phone numbers, domain name registration, and troubleshooting. For all of these reasons, you need to get your e-mail act together quickly.
This chapter discusses the configuration of two e-mail clients that you have to choose from. And the best part is that both of these are free!
Exchange comes with Windows 95, and Eudora Light is on the CD or can be downloaded from Qualcomm. Eudora is described by its author as postcardware, which means that he only asks you to mail him a postcard to register the product.
Here are the quick steps to configuring Exchange for Internet e-mail.
- Double-click the Inbox icon on the Windows 95 desktop.
- From the Tools menu, choose Services. This will open a dialog similar to Figure 5.1. Check to see if you have Internet Mail in the list. If not, choose the Add button, select Internet Mail in the next screen, and then choose OK to add Internet Mail to
the list in Figure 5.1.
Figure 5.1. The Exchange Services dialog.
- Select Internet Mail and choose the Properties button. This will open the dialog shown in Figure 5.2. Use the information supplied to you by your ISP to fill out this screen.
Figure 5.2. The Internet Mail dialog allows easy setup of your e-mail account.
- Other configuration options are too variable for us to cover here in a general sense. For example, ask your ISP about the SMTP server address and ask your recipients what format to use for file attachments. At any rate, the settings made above should
be sufficient for typical access. Choose OK to save these settings. Then choose OK again to close the Settings dialog.
- From the main menu of Exchange, choose Compose | New Message. This will open a new dialog like Figure 5.3. Fill out the Internet mail address of the recipient, type a subject, and type a message. Then choose File | Send or click the yellow envelope
icon on the far left side of the button bar. If you send a message to yourself, it will take just a moment to travel to your ISP and then show up in your Inbox. You can speed up the process by choosing Tools | Deliver Now Using | Internet Mail from the
main menu of Exchange.
Figure 5.3. Sending an e-mail test message in Exchange.
There you have the basics of Exchange. If you choose to use it as your e-mail client, it will find that it proves to be a useful tool day in and day out. The next section looks at another popular e-mail client for Windows.
Here are the quick steps to getting up and running with the Eudora Light e-mail client.
- Copy the file eudor152.exe from the CD to your intended destination directory on the hard disk. Eudora doesn't have (or need) an install program, so the program files can be extracted directly into a Eudora subdirectory as opposed to the usual \temp
directory. Double-click the file in Explorer to self-extract it.
- Using Explorer, drag the Eudora.exe file to your Windows 95 desktop (this step is optional). Double-click the Eudora icon.
- From the main menu of Eudora, choose Special/Settings. This will open the dialog you see pictured in Figure 5.4.
Figure 5.4. The Eudora Light Settings dialog.
- Click the Personal Information icon in the listbox on the left and fill out the information about your mail account provided to you by your ISP. This screen is really the same as the Getting Started screen except this screen also includes your return
address. It is important that you fill in the field for Return address. Usually, you will want that to be the same address as your POP account. When you are finished, choose the OK button to save these settings. Again, you may want to configure some of the
other settings depending on your situation.
- From the Message menu, select New Message. This will open a dialog similar to that shown in Figure 5.5.
Figure 5.5. The New Message dialog in Eudora Light.
- Fill out the fields for To and Subject and type in a test message. When you are ready, choose the Send button.
For more detailed information about the configuration and use of Eudora Light, see the file eudora.doc on the CD. This is the official Eudora User's Guide in Word format.
That covers the basics of e-mail from two perspectives. It's up to you to decide which tool you prefer for your daily Internet e-mail chores.
Some people spend nearly all of their time on the Internet using either the e-mail client or the Web browser. Therefore, the next chapter is about the next most common tool you will use: the Web browser. We will take a quick look at the two most popular
browsers for Windows 95.
