Netscape Messenger

What is E-mail?

E-mail, or electronic mail, is an electronic messaging service. When a message is sent to someone by E-mail, it will travel from their computer, over the internet to the recipients computer or a machine that the recipient can access. This machine will usually belong to the Internet Service Provider. This message is then stored in a special electronic post office until it is "picked up" and transferred to the recipients computer.

To ensure that the E-mail is delivered properly, it must have the proper address. It is essential that the address be correct. If a single character is wrong, the message will be resumed to you as undeliverable. E-mail doesn't have a postman that can figure out that you wanted to deliver the letter to the house down the street.

The standard format for an E-mail address is user@domain. The address is in two parts separated by the @ sign. The part before the @ is the usename, while the part after the @ is the domain name or the name of the machine where the user has an E-mail account. E-mail addresses must not have spaces in them and are always in lower case letters.

Your E-mail address will most likely be supplied by your Internet Service Provider or Network Administrator. Some ISP's may provide multiple E-mail accounts.

Getting Started

Make sure that you are connected to the Internet and launch Messenger, either by double clicking on the Messenger icon or by selecting the Mailbox icon from the Communicator Component bar. When Messenger starts running, a Password Entry dialog box will appear. This box will require the user to enter their E-mail password. This password is provided by your ISP. You may also be given instructions as to how to change your password. Messenger will remember your password for as long as any of the Communicator components remains running. If you quit Communicator, you will have to re-enter your password when you start Messenger again. However, if your computer is relatively secure and you want Messenger to always remember your password, follow these steps.
  1. Select "Preferences" from Messengers edit menu.
  2. When the dialog box appears, select the "Mail Server" category from the list on the left side of the dialog box.
  3. In the "Mail Server Window" on the right side of the box, select the "More Options" button.
  4. Select the "Remember my mail password" checkbox
  5. Click OK.

After you have entered your Password and click OK, Messenger will log into your Mail Server and check for any new messages. Messenger will start with the Inbox folder and the active folder and window as in Figure 4-1.

Figure 4-1

Figure 4-1

The first time that you ran Communicator, you were asked for all your relevant information regarding your E-mail account. If you did not supply this information at that time or if you need to add or modify any E-mail account information, please refer to the next paragraph. Otherwise, move ahead to the section called "Messenger Window".


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