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Although there are several e-mail programs (called clients) that people use, in addition to Web-based e-mail such as Hotmail? and Yahoo?, Outlook? Express is the most common (besides AOL). The reason is that Windows and Internet Explorer come with Outlook Express. A few problems are common with Outlook Express, as we discuss here.

Outlook Express and General E-Mail Information

Note

We will be covering Outlook Express version 6 here, the latest as of this writing. Much of this information applies to other e-mail programs as well.

The problem most people have with Outlook Express has to do with a change in their account. If there are any errors, you might not be able to send or receive mail. You must set up new accounts using the wizard. The wizard is very simple to use, as long as you have all the correct information from the ISP. To access the wizard, open Outlook Express. There might be icons for it all over the Desktop, but you should be able to find it in the Start menu program list. The first time you start it, the wizard will open. Just follow the prompts. If Outlook Express has already been configured, you can access the wizard by going to Tools > Accounts > Mail and clicking the Add button (see Figure 10.20). This adds another e-mail account to Outlook Express. If the ISP has any unusual configuration requirements, you might have to configure the account manually anyway. To do this, select the name of the account in the Mail page and click Properties. You’ll get a page like the one shown in Figure 10.21.

Figure 10.20: Add an e-mail account.

Figure 10.21: General properties.

The key to successful configuration of most of these pages is not to make any typos. If there are connection problems, compare what is entered in these text boxes to the information provided by the ISP, letter by letter if you have to.

Note

Some ISPs require the full e-mail address to be entered in the username box, and some require just the username portion (the part before the @). Sometimes, such as when the ISP is separate from the e-mail domain, you might be required to use a % in place of the @.

The Servers page (Figure 10.22) contains some of the most important information. The server names must be right. Don’t use @ in place of periods in the server name; normally, only the e-mail address itself will use the @. In addition, don’t select the “My server requires authentication” check box unless the username and password are different from the one for incoming mail, a rare occurrence.

Figure 10.22: The Servers page.

The Connection (Figure 10.23) page gives the option of selecting the Internet connection to be used for the particular account. If you have multiple ISPs and multiple e-mail accounts, this is where you match them up.

Figure 10.23: Connection page.

The Security page has various options that you would configure based only on instructions from the ISP. The same goes for the Advanced page (Figure 10.24), except for the setting at the bottom. Most ISPs allow you to get e-mail on your local computer and on the Web. Many business e-mail accounts are monitored by more than one person. Selecting the “Leave messages on server” check box allows other users to download the same messages on their computers, and keeps the messages available on the ISP’s Web page. Users who have this box selected will have to regularly delete the messages from the server to keep from using up their quotas and/or disk space.

Figure 10.24: Advanced page.

By : Book-PC Repair and Maintenance: A Practical Guide

For it to store and retrieve data on a hard drive, and keep track of multiple partitions and multiple drives, significant portions of OSs have to be dedicated to managing hard drives. A partition is a portion of a hard drive recognized by the OS as a separate and complete entity; it is not the divider between these portions as the name suggests.

A firewall is a program or hardware device that keeps hostile attackers from accessing a computer’s data. Firewalls can help prevent virus transmission, and overall, they are good to have. Unfortunately, configuration of some firewalls can be painstaking. Without proper configuration, certain firewalls can block all Internet access.

Certain products come with firewalls. For example, Linksys routers act as firewalls, but the router firmware also makes available a trial version of a software-based firewall. Trend Micro’s PC-Cillin antivirus program comes with a firewall that, at least in recent versions, won’t deactivate even when the program settings indicate that it is disabled. (To disable it in 2000 or XP, go into Services and disable the Trend Micro personal firewall service there.) As mentioned earlier, Windows XP comes with the ICF.

Here are some basic recommendations about use of firewalls:

• Use of more than one firewall on a system will probably stop most or all Internet traffic. Stick with one.
• If you are using Internet Connection Sharing in 2000/XP, enable the ICF or use another firewall product.
• If you use a proxy server to connect to the Internet, don’t use a firewall, except on the proxy server. (It is not necessary to know what a proxy server is for our purposes.)

See XP’s Help and Support for more information about the ICF.

By : Book-PC Repair and Maintenance: A Practical Guide