Thornbury U3A Computer Club – Mike Farquhar July 2014

how works… You need an address All addresses have the same format: …it’s that tells you it’s an address The “A” bit is unique to you and is generally chosen by you The “B” bit is the internet address of your provider (may be the same as your ISP)

how works… Types of Account You can get addresses of (generally) 2 types.. From your ISP, e.g. This is OK whilst I am a BT customer but when I change ISP I have the trauma of loosing my address and having to find Free addresses e.g. I can have this

how works…

how (personal) works… There are agreements (Rules or Protocols) about how the system will work. SENDING MAIL All mail systems use a system called Simple Mail Transfer Protocol, SMTP, to send their mail to their mailserver…. 1.The user (or Client) writes an 2.The software on the clients computer sends this using SMTP to his own Mail Server 3.That Mail Server sends it on to the correct destination Mail Server and it goes into the mailbox with the corresponding address.

how (personal) works…POP3 In the old days (10 years ago!) all mail systems* used a Protocol called POP3 to receive their mail…. RECEIVING MAIL When the Recipient decides to see if there is any mail for her – she uses her client software to ask her Mail Server if there’s any mail using her address as her credentials. The Mail Server finds the mail in her mailbox and copies it down to her client computer and deletes it from the Mail Server (this is POP3)

how (personal) works… But this is no good. We’re in the modern world – I have an iPod, an iPad, a laptop or two, a desktop computer and a smart phone. All these can send and receive and I don’t want my mail transferred and split among half a dozen systems!! We need another PROTOCOL – it’s called IMAP

how (personal) works…IMAP IMAP (Internet Mail Access Protocol) works in (more or less) the same way as POP. The difference is that the user can have multiple clients accessing the mailbox on the Mail Server. The messages are left on the server and will only deleted by an explicit instruction by one of the clients.

how (personal) works…WEBMAIL WEBMAIL, or web-based . Most Mail Servers provide an interface for clients which can be accessed by a web browser (such as Internet Explorer or Google Chrome) The main advantage of using webmail is that connection to your mailbox is (potentially) available from any browser anywhere in the world.

POP3 vs IMAP vs WEBMAIL

clients The clients we usually encounter are: 1.In Windows XP, Outlook Express 2.In Windows Vista, Windows Mail 3.In Windows 7 and 8, Windows Live Mail* Alternatives to all of the above, irregardless of Windows version, are: 1.Thunderbird 2.Microsoft Outlook 3.…and one that John Mason is going to talk about!

Log in to Windows Live Mail

Has your been hacked? 7 Things You Need to do NOW 1.Recover your account 2.Change your password 3.Change your recovery information 4.Check your related accounts 5.Let your contacts know 6.Start Backing Up 7.Learn from the experience …and… 8.If you’re not sure, get help 9.Share this whole article