Terry's Computer Tips - Newsletter
August 29, 2005

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Volume 1, Number 11 -- Monday, August 29, 2005

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Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

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5.  Accessing Your Email While Traveling Accessing personal email while traveling can be something of a challenge.  The previous article discussed actually getting access to the Internet.  That is the toughest part of checking your email while traveling.  Once you get access, most ISP's have provided a way for you to access your email remotely.

If you have a notebook, you should be able to start up your regular email program and download your emails from your usual ISP's POP3 servers.   One problem, though, is that you will not be able to send email via your regular ISP if you haven't dialed into their network (this is an anti-spam protection, to prevent the sending of spam).  The problem is that most people don't have notebooks. If you are at your parents' house or your child's house, you do not have your computer (unless it is a laptop).  Changing your host's email program settings so you can check your email is not a valid option, especially since it probably breaking the settings for them to access their email.

The solution for reading and sending email remotely is called "webmail."  Most ISP's offer a webmail interface to allow you access your email servers, for reading and sending, without messing up someone else's email program.

Anywhere you have web access, you could check your webmail -- although, if you are using a public pc (library or internet café), you should recognize that some slimeball might have installed a "keylogger" program on it to try to get account and password info.  A couple of ISP's with whom I am familiar, Cox and Bellsouth, use http://webmail.cox.net and http://webmail.bellsouth.net, respectively.  Notice the pattern?  While you are at home, check your ISP by trying http://webmail.(your-ISP.net or your-ISP.com).  Also, try "https" instead of "http" -- if you are successful with https, your connection is encrypted between your computer and the mail server.  Neither webmail.cox.net nor webmail.bellsouth.net offer this encryption, but I use it with my webmail at Powweb.

Instead of Cox's webmail, I like the SquirrelMail web mail program.  That's one of the advantages to having a web site.  For less than $100 per year, I have a domain name, a LOT LOT more space and the ability to run the web-based programs that I want to run.  I had installed and was running SquirrelMail before my web host (Powweb) added SquirrelMail as an alternative to their own home-grown webmail program.

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When you are ready for the next step, you need a web host that gives you plenty of space and plenty of throughput and no surprise charges.  Powweb offers an extremely affordable web hosting package.  It's a great deal at $93.24/year (average $7.77 / month).

Powweb's Summer Special expires August 31st (this Wednesday!) The special includes 6 extra free months with a 1-year web hosting purchase and 14 extra free months with a 2-year purchase.  With these extra free months, your effective price is less than $5 /month.

They offer a large number of features.  A few of these are:  Space --  5 Gigabytes to store your pages, pictures, video files, etc.;  Throughput -- up to 10 Gigabytes PER DAY (not just per month!);  FrontPage Extensions;  and Email downstream (POP3), email upstream (SMTP), webmail and more for your domain.    With Powweb, you can even let you host multiple domains within your one package, which I am doing.  Visit Powweb to read more about their web hosting package -- I think you will like it.  I use Powweb for all my web hosting.

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6.  Shareware/Freeware Pick of the Week Program:   Eudora
Publisher:  Qualcomm
Category:  E-mail Program

My Shareware/Freeware Pick of the Week is Eudora, my email program of choice.  Eudora is available in one downloaded file with three different versions, based on the licensse you pick -- free (ad-sponsored), paid (no advertising, plus a junk/spam filter) and "lite" (reduced function).  I use the ad-sponsored version.

I have used Eudora for about 5 years and Eudora has been around quite a bit longer.  One of the things I really like about Eudora is that it allows me to be more security-sensitive.  HTML e-mail and Active-X are two things I don't like.  

Active-X?  Isn't that for web browsers like Internet Explorer?  Well, yes and no.  Active-X is a proprietary Microsoft technology that is found only in Internet Explorer.  The problem is that both Outlook Express and Outlook will open an embedded Internet Explorer window within their program to display any HTML email.

Eudora, on the other hand, gives me a checkbox where I can select or unselect "Use Microsoft's Viewer."  If selected, the HTML email uses an embedded IE window with all the associated security issues.  If unselected, Eudora uses its own HTML viewer, which does not do Active-X!  Eudora also allows me to specify that it should not load graphics from other sites (e.g., the 1-pixel transparent image that confirms to a spammer that I opened his email) and to specify whether or not to allow "executables" in the email (so Java, Javascript, VBScript, etc. don't automatically run).

Read more about Eudora in Eudora -- The E-mail Alternative at www.TerrysComputerTips.com.

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7.  Just for Fun

One of my favorite TV-related sites has been TV-tome (www.tvtome.com).  This site had a great user interface, a huge database of TV shows, episode lists and episode summaries.  The operative word is "had."

TV-tome has apparently been purchased.  The domain now forwards to TV.com, which is part of the CNet empire.  The new site has a lot more information and a lot of pictures.  It is also a lot less user-friendly, with Macromedia Flash on the page and a very awkward (there's that word again) user interface.

Regardless, it is a pretty good site for researching a TV show.  I went there tonight to check out "The 4400," which is a science fiction show on USA.  Somehow, I missed the entire second season.  I found out about it last week when someone mentioned that the season finale was coming up.  I promptly set my home theater pc to automatically record it whenever it is on.  Luckily, not only was the season finale coming, USA started repeating the episodes in a different time slot this week.  I checked TV.com to see which episodes I had recorded and found that one was "season 2 number 1."  Hurray for the HTPC!

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Back to Part 1   Part 2

Volume 1, Number 11 -- Monday, August 29, 2005
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

Copyright © 2005 Terry A. Stockdale.  All rights reserved.