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Setting Up Your E-Mail Program

If you are using an online service, or an e-mail program that has been pre-configured for you by your system administrator, you can skip this section. But if you've downloaded (or purchased) and installed the e-mail package you want to use, you may need to do a bit of tweaking to set it up.

The main thing that your e-mail program needs to know is the name of your mail server. Some programs will distinguish between your outgoing mail server (SMTP) and your incoming mail server (POP3). You may also need to supply your e-mail address and your mail password (which is probably the same as the regular password you use to log in).

Since Netscape Navigator's e-mail component is the most popular one that requires this kind of configuration, let's look at how to set it up:


1. Download or purchase Netscape Navigator version 2.0 or higher.
2. Run its installation program to install it on your computer.
3. Start Netscape Navigator. (In Windows 95, use Start/Programs/Netscape Navigator/Netscape Navigator. In Windows 3.1, open the Netscape Navigator program group and double-click on the Netscape Navigator icon.)
4. Select Options, Mail and News Preferences. The Preferences dialog box appears.
5. Click the Servers tab.
6.Enter the address of your mail server in both the Outoing Mail (SMTP) Server and Incoming Mail (POP3) Server text boxes. This is usually the domain name of your ISP preceded by "mail". For instance, my e-mail address is fwempen@iquest.net, and my mail server is mail.iquest.net.
7. Enter your complete e-mail address in the POP3 User Name text box.
8. (Optional) If you are going to be using Netscape's Newsgroup feature, enter your newsgroup server in the News (NNTP) Server text box. This is usually the domain name preceded by "news". For instance, mine is news.iquest.net.
9.(Optional) Click on the other tabs in the dialog box and enter any other information desired, such as changing the font on the Appearance tab, entering your full name on the Identity tab, or choosing to have Netscape remember your e-mail password on the Organization tab.
10.Click OK to accept your changes. Now you are ready to use Netscape Mail to send and receive messages.