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E-mail is #1
E-mail is the number one application on the Internet. It has replaced
postal mail, telephone calls, and voicemail as the primary means of business and
personal communication. There are many e-mail programs, or clients, to
choose from. In addition to Outlook Express, there is Eudora, Thunderbird,
AOL, MS Outlook, and others. It is also possible to read e-mail from your
web browser. This is call "web mail." It is considerably slower
reading e-mail from a browser, you can only read one message at a time, and you
have to wait for the browser to download each message individually. For
the purpose of this class, we will limit our e-mail instruction to Outlook
Express, which comes bundled with Windows.
How
to Set Up Outlook Express
Before you can use Outlook Express to send and receive e-mail, you need to set
up an account. You can have more than one account—for business, online shopping,
and so on—and each person who uses your computer may have their own, completely
separate account. Outlook Express gracefully handles it all.
 Start
Outlook Express
There are many ways to start Outlook Express, but here's a sure-fire way to find
and start it.
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Click the Start button.
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Point to All Programs.
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Click Outlook Express.
These first three steps are shown in the image to the right:
 If
asked whether you'd like to open this particular account automatically every
time you start Outlook Express, click Yes (if you do) or No (if you don't).
If you don't want to be asked this question again, click to check the Always
perform this check... box.
Check When Outlook Express starts, go directly to my Inbox. Outlook
Express directs all incoming mail to the Inbox, so it makes sense to bypass this
opening page.
If you don't see the list of folders and contacts on the left, click Layout on
the View menu. Click Contacts and Folder List to check them, and then click OK.
You'll notice that when you use Outlook Express regularly, Windows XP will put
the Outlook Express icon on the Start menu (along with other programs you've
used recently). In that case, just click the Outlook Express icon in the Start
menu to open the program.
Set Up an Outlook Express E-Mail Account
The Internet Connection Wizard makes short work of setting up your online
mailbox by walking you through each step for every e-mail account you set up.
Before you get going, make sure you know your email address along with the
following information. (You may need to contact your ISP, Internet Service
Provider, to get it.)
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First, information about the e-mail servers:
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The type of e-mail server you use: POP3 (most e-mail accounts), HTTP
(such as Hotmail), or IMAP.
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The name of the incoming e-mail server.
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For POP3 and IMAP servers, the name of the outgoing e-mail server
(generally SMTP).
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Second, information about your account:
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Your account name and password. (For some solid advice about making a
secure password, read the
Create strong passwords article.)
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Find out if your ISP requires you to use Secure Password Authentication
(SPA) to access your e-mail account—yes or no is all that's required.
Start Outlook Express, and on the Tools menu, click Accounts.
Click Add, and then click Mail to open the Internet Connection
Wizard. If the Internet Connection Wizard starts up automatically, skip
ahead to the next step.
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On the Your Name
page of the wizard, type your name as you want it to appear to everyone who
gets e-mail from you, and then click Next. Most people use
their full name, but you can use any name—even a nickname—that people will
recognize.
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On the Internet
Explorer Address page, type your e-mail address, and then click Next.
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On the E-mail
Server Names page, fill in the first block of information that you
gathered from your ISP in step 1, and then click Next.
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On the Internet
Mail Logon page, type your account name and password.
Note:
If you're concerned about break-ins to your e-mail, click to clear the check
in the Remember Password box. You'll then be prompted for the
password each time you send or retrieve mail.
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Click Next, and
then click Finish. You're ready to send your first e-mail!
 Write
an E-Mail Message, Send It Now
E-mail addresses must be letter-perfect in order for your mail to reach the
intended destination, and Outlook Express is rich with options for addressing
messages accurately. You type a few letters of the person's name in the To
or CC (for carbon copy) lines, and then Outlook Express automatically
supplies the full address from your address book.
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Click the Create
Mail button.
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In the To box,
type the first few letters of your recipient's name as shown below. When
Outlook Express proposes the name you want, press the Enter key.
If the
 name
isn't in your address book, type the complete e-mail address. Capitalization
doesn't matter, and there should be no spaces in the address. Repeat for
each person you want to send the message to, separating names with a comma
or semi-colon.
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To send copies of your
e-mail, follow steps above in the CC box as shown below for each
person who will get a copy.
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Type a brief subject
for your message as shown. Outlook Express will remind you if you
forget this. Click
in the message area, and type your message as shown below. Click
Send as shown below.If Outlook Express asks for confirmation of any
name, click the correct name in the Check Names box, and click OK.
To reply to an e-mail message
A simple reply to the person who sent the
e-mail is used most often. Here's how to reply to the author:
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In the message list, click the message you
want to respond to. The message will be highlighted with a blue box.
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On the toolbar, click the Reply button. A
message window will open. You will see the original message in it.
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In the message area, type your message.
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Click the Send button to transfer your
message to the Outbox.
Replying to everyone who received the message
To keep everyone in the conversation, we use
the Reply to All button
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In the message list,
click the message you want to reply to.
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On the toolbar, click the Reply to All
button. An e-mail message window will appear.
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Write your reply, then click the Send
button. All the people who received the original message will now receive your
response.
Forwarding an e-mail message
What do you do when an e-mail message is so
interesting, you want to share it with others? With Outlook Express, you don't
need to copy and paste the message into one of your own. You can simply forward
the original message to other e-mail addresses. Here's how:
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In the message list,
click the message you want to forward.
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On the toolbar, click the Forward button. A
forward message window will appear.
Note: The original subject line will appear
in the Subject box, along with the abbreviation Fw:
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In the To box, type the
recipient's e-mail address.
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You can add your comments by typing in the
message area.
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On the toolbar, click the Send button. Once
the e-mail is sent, the Forward Message window will close.
If you are composing a message offline, your message will be saved in the
Outbox. It will be sent automatically when you go back online or when you click
the Send/Receive Button the Tool Bar.
To read your messages
After Outlook Express downloads
your messages, or after you click the Send/Receive button on the toolbar,
you can read messages either in a separate window or in the preview pane.
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Click the Inbox icon on the Folders list.
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To view the message in the preview pane, click the message in the message
list.
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To view the message in a separate window, double-click the message in the
message list.
The
Address Book
To open the Address Book from Outlook Express, click the Addresses
button on the toolbar, or click the Tools menu and select Address Book. To open the Address Book from within a message window, click the To,
Cc, or Bcc icon.
To add a contact to your address book
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In the Address Book, select the folder to which you want to add a
contact.
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Click the
New button on the toolbar, and then click New Contact.
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On the
Name tab, type at least the First and Last names for the
contact.
A display name is required for each contact. If you enter a first, middle, or
last name, it will automatically appear in the Display box. You can change the
display name by typing in a different name or by selecting from the drop-down
list. The drop-down list will contain variations of the first/middle/last name,
as well as anything you typed in the Nickname box or the Company box on the
Business tab.
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On each of the other tabs, add the information you want.
Notes
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Though your address book can be used for many purposes, its most
immediate benefit is in providing e-mail addresses when you are composing mail.
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If you include a contact's street address on the Home tab or the
Business tab, you can click the View Map button located on each of these
tabs to display a map pinpointing the address. When you click View Maps,
Expedia Maps opens in your browser with a printable street map showing the
contact's address
To add names directly from e-mail
messages to your address book
You can set up Outlook Express
so that when you reply to a message, the people you reply to are automatically
added to your address book. In addition, any time you send or receive a message
in Outlook Express, you can add the recipient's or sender's name to your address
book.
To add all reply recipients to your
address book
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In Outlook Express, click the
Tools menu, and then click Options.
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On the
Send tab, click Automatically put people I reply to in
my Address Book.
To add an individual name to your address book from Outlook
Express
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In a message you are viewing or replying to, right-click the person's
name, and then click Add to Address Book.
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In the message list of your Inbox or other mail folder, right-click a
message, and then click Add Sender to Address Book.
To organize names in your address book
When you have a large address book, you can organize it in
several ways to make it easy to retrieve contacts and groups. You can
sort names alphabetically by first name, last name, or e-mail address and you
can order the list in ascending or descending order. You can also change the
order of the columns so the information that's most important to you is listed
in a way that's useful. In addition, you can view a list of groups separately
from the contacts list.
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To sort the
Address List by clicking View Menu,
then Sort and click on the options desired.
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You can also sort the address list by name, e-mail address, or phone
number; click the appropriate column heading above the name list.
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To switch columns between ascending and descending sort order, click the
column heading.
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To view a list of your mailing groups, click the
View menu, and
then make sure that Folders and Groups is selected.
To delete a contact from your address book
In the list of contacts, click the one you want to delete, and
then click the Delete button on the toolbar.
To set up Outlook Express to reduce online time
Use this procedure to set up
Outlook Express to automatically disconnect after you select Send and Receive
from the Tools menu. You can then read and compose messages offline
without incurring charges or tying up a phone line.
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On the
Tools menu, click Options.
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On the
Connection tab, select Hang Up after Sending and
Receiving.
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To reconnect to send or receive messages, click
Send and Receive
or click Tools menu, point to Send and Receive, and then select
the option you want.
Reading mail messages offline
When you work offline, Outlook
Express downloads mail messages to your local computer. When you choose to work
online again, messages in your Outbox are sent. There are two situations where
it is beneficial to use Outlook Express offline:
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If your ISP charges you by the hour or if you have only one phone line.
Under these conditions, you might want to reduce time spent online.
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If you use a laptop to read your messages while you are traveling or any
other time you are not connected to the Internet.
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