Handling Your E-mail When You Are Away From Home
This is Version 3 (20/05/2003)
If you take your notebook
If your dialup number is Australia-wide (eg 0198 308 888 for BigPond) it's easy, the number allows you to connect anywhere in Australia - providing you have access to a phone line, away you go.
If you normally dial a local number, before you leave home go online and check your Internet Service Provider (ISP) for a list of Points of Presence (POPs). Print it and take it with you.. Say you are visiting Smallville, change the number in your dialer to the local POP number for Smallville before dialing and away you go. (See Appendix A)
If your ISP only has a local Dialup number and no PoPs, you have a problem. To use the Internet you must have access which is supplied by an ISP. If your ISP has only a local number, then to use that number elsewhere you must dial it as an STD number and you are charged on the time you are connected by Telstra or Optus plus your connect time to your ISP. The further you are from home the more expensive it gets!
Arrange an account with an ISP with an Australia-wide (0198) phone number such as BigPond. Maybe a BigPond account with 3 hours a month will suit. (See Appendix B)
Note: On vacation, you must use the new account to send mail, your old account will receive mail but not send while you are connected to the new account. Back home, when you use your old dialup, use the old account to send mail, your vacation account will receive mail but not send.
If you travel about a lot, you may need to consider the pros and cons of your current ISP !
Using someone else's machine or an Internet Cafe
On a friend's machine you are able to create a temporary mail account on the machine, see the relevant sections of Appendix B. Set the account to leave the messages on the server. This is not the best solution as it leaves your mail in the machine and you will need to deal with that before you leave. Also, don’t forget to remove this extra account on the machine before you leave the site. All in all this is not a good solution!
A much better technique is available from service providers which have an option similar to Hotmail. This means your ISP offers a mail service which is also accessible through any ISP by logging to a particular page and entering your ID and password. MelbPC offers this service and the page is https://wss.melbpc.org.au/wm/mailman.cgi BigPond also offers this.
If you are using a friend’s machine or an Internet Cafe this is the best solution.
If remembering the MelbPC site is difficult, you can go to www.melbpc.org.au and navigate to it.
The best service would be one which offers Global local dialup and mail access through any other ISP.
BigPond offers Australia wide local dialup, PoPs globally and mail access through any other ISP. There are others and I am not recommending Bigpond, it's just an example.
Appendix A
When the Dial-up Connection box appears, click on Settings, Connections tab, highlight the account, click on Settings, click on Properties, change the phone number, click OK to close each box. When you get home remember to change the number back!
Appendix B
To make a second ISP dialup connection, open Internet Explorer and if the Dial-up Connection box appears, click work offline. Now click Tools, click Internet Options, click Connections, click Add and follow the appropriate path to put in the phone number of the ISP and give it a name eg Away from Home.
Setting up a E-mail account in Outlook Express. You need to know:
the account
name or user ID and user password
the name of the incoming mail server called the POP3 server
the name of the outgoing mail server called the SMTP server
(look on the ISP website for the mail server names if you don't know them)
Open Outlook Express. Click Tools, click Accounts, click Mail, click Add, click Mail, enter a Display name, click next and enter the full E-mail address, click next and enter the POP3 name and the SMTP name, click next and enter the username (the name before the @ symbol in the E-mail address) and the password, click next, click Finish.
Now with Outlook Express open. click Tools, click Accounts, click Mail, click on the new account, click Properties. You may change the Mail Account name to a more useful identifier (eg rossyfix on BigPond). Edit the User Information as you wish. Click Connection and untick the Always box; this makes the account use any current connection. Other parts of the properties may be changed but exercise care!
Note: If you have multiple ISPs you may read all your mail accounts regardless of which ISP you are using. You may only send mail through the SMTP server of the ISP to which you are connected. Therefore, when you reply or create mail, make sure you select the correct identity/account in the From box or your attempt to send will fail.