Most people think the only free email that offers IMAP access is Gmail. Not so. Aol/AIM also has the same capability, which allows you to access your AOL/AIM account via the email client of your choice. If you already know how to configure an email account using IMAP, skip down to the mail servers section below. Why use IMAP? IMAP is better than POP because your...

Microsoft’s Silverlight is one of those platforms that most people have heard about but never found a good use for as a user. The platform itself was originally supposed to be Microsoft’s answer to Adobe’s Flash. But then Adobe released AIR. What does Silverlight compete against now? I have no idea. You be the judge. For most people, the only...

I am a diehard Mozilla Thunderbird user. Even though I’ve tried out just about every single email there is (Yahoo! Mail, Gmail and Hotmail included), and just about every single mail client there is, I always go back to Thunderbird. It’s because it does the job that good. But unfortunately I can’t say that anymore. Now I have to say I’m a...

If you use a Windows Live email address, that being any address that ends in @hotmail.com, @msn.com or @live.com, you can access the account right now in the Windows Live Mail client. The immediate advantages of using WL Mail:No ads anywhere in the client No ads sent on outgoing mail Allows for local caching of mail for faster access and being able to read...

AIM is the primary instant messenger I use. Out of all the IM services I’ve used over the years, it is the most reliable. In addition, it runs flawlessly on any operating system. Whether you’re on Windows, Mac or Linux, you can run AIM. The latest client offering on the Windows platform is AIM 7 Beta 2. Short review: It’s awesome. If you use...

Linux people in particular like the Telnet protocol because it allows easy command line interface access to PCs on a home network or small-biz setup. However if you have a Win 7 PC on your network, go to a prompt and type "telnet", the infamous "telnet is not recognized as an internal or external command.." shows up. Is the telnet.exe program...

The default email client that comes bundled with Ubuntu is Evolution. Make no mistake, this is a really good email client (arguably just as good as Mozilla Thunderbird that also runs under Ubuntu easily). Setting up an IMAP-enabled Gmail account in Evolution is fairly straightforward as long as you know where to enter in the SSL stuff and other odds and ends....

If you’ve ever delved into the world of having your own web site, you will inevitably have a need to send and retrieve files from your server via FTP. FTP is really (and I mean really) old and still widely used. While it’s true you can send or receive files from the command line in any OS, the GUI way of doing it is much easier because you get things...

If you happen to be a Gmail user you probably noticed (as if you couldn’t) that the mail was down recently. Was it your fault? Of course not. It was Google’s fault. Regular readers know that I (Rich, not Dave) don’t exactly have a fondness for Gmail due to its beta-riffic way of working – correction – not working in this...

aMSN is a free alternative to Windows Live Messenger. The immediate advantage of using aMSN is that it is not as memory-hungry as the client delivered by Microsoft. In addition, as far as an alternative messenger app is concerned, this one more closely resembles traditional-looking clients rather than something totally new that takes you a few days to learn...

This chapter is a video presentation. [hidepost=1] [flv:http://pcmech.s3.amazonaws.com/SiS2/06_e-mail_client_setup.flv 610 458] [/hidepost] [hidepost=2] Download video (MOV) [/hidepost]