Need help setting up email account for my Mac

[benny73]

pulykamell –

I never took it out of the box other than to just see what it looks like. As I said to Redfrost, I was disappointed by what I read on the back of the box and thus intended to return it. BUT NO MORE!

[pulykamell]

@benny73

pulykamell –

I never took it out of the box other than to just see what it looks like. As I said to Redfrost, I was disappointed by what I read on the back of the box and thus intended to return it. BUT NO MORE!

Here’s a little tutorial, in case you need it.

[benny73]

Thanks, pulykamell!

I’ll check it out when I get back from work.

[Redfrost]

@Arnold Winkelried

It might seem complicated, RedFrost, but it’s really not. I went from Eudora on the Macintosh to Mail, (and have also set up Eudora on my wife’s Windows machine), and after the initial learning curve, it’s really not all that difficult. For example, using Mail on the Macintosh, I have five or six pop e-mail accounts set up (for various mailing lists, some “anonymous” e-mail accounts to sign up for websites, a personal one for friends and family, etc.) Pretty much the minimum values you need to know are:
incoming mail server (usually of the form “pop.company.com”)
outgoing mail server (usually of the form “smtp.company.com” or “mail.company.com”)
the username / password for the incoming mail server

Enter those 4 values in the appropriate fields, and you’re set!

There might be a “reply-to” field, leave that blank, by default it should be the same as your outgoing e-mail address (e.g. my e-mail address is “awinkelried@earthlink.net”, the reply-to field would be the same)

Problem was I didn’t who the incoming and outgoing servers were. I have the MacBook Pro, so its portable. Like I said, literate, maybe more Dick and Jane than I first thought.

[Arnold_Winkelried]

Well, sometimes it can be hard to find out what the names of the mail servers are for your ISP. But there is usually a help page somewhere on their site that tells you.

[benny73]

Hi All!

Well, I have finally activated my .Mac software!

It was pretty easy and I’m glad that I FINALLY have an email account/address!!

Needless to say, I don’t really understand .Mac at all at this point, not even sure if one is supposed to head straight to it (when turning on the computer) and operate from there, or if one is supposed to basically work from Safari (as I’m doing now) or what, but hopefully I’ll figure these things out as time goes on.

One thing that kinda gives me the chills is that the User Agreement states that they, the people at Apple, get to view everything you do, including your emails! Me don’t like that! Big Brother is alive and well!

<regaining my composure>I wish I could find some Mac wiz here where I live and have him/her take me by the hand and show me how all the bells and whistles of this amazing machine works, as I – with my ant-size IQ – can see myself renewing my .Mac account way into the furture while really only using and understanding maybe 5% of the whole package. Hmm.

I asked my boss last night if I could have two-weeks off starting at the end of this week and, thankfully(!), he said yes. So maybe with all that time I’ll soon be able to get a better handle on the situation. More than anything, I want to learn how to write and store materials for a book project I have in mind, including being able to add pictures between the text. Not worried, though, as I’m sure that that’s one feature that is pretty straight-forward (if I can find it). And it would be great if they have a spell-checker there as well … and a means to italicize … and this, that and the other…

Okay, sorry for rambling, just am kinda excited about all of this … and I totally want to thank all of you kind souls for being SO GENEROUS with your time, patience and knowledge!! THANKS!!!

[Arnold_Winkelried]

Congratulations benny73! I personally use .mac for backups and to publish my calendar and contacts on the web, not much more than that. There is an iDisk icon that shows up on your desktop if you enable that feature, you can use that as an “external hard disk” on a computer far away to save your work. You can also use it for a quick and easy web page, to share photos etc.
But most of your work will be done on your local machine saving files to your local hard drive.

To get help with your Macintosh, you can see if there is an Apple user group in your area:
http://www.apple.com/usergroups/find/

In my early days I learned a lot about going to the user groups.

If you like books, the “Mac OS X: Missing manual” one is good. see here (amazon.com)

[benny73]

Thanks Much, Arnold!

Gotta get some sleep before I’m off to work. See ya later!

[iamthewalrus_3]

@Redfrost

I recently switched to a Mac and encountered the same problem. Being computer literate (think 5th grade reading level) and not an expert, I took the easy way out and signed up for .Mac. It was only $99 a year and if you are a computer geek and make good use of the internet it is worthwhile.

As far as I know, there’s nothing that comes with .Mac that you can’t get for free on a few other sites. But it does integrate nicely with the iLife applications, and it’s all in one place, which may be worth $100 a year to you.

[filmyak]

@iamthewalrus(:3=

As far as I know, there’s nothing that comes with .Mac that you can’t get for free on a few other sites. But it does integrate nicely with the iLife applications, and it’s all in one place, which may be worth $100 a year to you.

Completely true. Other than a few software goodies you can get for free with .mac.

The integration with the computer, though, is spectacular. That’s why I pay for it… to be able to, with 1 click, open my internet backup drive, or to upload pics to my website. Quciken backs up to the .mac acct automatically…

That’s the reason to pay for it. If you don’t use those features, then you won’t need the .mac acct.Though it will integrate with your mac email software very easily.