Computer Tips As 1 start this, spring is in the air, just not our air. Who knew that old man winter could hold out for so long and then hit us with such vengeance? Oh well, my computer wasn't blown away in the last wind storm, so here we go. I'had an interesting question this month, which should be of interest to people who travel. Can I collect my email on the road? If I can, how? Yes, you can. My first suggestion is to open a free web based email account. Hotmail, Yahoo, and a variety of other companies offer this service. You can go to their websites and follow the links to create your account. There are pros and cons to this situation, the pros are, you can usually call your account whatever you like, you can retrieve your email anywhere that has internet access, and the service is usually hassle free. The cons are: you have created a new email address and you might not get it out to a lot of people. (This can be both good and bad, more on it later.). The space in your account is usually limited and these addresses are notorious for SPAM. Something most people don't realize is that you can check mail from your regular account through Hotmail. As of press time, I'm not sure if all the companies offer this, but Hotmail does for sure. To do this, create an account as you would normally. (Again, go to the site and follow the links.) Make sure you have the username and password and server settings, (pop3 and SMTP typically) handy from your regular account. (If you do not have these, contact your: Internet Service Provider, they should give them to you, after confirmation that you are you, over the phone or via email.) These settings are for what is referred to as a POP account. To setup Hotmail to check these accounts you will do the following, from your inbox page: POP mail is e-mail that is sent through servers that use the Post Office Protocol (POP). POP allows computers to retrieve mail from any mailbox server that supports this protocol. The POP Mail option allows you to retrieve messages from up to four POP e-mail accounts (non-MSN Hotmail accounts). You can check e-mail from your company, your ISP or a school address and your MSN Hotmail account-- Continued on page 18 Does Your Gomputer make you feel like this? If so, call us at Debug Computers. We help ease frustration with existing systems, and can help with upgrades, purchasing new systems, in house training, maintenance and repair, virus removal, and most things computer related Debug Computer Services (613) 476-8721 Open 9-5 Mon-Fri Ask for Pat or Steve debugcomputers@hotmail.com