Last week I received an email message asking a very basic question about email. I usually do not answer reader mail in this column, but I realised this question might be in the minds of many of the territory's growing Internet community.
I use Eudora to read my email. When I am not at my own machine I need to set up a friend's machine with my service provider's phone number, lots of addresses such as DNS servers and other cryptic information and set up a dial-up connection to my provider before I can read my mail. This is difficult and even confusing. Is there a way I can read my mail using a friend's system without remembering all this information and all the confusing configuration? Well, this can be surprisingly easy or immensely difficult depending on who your Internet service provider (ISP) is.
When we use programs such as Eudora, Netscape or Pegasus mail to read our email, we are using a system called the Post Office Protocol - commonly referred to as POP - to connect to our service provider and download our mail into our own computer. This allows us to read and write our email off-line and then establish short, quick connections to send messages and receive new ones.
This type of POP mail process is done using what is known as a PPP connection to our Internet provider. Windows 3.1 users probably know this as the infamous Trumpet Winsock program, while Windows 95 users likely use the Dial-up Networking feature of that operating system.
Generally, when we are reading mail on our home systems, we dial into our service provider and download our mail, removing the messages from our inbox on the service provider. POP mail software such as Eudora and Netscape provide options so that we can read mail from other locations.
Most popular POP mail packages provide the option to leave mail on the server. This makes it possible to read our mail using a friend's system and then go back to our own computer and down-load the mail again for archiving and reference purposes.