BYTE MARKS
Four ways to retrieve your e-mail

By Burt Lum

Accessing e-mail is a function that is about as old as the Internet. I'd still consider it one of the killer apps that has made the Internet as popular as it is.

At times I take this seemingly widespread application for granted. A friend of mine recently suggested I do a column on the different ways to retrieve your e-mail. I concurred.

In my case, I must use at least four ways to get e-mail. Seems natural to me. Doesn't everybody do it this way?

For starters, let's talk about your e-mail client. This is typically your e-mail application — Eudora, Outlook Express and others.

To define the terms I will use, go to www.thelix.net/support/faq/email/emailtypes.htm and www.entergroup.com/clientcenter/emailtypes.fegml.

When setting up your e-mail client, you need to identify your SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) server. This is usually your ISP's mail server, which functions as the primary relay point for your mail. Once your client is configured for your SMTP server, most users then POP (Post Office Protocol) their mail into the client.

The e-mail is sent from the server to the client — and you can now read your e-mail from your computer.

A second way of accessing your e-mail is called IMAP (Internet Message Access Protocol). If your SMTP server supports this (and most do), instead of your mail getting sent to you, you read it directly off your server. This is increasingly beneficial when volumes of e-mail are a concern. Over a dial-up link and even a broadband connection, downloading can be excruciating.

The third way of accessing is called Web mail and is right from your Web browser. Not to be confused with your Web browser's e-mail client, Web mail accesses your e-mail as if you were accessing a Web site. I do that all the time when I travel and sometimes have to use an unfamiliar computer.

Lastly, for the hard-core geek in us, there is telnet and my favorite Unix program, Pine. This is called a shell account and is not recommended for the faint of heart. ;-)

Burt Lum is a click away at burt@brouhaha.net.