Before you can send/receive/manage emails you may be required to do
some initial client setup.
Desktop based clients like thunderbird/outlook express will require setting
up before you can use them for sending and receiving email. For this reason they
are not the preferred client for accessing email when you are in a different
location unless you are using them on your own laptop.
However they are the preferred method when using them from home based/office
based computers (including laptops).
Regardless of the client the information that you need to setup the client is
basically the same and consists of:
SMTP server- This sever is used to send email.
POP3 or Imap4 server-This server is used to receive email.
Account name - This is your login name to receive
email.
Account password -This is your login password to
receive email.
Email Address- This is used to set the from address when sending email
These details will be provided by your email provider/ISP and some
you will need to decide yourself (e.g. password, email address and
Account name). The screen shot below shows how 1and1.co.uk provides
these details.
You should notice that to send email using SMTP you require
authentication this uses the same name/password combination as for
receiving (see SMTP overview for
more details).
To illustrate the process here is a video on how to setup Outlook
Express.
Webmail Setup
If you use a web browser to access your email then you don't need to worry
about sending/receiving protocols and setup. All you need is the URL (web
address) used to access your mail which you can usually access from your email
providers website.