WiFi Savvy

If you use client-based email like Outlook, Outlook Express, Windows Mail, Eudora, or Entourage, you may experience trouble sending email from Wi-Fi hotspots. If you missed my introduction to client-based email vs. web-based email, please read Email Choices on the Road first. In today’s article I will go into detail on how to properly configure your email client for outgoing email.

The first thing to understand is that receiving email and sending email are two separate processes handled by different servers. People ask me all the time, “I receive my email just fine, so why can’t I send?”

On the Internet’s email system, the place where you receive your email is usually a ‘POP’ server which stands for ‘Post Office Protocol.’ You will receive your email at the POP server for your email provider. Sending email is handled by a different server, called SMTP for Simple Mail Transfer Protocol. It used to be that you could send email by dropping it into any old SMTP server (just like a regular postal mailbox.) SMTP servers all over the Internet would accept any email given to them, and happily send it on.

All that has changed because of spam. Most SMTP servers have locked down and will now only accept email from known customers for fear of being liable for sending spam. Proving that you’re a known customer is called ‘Authenticating.’ You must now provide a username and password to the outgoing server (SMTP) as well as the incoming. This is done with settings in your email client software. I will use Outlook as my example. Detailed instructions for other software are included with many of the links later in the article.

When you are at home and you are connected to your home ISP (Internet Service Provider), your Outlook SMTP setting is probably also set to your ISP. You are authenticated to them because you are logged in to their service. They know who you are and they are happy to deliver your email.

When you are on the road and using a Wi-Fi signal to connect to the Internet - your home SMTP setting probably won’t work since you’re not connecting thru your home ISP, they don’t know you. They see you simply as some Internet connection from an RV park or a coffee shop somewhere far away. Without some authentication, they refuse to deliver your email.

There is an advanced setting in Outlook ‘Accounts’ under ‘Outgoing Server’ that can help … First click on Tools, Accounts or Account Settings, select the account you want to work on and click Change or Properties. You should see a button for More Settings … find and check the box that says “My Outgoing Server (SMTP) requires authentication” and “Use same settings as my incoming mail server”. This will solve the problem in many situations, but not all.

I hope you’re not too confused yet because there’s more! When email gets sent from your computer it passes through an imaginary doorway called a ‘port.’ The normal port for this process is number 25. Sometimes that port will be blocked entirely. Whether you’re authenticated or not, your email just can’t get out. There are other port numbers available, but only your email provider can specify which one to use, so you must get this information from them. Usually, you can find this information on their website. Sometimes you need to call.

In our work supporting Wi-Fi hotspots in RV parks for the last 4 years, my husband and I have helped many RVers to send their email. We always need to look up the settings for each person’s email provider. Below, I have links to helpful instructions for many such providers.

Outlook Express setup instructions for Comcast.net
SMTP settings for Earthlink
AOL Open Mail Access
Gmail setup instructions for several different email clients
Cox.net email setup instructions
Juno.com: Using Authenticated SMTP
AT&T-Yahoo-SBCGlobal email setup instructions
Email hosted by GoDaddy.com
Email hosted by 1and1.com

If you’re only away from home occasionally, using Webmail is the best way to go. You visit the website that your email provider offers and log into your mailbox. Since you’re logged in there - it knows who you are and will happily deliver your email.

If you really want to use a client-based email software and none of the above settings help,there is one more option. Use a different SMTP server.

For example, I have an email address (@jimandchris.com) from long ago using a little-known host. I can receive the emails no problem using the settings @jimandchris.com, but I cannot send using the jimandchris SMTP server no matter how I change the settings. So .. for the SMTP settings, I don’t use the server supplied with the jimandchris.com account. I use the SMTP server settings from one that works - like Gmail. If you do this, just make sure that you do not check ‘use same settings as my incoming mail server.’ You’ll need to Log on using the name and password for the SMTP server.

The WiFi hotspot may also have their own SMTP server that will work when you are using their network. Just remember to change it back when you leave there.

Chris Guld
www.GeeksOnTour.com

Gmail is Google’s free email service. You can get your own email address, for example: SuzyRVer@gmail.com. You can use the gmail website to create, send, receive and manage your email from any Internet connected computer. Or, you can use your client-based email program, such as Outlook, to create, send, receive and manage your email. You can even have gmail fetch emails from other addresses.

There are other free email services that can do all this, but I trust Google products to work better than most. And, once you have a gmail account, you have access to all the other great free stuff that Google offers like the Calendar, Picasa Web Albums, and Blogger. I have been accused of being a Google evangelist, I just love their stuff. It seems all the seminars we teach revolve around one Google product or another. No, I don’t own Google stock! I just wish I did.

Signing up for a Gmail account is easy, just go to www.gmail.com and click on the link to ‘Sign up for Gmail.’ As soon as you’ve filled out the form, you have a gmail account. You can watch my short video on how to sign up for gmail.

Once you have the account, you instantly have an online inbox. You can tell people your new email address and start receiving and sending emails right away. It really is that simple.

In order to receive your gmail on your computer and be able to compose and read email offline, you have a little more work to do. This capability is called ‘POP’ access which I explained in last week’s blog post. Gmail also provides IMAP access, which is another, more sophisticatd way to get email on your computer. In either case, you must first turn the feature ON in Gmail. Just click on the menu option for ‘Settings’ then the tab for Forwarding and POP/IMAP.

You’re not done yet. Now you need to tell your computer’s email software about your gmail account. Your email client software, e.g. Outlook, Outlook Express, Windows Mail, Eudora or Thunderbird, needs to know where to go on the Internet to find your gmail and what servers to use to send your email. It’s not hard, but you do need to follow the directions exactly. Gmail has help on doing this for each software.

When you’re done, you now can receive your email on your computer any time you are online. Then you can read it at your leisure offline, reply to whatever you want, and compose new email offline. The next time you are online, all the email you wrote will be sent.

If you find yourself in a situation where your computer can’t get online, but you have access to some other connected computer, you can go to gmail.com, log in to your account and read or send email there.

Chris Guld
www.GeeksOnTour.com