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<DOCID>Email_Clients_and_Basic_Protocols.doc.txt</DOCID>
<AUTHOR>Doug Anger</AUTHOR>
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While most people access their email exclusively through a web browser, there are more powerful programs called email clients that offer much more flexibility than most web-based systems. For readers familiar with email clients, this weeks column explains some of the functionality behind the software. For those who only access their email through the web, it explains how to set up an email client and use its basic features.

Why Email Clients?

Unlike web-based systems, email clients allow you to read and write emails on your computer without being connected to the Internet. (You must still connect to the Internet to send and receive those messages however.) This makes life easier for laptop users who do not always have an Ethernet cable to plug in and dialup users who dont want to tie up the phone line for hours just to read their email.

Another advantage to an email client is that it can connect to multiple email accounts simultaneously. Users with many email accounts can check them all at the same time with the click of a button.

POP, IMAP, and SMTP, Oh My!

Before we go into detail about how to set up an email client, it is important that we have at least a basic understanding of what exactly the program will be doing. There are three common protocols (methods of communication) that an email client can use to talk to an email server (the machine on the Internet that takes care of your email for you).



The Post Office Protocol (POP) and Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP) are two protocols for receiving messages from the server. It is very important to know the difference between them.



As its name implies, POP operates like a post office. When the email server receives a message for you, it holds on to it, just like a box at the post office. When your email client connects to the server, it uses your email password (similar to a key to the post office box) to take the messages away from the server and give them to you. Once the client has received the message, it is (generally) deleted from the server. Just like you cant go to the post office a second time and get mail that you have already taken, your email client cannot download mail a second time if it has been deleted from the email server. (You can instruct the server to keep copies of your messages for a certain period of time as we will discuss later.)



IMAP functions somewhat differently. As before, when the server receives a message for you, it just keeps it for you until you try to access it. As before, when your email client connects, a password is required before the server will give you your mail, but that is where the similarities end. Under, IMAP, you are only accessing the messages, not taking them away from the server. Upon logging in, your email client will compare your local inbox with that on the server and synchronize them. New mail on the server will be copied to your computer. Messages that have been moved or deleted on your computer will be moved or deleted on the server.



The third protocol we will be using is the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol. Most email clients use SMTP to send messages and POP or IMAP to receive them. When your email client connects to the server using SMTP, it first uses your password to prove that it is authorized to send email from your address and then sends the messages off to the server. The server then distributes them to the email servers of the recipients so that they can pick them up later as has been described above.

POP or IMAP?

When setting up an email client, one important consideration is which protocol to use for receiving email. In order to make this decision, you should consider several things. First, does the email server support one or both protocols? If the server only supports one or the other, you dont have a choice about which protocol youll be using.



Where you do have a choice, consider the following. In general, IMAP is a better choice where you have multiple computers connecting to the same email address. If you want to run an email client at home and at the office or on a laptop and a desktop, and you want them to stay synchronized, choose IMAP. If you have one computer that you want to manage the email, choose POP. POP can eliminate messages from the server when you download them so that you wont have to worry about quotas on storage space. 

Tutorial: Setting Up Your Laker Email In Thunderbird

This tutorial walks you through the process of setting up Thunderbird to work with your LSSU email.



Information from this tutorial can be applied to most email clients, but is specifically written for Mozilla Thunderbird, available from http://www.mozilla.com/. Thunderbird was chosen because it is free, powerful, extensible, and because it operates on Macintosh, Windows, Linux, and other common computer systems. Macintosh users should consider using Apples Mail, the authors mail program of choice on Mac OS X systems. Mail is included with all Mac OS X systems. Linux users should also consider Evolution, which handles email, address books, calendars, and other basic functions. Evolution is free software.



Begin by downloading Thunderbird from http://www.mozilla.com/ and following the instructions in the Installation wizard. Run Thunderbird. You should be asked if you want to set up an account. This will begin the New Account wizard.



If you already use Thunderbird for other email and just want to add your LSSU email as an account, you can access the New Account wizard by choosing Account Settings from the Tools menu and clicking the Add button in the lower left corner of the screen.



On the first screen, you will be asked what type of account you want to create. Choose Email account and click Continue.



Enter your name and LSSU email address on the Identity screen and click Continue.



On the Server Information screen, choose POP or IMAP. (See discussion above on which to choose.) Enter lakers.lssu.edu without quotes for the Incoming Server. If you chose POP, the Use Global Inbox checkbox allows you to store messages from more than one address in a single inbox on your computer. I recommend that you turn this off unless you know what youre doing.



If you are asked to specify an SMTP server, use lakers.lssu.edu.



On the User Names screen, leave the Incoming User Name as the first part of your LSSU email address. (I.e. the part before the @ symbol.)



You can type anything you want into Account Name as this only affects what the account will be called on your computer. I recommend something like LSSU Email.



Click Done to exit the confirmation screen.



Click on the Inbox on the left side of the main screen to see your email. You will be asked for your password. After you enter it, your email should start downloading.



Have fun!

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