Date: Thu, 12 Sep 2013 23:06:48 -0400
From: "Mike B." <yahoo at omniphile.com>
To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at KeithLynch.net>
Subject: [WSFA] Re: yahoo, thunderbird, etc.
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at KeithLynch.net>

On 9/12/2013 8:41 PM, Tamar Lindsay wrote:
> People have been recommending Thunderbird to me for years.  I tried it but I could never make it do anything.  it is not user-friendly to me.
> So far, Yahoo has worked.

Yahoo is just a web site, so it's pretty simple to set up...enter the
URL into a web browser and you are there.

Thunderbird, or any other e-mail software, is a program running on your
system, like your web browser does, and to get to your mail, or to send
mail, you have to tell it some things.  Most of those things your ISP
should supply you with...like the address of the incoming mail server
(DNS name and port number), the name of the outgoing mail server, your
account information (like a username and password), etc.  That stuff has
to be set up in Thunderbird so it knows who to talk to, and how to get
the mail server to talk to it.

The specifics vary with the ISP setup, whether you are using POP or IMAP
for mail access (POP downloads the mail to your computer for reading and
usually deletes it from the mail server (though that's typically
optional), IMAP leaves it on the server in your mail account and you
just get a temporary copy to read).

Some ISPs provide specific instructions, like these:
http://products.secureserver.net/email/email_thunderbird.htm

Of course, all of this assumes you have an ISP that provides e-mail
service...I think most do, but you never know.  Verizon is my ISP, and
they supply e-mail service, but I don't use it...they've proven too
clueless in the past, and I may have a different hookup someday and
would rather just use my own domain name so nothing has to change if I
move.  I have e-mail through another ISP, where I also have web space. YMMV.

-- Mike B.