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To access the contents, click the chapter and section titles.
Complete Idiot's Guide to Linux
Configuring Your Identity for Netscape MessengerIn the identity panel, you provide information that will be included in your email, such as your real name and your email address (see following figure).
Configuring Your Mail ServerThe next step in configuring your email program is to configure your mail servers so that Messenger can receive and send your email (see the following figure). Information to be entered here includes:
Reading EmailAfter configuring your identity and mail server settings, Messenger is ready to send and receive email. To start a Messenger session, choose the Messenger Mailbox command under the Communicator menu in a Navigator window. Messenger displays four main areas (from top to bottom):
See the following figure for a description of the most important buttons and areas. Different buttons in the Messenger window include:
You can also organize your messages into different boxes. To select a different message box, click the Inbox menu.
Composing an Email MessageSending email is just as easy as reading email. To send a message, click the New Msg button (see the previous figure). This will present you with a window where you can compose and address an email message like the one shown in the following figure. When done composing a message, click Send Now to forward your email message to your mail server for delivery.
Kmail is very similar in interface to Netscapes Messenger component. However, at the moment, Messenger is a more polished product with better tools and features. NewsIf you have time to wander through Usenet, no doubt you will find a lot of useful and useless stuff. If you want to surf, youll need a decent news reader. Again, the choices for you are several: under KDE you have knews, and under any X-Windows, including KDE, you have Netscapes Collabra.
Collabra doesnt make too much of a distinction between email and news. Although the configuration to access them is different, the result is similar. You use Collabra to subscribe to newsgroups that interest you, and then you use Messenger to read and post messages. Before you can read news, however, you need to download a list of what messages are available. When you click on one of them, the message is then downloaded and you can view it. If you want to post a message, you compose one basically like you compose an email message, but instead it is posted to a news server. From there the message is disseminated around the globe. Configuring your system to use news is simple: You connect to a news server (nntp server; the name of this machine is provided by your ISP), and you download a very long and large list of newsgroups available from that server. (There are thousands and thousands of different groups.) You then select all the groups that interest you and start reading (see the next three figures). As a sanity check, you might want to assign an amount of time per day that you want to do this. Its very easy to get caught up in news reading and not realize that hours have flown by. As a choice, I tend not to look at newsgroups unless I am searching for specific information. Several years ago, I used to spend more than anyones share reading news. Today I try to stay away; its easy to get caught up in the noise. If your ISP serves news under a special port, enter in the Port space; otherwise leave the default 119. Organizations also use news to distribute information. Some of these newsgroups are only available through a secure server that requires authentication; if your news server requires this, check the Secure checkbox next to the Port space.
If you know the name of a newsgroup that interests you, type it next to Discussion Group and click Join.
Use the Reply button to reply to a posting. If you hold it down, a menu will allow you to choose the reply method: to the group, to the poster, or to a combination of the two. A posting listed in bold indicates it hasnt been read yet. TelnetTelnet is an additional way to interact with another computer on the Internet. It is a command line[nd]only program that allows you to access a remote UNIX-like computer through a command line interface. Telnet is discussed in Chapter 17, Command Toolbox: Usefull Shell Commands and Shortcuts.
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