Monterey Bay Internet
Netscape Mail Configuration
If you use Netscape to browse the WWW, you can also use version 2.0 and above
to read your E-mail. The configuration is fairly simple. If you cannot follow
these directions exactly due to differences in your version of
Netscape, please approximate. Although these pictures are from a Macintosh,
they should properly illustrate the settings for Windows users.
To use these directions, you will need:
- An account with Monterey Bay Internet.
- Your Monterey Bay Internet username (example: fred) and password.
- A copy of the Netscape Navigator web browser, version 2.0 or later (3.0
or 3.01 recommended).
If you don't have all of these things, you will need to get them before
following these directions. Call 642-6100 to get an account, and point your
current web browser at
Netscape's web
site to get the latest version of Netscape. Once you have all these
things, you are ready to proceed.
- Start up Netscape.
- At the top of the window, select Options and pull down
the menu.
- Select Mail and News Preferences or possibly just Mail
Preferences.
![[Picture of 'Servers' Settings]](servers.gif)
- You should see several different sections, or "tabs," of options.
You should select Servers first.
- Both the Outgoing Mail (SMTP) Server and the
Incoming Mail (POP/POP3) Server should be set to
mail.mbay.net or mailhost.mbay.net (either will work).
- POP User ID should be set to your user id, aka your
username or login name. It's part of your email address. If your email address
is fred@mbay.net, then you would type in fred. Do not put fred.ppp or
fred@mbay.net here.
- For the rest of the settings, we recommend no maximum message size,
removing the messages from our server after copying them to the local disk, and
do not have Netscape check for mail automatically (i.e. select Never
and check it manually). If you are interested in reading Usenet news, the news
server is news.mbay.net.
- After you're finished with Servers, select
Identity.
![[Picture of 'Identity' Settings]](identity.gif)
- You can put whatever you want under Your
Name: your full name, first name, nickname, company name, favorite
book
character.. whatever. Your Email must be set to your email
address, i.e. fred@mbay.net, or else people will not be able to
correctly reply to the messages which you send them.
Organization could be Monterey Bay Internet, your company or
organization, or even something like 'Me? Organized? Surely you jest.' --
this is
another one which has no wrong answer.
(Note: If you or your company have a domain with us, then you
may set Your Email to fredsmith@yourcompany.com, for
example, but the information in the Servers tab must be set as
described.
- You can leave Signature File set to none, or you can set one.
This is a plain text file that gets tacked to the end of every message you
send. Internet
conventions of politeness (aka netiquette) state that it should be four lines long.
Some people have to pay by the kilobyte for the email that they receive, or by the hour
for the time that it takes them to download the email (which is nearly the same as
having to pay by the kilobyte, since download time depends on file size). Putting in a
signature file that's three times as long as your message could get those people very
annoyed.
- Once you are done with Identity, select Organization. This
is another "tab" and is different from the Organization field on the Identity
tab.
![[Picture of 'Organization' Settings]](organization.gif)
- All of the settings on this screen (as with Appearance and Compose) are
optional. It will work fine if you never touch this screen. You can sort mail
and news messages by whatever method you prefer, and the "threading" of mail
and news that you can set here refers to organizing the messages by "threads"
of topics and replies (something which is popular for news, and might be
useful if you subscribe to a mailing list, or want to keep track of your email
conversations). It's optional.
- There is one item on this page which will be
particularly important to some users, however: the Save Password or
Remember Mail Password checkbox. If you would like Netscape to remember
your password for you, check this box and you won't have to re-type it unless
you change it. Be warned that this will let anyone who sits down in front of
your computer possibly check your email without knowing your password. If you
are worried about security, you should not check this box, and type your
password each time instead.
- Netscape should be configured to send and read mail through us now. You can go ahead
and hit OK, and go up to Window and select
Netscape Mail to check your mail. If you have any problems, please
be prepared to give detailed descriptions of what happens and what error messages you
receive when you call, and know your user id and your password. (Netscape mail will ask you for your password the first time even if you ask it to remember it, since it needs to know what to remember.)