Electronic Mail is used to transmit text based information (messages) from one place to another. You can use the e-mail facilities built into Internet Explorer or Netscape Navigator, or you can use a separate e-mail client. Some examples of these are Eudora and Pegasus Mail. The stand-alone clients offer extended features for the sending and receiving of e-mail. Most e-mail clients also have the ability to "attach" files to messages. So for example, if you wanted to send a message to a friend and include a picture of yourself, you can attach the picture to the message (in an electronic format such as .JPG or .GIF). You can also "carbon copy" your messages to a number of people at once, or "forward" any messages to other recipients.

Each e-mail client has its own unique look and setup features, but as far as the technical details go, they should all ask for the same basic information. If you are trying to configure an e-mail client, look for its setup or options section in its menus. In there it will ask you for 3 main pieces of information. These are:

• SMTP Server SMTP stands for Simple Mail Transfer Protocol. This is the language e-mail systems use to send mail.
• POP3 Server POP3 stands for Post Office Protocol. It’s the language used to pick up mail. Both of these should be mail.durham.net.
• POP3 Username This is your user id. So if you signed up as "joeblow", this is what you enter here.

Below are samples from 2 popular E-Mail clients, Eudora and Netscape Mail. Note the differences in the way each is configured. Eudora wants the entire email address and server name all in one (fred@mail.durham.net) whereas Netscape asks for each item seperately:

Eudora v1.5.4

Netscape Mail v3.01

Other E-Mail clients such as Microsoft Internet Mail or Exchange work much the same way. If you get lost when trying to configure an email client, you can call our support number for assistance.