For many people, when you setup a new website, it also means you get a shiny new email address. Something like you@your-website.com. Recently however we've found that people have been getting confused when setting up their smart phones, laptops, desktops and tablets with their new email accounts. Given this, we're publish a brief crash course on how email works and what you need to do to make sure you digital world continues to run like clockwork.

First up, let's start by looking at the picture above. This is a diagram which illustrates what happens when "you" send and receive an email.

The first thing to note is that "sending" and "receiving" have nothing to do with each other. For this reason, I've highlighted the two actions in different colours.

Sending an Email

Strangely enough, when we send our clients instructions about how to setup their new email account, "sending emails" seems to be the area they have the most problems with. This is possibly because when we send these instructions, we don't know what settings you need to use as it relates to whomever you use to connect to the Internet i.e. your ISP (e.g. Big Pond).

Ideally if you had just the one computer that sits on a desk and never ever moves then setting up your email account to send emails is pretty simple. This is because you will always be using the same connection to connect to the Internet. All you need to do is make sure you set your SMTP settings to match up with your ISP's SMTP address. I may have lost you with that last part but don't worry, I'll elaborate.

In your account settings in Outlook (or Outlook Express, or Mac Mail, or Thunderbird, or Windows Mail, or Whatever) you'll see a field that says something about SMTP. You'll need to either contact your ISP to find out what to put in here or if you're lucky, I've added it for you below. Just look for your ISP's name.

If you couldn't find your ISP above, MelbourneIT have a even bigger list that may help.

Now, if you're also looking at sending emails from your phone or a laptop, things can get a little more complex. This is because you'll probably be changing your Internet connection depending upon where you're working at the time. For many people this means you may end up finding you can only "send" some of the time (like only when you're at work). Not to fear though, there are a couple of ways around this.

If you are in this scenario, you have two options:

1. Find your nearest geek and put them to work. They'll be able to help you either authenticate your SMTP account, hook you up through a 3rd party service, wire you in through a VPN or several other options. None which I'll cover here.

2. If you're fresh out of geeks, then Google can help. They have a service you can use that will work no mater who you connect to the Internet through. It is a little trickier to setup but this website has some instructions which are nice and easy to follow. Just make sure you have a Google Account before you start.

Failing all of this - call your ISP. If you're not paying for a budget Internet service,  you'll probably find the person you speak to on their help desk to be very helpful. If you are paying for a budget service.... well, good luck..!

Receiving an Email

This is where we come in! If we "completely" manage your hosting, we will have sent you some POP3 details which you can enter into your email program. Chances are that's all you'll ever need to do and you'll be set.

If you think there is a problem, it may be for a few different reasons. Whatever the reason, there are two things you can do to test if everything is working:

1. Check your webmail. You can do this by going to http://webmail.your-website.com (replace the words "your-website.com" with your own web address). You can then use your email address and password to log in.

2. If the trick above didn't work, you can also visit this site: http://mail2web.com/

It will allow you to test the settings we've sent you are all correct. Just click on the "Advanced Login" link and enter your POP3 address (this website calls it the Server Address), your username (which is your full email address) and your password.

If you can log in, it means that the account is working fine and you may need to find that geek we spoke about earlier. Failing that, you can always give us a buzz and one of the team in here will be able to give you a little more assistance.

The Wrap

So there you are; Sending and Receiving Emails 101. I hope you all kept notes because there'll be a test later.

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