The days of carrying around floppy disks when using computers in campus labs can be over – courtesy of free e-mail accounts accessible by any computers connected to the Web.
That’s right – no more fumbling for disks or carrying them around in the freezing cold or stifling heat, wondering if the disk will go bad.
Setting up an account is simple. Querying “Free E-Mail” in a popular search engine such as Yahoo provides a list of the dozens of free e-mail providers.
After a user has chosen a provider, they enter the necessary personal information, choose a username and password, and are on their way.
Using disks to save the files they work on at school, and loading the files they bring from home are probably the most common ways students use disks.
With a Web-based account that is accessible from an Internet-ready campus computer, students can skip the hassle.
Utilizing the freedom of free e-mail, students can mail documents, pictures or pretty much anything else that can be sent through e-mail to themselves and then access it on the Web.
From there, the files can be opened or saved to the computer the student is using.
When writing something for school, students can even skip the necessity of a file entirely.
Work saved at home in a word-processing file can be copied and pasted into the text of a self-addressed e-mail.
A student can then reverse the process at a campus computer, copying and pasting the text of the e-mail into a program.
Access your OSU account from anywhereMany students are also under the impression that disks are the only way they can access their OSU e-mail accounts while on campus. To use Eudora Pro from a campus computer lab, users are required to have a floppy disk that saves their account settings and the e-mail they receive.
As an alternative to using a disk for Eudora Pro, some students use Web sites like MailStart or Mail Chek, through which an OSU account (or any other account) can be checked for new e-mail.
However, users have to pay to receive the full services and cannot send e-mail. At MailStart, the fee is $10 per year. Otherwise, users can check their mail once a week.
Fortunately, this can be avoided. Free e-mail accounts also allow users to receive mail from other domains.
Configuring a free e-mail account such as Hotmail or Yahoo! Mail to check your OSU e-mail is relatively simple.
After registering and setting up an account, all a user needs to do is enter the appropriate server information. For example, in Hotmail, after selecting “account options,” the user should select “POP Mail Retrieval Settings.” Users are then required to enter a POP server, or Post Office Protocol settings.
For OSU, the server is pop.service.ohio-state.edu.
After that, users fill in their OSU username and password. Now, access to OSU email accounts from any computer connected to the web is just a seconds away. Simply click on “POP Mail” under the Hotmail Services area.
One great advantage of this retrieval system is it lets users check multiple e-mail acounts. Hotmail allows users to retrieve e-mail from four different accounts.
The best part is its free, and there are no limitations on how many times this service can be used.
America Online users can access their mail remotely from AOL’s Web site.
Free e-mail providerswww.hotmail.com – Hotmail mail.yahoo.com – Yahoo! Mailcomm.lycos.com – Lycos Mail
Check your e-mail without a free accountwww.mailstart.com – MailStart web.synacor.com – Mail Chek
