RIVER BENDER - February, 2009

What is Webmail?

As far as I know, every Internet Service Provider (ISP) provides members with access to webmail. It allows you to access, send, receive and manage e-mail at your provider rather than through the e-mail program in your PC such as Microsoft's Outlook Express. If you're taking a trip it also allows you to access e-mail from any computer that has Internet access. You can always use a PC in a library. Another advantage is that webmail allows you to see mail waiting at your service provider before downloading it to your PC, thus you're able to delete mail you don't want, a blessing for slow dial-up users.

How to access Webmail at your service provider.

Go to your ISP's home webpage and you'll usually see somewhere on the page a place to login to e-mail or webmail. You'll need to know your user name and password. Your user name is usually the first part of your e-mail address before @ and the password is what you gave to your provider when you signed up. If you forgot the password you'll have to contact the provider and get a new one. Since most folks in New Bern use Suddenlink or Embarq high-speed service they will need to access http://suddenlink.net or http://embarq.com to access webmail.

Free WebMail and free Internet access.

Besides webmail that comes with a paid service provider account, everyone with Internet access can access free webmail such as Yahoo, Hotmail and G-mail by establishing an account with them. Google up the address. These accounts require you to manage e-mail entirely in webmail and the only way you can get mail sent to your PC is to forward it to your regular e-mail address. Some free webmail accounts also provides free dial-up Internet access of about 10 hours per month. They do this by displaying ads that slow down displays but at least you'll have a way to access Internet when your regular service goes down. Google "free Juno" or "free Netzero." They are both provided by the same company and work good as an Internet backup.

WebMail for e-mail group lists.

Most people are not aware that some ISPs' webmail can be used to create e-mail lists such as RBmail in River Bend, but one must get permission from the service provider and obtain a special user name and password. Always-Online has been gracious enough to host the RBmail, NBCUG, NBCC and the Pickin lists in webmail for many years at no charge. We'll be in trouble if they ever go of business because providers like Suddenlink or Embarq will probably not host e-mail lists for free. However, Yahoo allows one to create a free group list as was done in River Bend's "RBfree" at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/rbfree/ but it doesn't have all the features of an ISP's webmail.

Check your webmail.

If you use MS Outlook Express or a similar mail program in your PC you may have never bothered to access webmail but you should. There could be legitimate mail there that you don't know about because your provider's antispam software decided it was spam and stuck it in a spam folder. If this happens you can usually re-label it as not spam so it won't happen again. Everybody should check webmail periodically.