Using
E-mail on the Road
Email is a wonderful, cost
saving and easy tool to use whether it be for business or
pleasure. Sometimes though it can be a little daunting, especially
when away from home. A few years ago we read a report that is both
sad and funny that said 'we know we are living in the '90s
when we no longer speak to our parents because they don't
have email ! Already now in the 21st Century email has grown
more important than ever to such an extent that it can be psychologically
damaging in that is becoming more and more difficult to get
away from it all ?
Therefore
some of the tips and guides
below will help you with those problems, and make life
on the road that little bit easier. Please also read our
article on Email
Security when travelling.
Roaming
Most
ISP (Internet Service Providers) will provide you with a roaming
service at a cost. This normally charges a connect fee and
then per minute, but allows you to connect through the local
telephone lines in whichever country you may be. This may
sound expensive but really, if you want to log on directly
to the Internet yourself then this is the cheaper option.
The other choice is to make a long distance call and connect
through that.
The
ISP and roaming service will normally work with
GRIC and/or
IPASS
who provide the local telephone numbers to be dialed when
in the country that you are travelling to. They even have
a downloadable dialer that contains all the different numbers
around the world, saving you the effort of remembering them
all.
Trouble Shoot Roaming
Make
sure that you have entered the correct telephone number to
be dialed.
Make
sure that the you have changed the country setting of you
modem.
Make
sure that you have changed your location status, in you dialer;
I am now in .......
Check
that any local numbers for an outside number have been entered,
such as 0 or 9 and that there is a comma (meaning pause) between
that and the actual number to be dialed.
Does
you ISP use a proxy server ? If so disable that function
accordingly; in most countries they do not.
If
all this fails then call the local help number of the local
service you are calling.
Strangely most of these local help numbers will ask you for
your password. Do NOT give it, just try and work out where
the problem lies.
If
after this you still cannot connect then you will wish you
had read below before your trip.
Guarantee your Presence
No
matter whether you are a computer genius or not, the most
important is that you stay connected, and continue to receive
your emails whilst away. Who knows when that long awaited
and urgent contract will come through. It is therefore strongly
recommended to use the following guidelines whether you successfully
connect whilst roaming or not.
Start
a new email. This can
easily be done from one of the many thousands of free e-mail
companies out there. We have all heard of Yahoo,
Hotmail
etc. etc
Yahoo
is by far the best in our humble experience.
Go to one of these and register to receive a free e-mail
address. BE SURE to click that you do not want to be
solicited by companies otherwise you will receive emails that
clog up your system and do not mean anything. Yahoo is very
good at this and have a very strong anti spam policy with
nothing coming through, they have even now set up two
separate IN-folders, one for normal e-mail and another that
picks out what it feels is spam and then puts it into a bulk
folder. If you do start receiving junk (from people
other than your friends) then just send the email provider
an e-mail explaining that you are unhappy with this and want
it to stop. If nothing happens, simply go somewhere else and
get a new address.
This
e-mail will normally provide you with all the standard services,
6MB of email space, forwarding, auto reply, paging, etc. etc.
Yahoo is one of the most advanced in the novelty aspect though.
Once
you have this new email
then all you have to do is start mail forwarding from your
ISP (normal e-mail address) to your new email
address. This means that whenever you receive an email to
your normal address, it will be saved there and also sent
on to your other new e-mail address. It should be easy to
start the forwarding process. Normally it can be done from
the ISP web site, however if you have any problems then just
call your ISP help line and I am sure that they will be able
to help.
The
advantage of doing this
is enormous. If you can't log on to your own
account, then at least you can use somebody else's
computer, such as the business centre and just
go to www.yahoo.com
or your wherever your new email address web page is,
in order to receive all your own email. Using someone
else's computer though does have enormous security risks.
Please also read our article on Email
Security when travelling.
Just
remember that e-mail is never
really confidential unless you are using encrypted software
such as PGP, so if you do have to say something about your
boss be nice !
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