Outlook Express
Other Useful features: Changing Outlook Express Default options
Read tab
This tab is mostly related to newsgroups, options will be discussed later.
"Message is read after being previewed for.." will let you set the time required for an unread message to turn into read. Click on any unread message in your inbox, after 5 sec the envelope is opened and the message turns into Read -even if you don't read it-
If you want to extend the time between Unread-Read simply increase the number of seconds in the specified field.
When you receive picture attachments, Outlook Express can display the picture within the message body at the end. "Automatically show picture attachments in messages"
Check "Show multiple pictures as slide-show" and Outlook Express will display multiple picture attachments one after another as a Slide-show.
If you want to use a special font for reading your messages, press Fonts.. button
at Font Settings, change Proportional fonts, Font size.
International settings for language will be discussed in the advanced tutorial.
Spelling tab
At General Options, set outlook express to "Always check spelling before sending" and
"Always suggest replacements for misspelled words".
Specify a dictionary language under Language (English US, UK , French).
You might not want Outlook Express to spell check words in Uppercase, Words with numbers or Internet addresses. Set your preferences under "When checking, always ignore".
To quickly spell check a message press F7 on your keyboard. Note that Spell Check (Tools>>Spelling) will be disabled (gray) unless you've installed Microsoft office (Word, Excel).
Security tab
Later in this tutorial, you will learn how to secure your messages and protect yourself from malicious acts.
Dial up tab
Specify which connection to dial when Outlook starts, it's recommended to check
"Do not dial a connection" or "Ask me if you would like to dial a connection".
The second option "Dial this connection" will dial your ISP every time your launch Outlook Express. We will see later how to use more than one connection and install more than one email account.
If you want Outlook Express to disconnect after sending/receiving messages simply check "Hang up when finished..."
To automatically dial your ISP every time you press Send and Receive, simply check "Automatically dial when checking for new messages". Remember to save your password.
Advanced tab
All messages -whether downloaded from newsgroups (as we will see later) or received from mail server- are stored on your hard drive. As you receive messages, all folders increase in size, especially Inbox.
Outbox is always empty when you don't have anything to send, just r-click Outbox
and select Properties, you'll read 0 messages ( x KB), 0 unread.
Notice that x is not equal to 0 although the Outbox is empty. By pressing on Clean Up Now you will set Outbox back to 0KB, clean all folders and restore wasted space thus gain lots of KBs. Outlook Express will now perform faster.
Tell Outlook Express to automatically clean folder's when the quota is exceeded.
The default is 20 percent.
In the advanced tutorial you will learn how to track errors in Outlook Express by storing files (called log files) on your computer.