Date: Sun, 8 Jul 2001 20:53:33 -0400
Reply-To: TOURBUS-Request@LISTSERV.AOL.COM
Sender: The Internet TourBus - A virtual tour of cyberspace
Comments: Resent-From: crispen@netsquirrel.com
Comments: Originally-From: Patrick Douglas Crispen
From: Patrick Douglas Crispen
Subject: TOURBUS -- 8 JULY 01 -- MAIL2WEB / DEATH TO STARTCENTER!
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
----------------------------------------------------------------------
TOURBUS Volume 6, Number 93 -- 8 July 2001
----------------------------------------------------------------------
_________ ____________ ________ __________ _____________ ___ _
/ | / | | / | \
| Like the TOURBUS? You'll Love THE POCKET INTERNET / | \
|__________|__________/__________|__________|___________/_____| \
/ |----\
| Tad and I (two Irish/Am lads) have been hunting down the |////|
| most useful and fascinating Web sites, Sounds, Executables, |////|
| Downloads, Greeting Cards, & Cool Products since 1996. Our |////|
| FREE monthly newsletter will keep you on the Internet's |////|
| cutting edge. Hey, we fell in love with the Internet from |////|
| day one. So, stop on by after you get off the bus. All the |////|
| best, George. |////|
| |////|
| Click Here |////|
\_______________________________________________________________|____|
/ \ / \ / \
\___/ \___/ T h e I n t e r n e t T o u r B u s \___/
FIVE YEARS of Searchable Archives at http://www.TOURBUS.com !!
TODAY'S TOURBUS STOP(S):
Mail2Web / Death to StartCenter!
TODAY'S TOURBUS ADDRESS(ES):
http://www.mail2web.com/
Howdy, y'all, and greetings once again from the beautiful city of
Tuscaloosa, Alabama, home of The Hague. :)
TOURBUS is made possible by the kind support of our sponsors. PLEASE
take a moment to thank each of our sponsors for keeping our little bus
of Internet happiness on the road week after week.
+------------ *FREE* *FREE* INKJET CARTRIDGES ------------+
BUY 1 GET 2 FREE ON ALL EPSON AND MOST CANON. WOULD LOVE TO GIVE
THEM ALL AWAY BUT THE BOSS WON'T LET ME. SEPARATE PRICING FOR HP
AND LEXMARK. CALL TOLL FREE 877-906-2884 OR CLICK HERE FOR COMPLETE
LIST OF CARTRIDGES AND INFORMATION.
CLICK!
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
On with the show ...
--------
Mail2Web
--------
How many different ways are there for you to check your email? If you
have a free email account through Hotmail or Yahoo, the answer is
probably "a squillion." After all, these "Web-mail" services let you
check your e-mail from any Web browser on any computer in the world.
That's the good news. The bad news is that Hotmail and similar Web-
mail services are free for a reason: they don't offer many bells and
whistles and they are often cluttered with annoying advertisements.
If you want bells and whistles, you need to use a POP3 email client
program like Microsoft's Outlook or Qualcomm's Eudora. Unlike Hotmail
which forces you to login to a particular Web site to read your email,
POP3 email programs like Eudora automatically download all of your
incoming email to your hard drive. You can then disconnect from the
Internet and read and respond to your emails at your own leisure.
And, best of all, POP-3 email programs let you customize the living
heck out of them so that you can create your own mail folders, address
lists, and even filters that meet your particular needs. [Interested
in getting a POP3 email account? Talk to your Internet Service
Provider or your company's helpdesk. Chances are you already have a
POP3 email account and don't know it ... especially if you use Outlook
or Eudora, the two most popular POP3 email programs on the planet.]
So, POP3 email programs are overflowing with bells and whistles.
That's the good news. The bad news is that once you have configured
Eudora or Outlook to send and receive your e-mail, it is darned near
impossible for you to check your e-mail using any other computer other
then your own. Out of town, want to check your corporate or personal
POP-3 email account, and don't have your computer with you? Tough
luck, Chester.
Actually, you can still check corporate or personal POP-3 e-mail
accounts through Hotmail, but it takes a little set up. Click on the
Options link in the Navigation Bar, and then click on the POP Mail
link. The rest is pretty self-explanatory.
Before you do that, though, check out Mail2Web instead:
http://www.mail2web.com/ .
Mail2Web is a free Web site, accessible from any Web browser in the
world, that lets you check the contents of any POP3 e-mail account so
long as you know that account's email address and email (login)
password. In other words, if you use Outlook or Eudora (or any of the
hundreds of POP-3 email programs out there) and want to check your
email when you are away from your computer, this site will let you do
it ... for free. Oh, and better still, unlike Hotmail, Mail2Web
doesn't require you to send scads of personal information to Bill
Gates before you can use the service. :)
Since Mail2Web is only a Web interface -- it shows you the contents of
your email inbox without actually "popping" the mail -- you can read
your emails on a remote computer and then, when you return to your own
computer, download all of those emails just like normal. Mail2Web
also lets you reply to and even delete any or all of the emails in
your inbox before you ever even download them with your regular email
program.
That last point is important. Using Mail2Web, you can delete any or
all emails in your inbox before you ever even download those emails.
Why is this important? Well, have you ever had a "friend" send you a
27 kajillion byte uncompressed bitmap of a squirrel drinking a beer
with a straw? Did the file take 57 years to download? Using
Mail2Web, you can keep this from happening again. Just go to Mail2Web
and delete that hideously large email. The file goes away, and you
never have to download it. Yay!
So, to sum up, Mail2Web is a free site that lets you check your POP3
email account from any Web-enabled computer in the world. This is
great for anyone who is going to be away from their computer for a
while or for anyone who wants to delete messages from their inbox
before ever even downloading them. Neat, huh?
[By the way, Mail2Web *WON'T* work with AOL email accounts because
AOL's email isn't POP3 compliant. But, if you are on the road and
want to check your AOL email, just find someone who has AOL loaded on
their computer, login as a "guest," key in your screen name and
password, and you are off to the races.]
---------------------
Death to StartCenter!
---------------------
Imagine if the automobile manufacturers started creating engines that
couldn't be completely shut off, engines that were always running so
that your car would always be ready to drive, eliminating the annoying
and time-consuming hassle of having to put a key in the ignition and
start the engine. This sounds all fine and dandy until you start to
think about how long it actually takes you to start your car. Why run
your engine 24-7 to save yourself the THREE SECONDS it takes to start
your car?!
Software manufacturers don't seem to understand this logic. Install a
piece of software on your computer, and many software manufacturers
will automatically install a second program on your computer that runs
24 hours a day, seven days a week. What does this always-running
program do? It ensures that that manufacturer's software starts a few
seconds quicker. That's it. Instead of taking 10 seconds to launch
Microsloth Widgets, this always-running program ensures that
Microsloth Widgets launches in SEVEN seconds.
Wow. You save three whole seconds. Big whoop.
Fortunately, it isn't hard to kill many of these always-running
programs. Just run MSCONFIG on a PC (see
http://netsquirrel.com/msconfig/ for what you should and should NOT
turn off) or Extensions Manager on a Mac. Oh, and doing this *WON'T*
hurt your computer or the software applications in question. You're
not deleting anything. You're just turning stuff off. In fact, once
you kill a couple of these always-running programs, your computer may
even boot faster and crash less.
One always-running program that doesn't seem to want to go away,
though, is the PC version of RealPlayer's StartCenter. Kill it in
MSCONFIG and it pops back up like kudzu. Here is how to kill it on
your PC once and for all:
1. Launch Real Player
2. Go to View --> Preferences.
3. Click on the General tab.
4. Click on the StartCenter Settings button.
5. Disable StartCenter (by unchecking "Enable StartCenter")
6. Click OK.
7. Click OK.
That's it. Real Player will now take a few seconds longer to load,
but by disabling StartCenter you will automatically free up FIFTEEN
MEGABYTES OF RAM!
That's it for this week. Have a safe and happy week and we'll talk
again soon.
TODAY'S TOURBUS STOP(S):
Mail2Web / Death to StartCenter!
TODAY'S TOURBUS ADDRESS(ES):
http://www.mail2web.com/
---------------------------------
TODAY'S SOUTHERN WORD OF THE WEEK
---------------------------------
GRAYUPH (noun). A data chart using pictures, lines, and bars.
Usage: "I have our survey's results in this grayuph."
[Special thanks Alexis Avis and Oscar Chavez for today's wurd]
You can find all of the old Southern Words of the day at
http://netsquirrel.com/crispen/word.html
=====================[ Tourbus Rider Information ]===================
The Internet Tourbus - U.S. Library of Congress ISSN #1094-2238
Copyright 1995-2001, Crispen & Rankin - All rights reserved
Help the hungry, poor and sick - for free! http://FreeDonation.com
Subscribe, Signoff, Archives, Free Stuff and More at the
Tourbus Website - http://www.TOURBUS.com
=====================================================================
.~~~. ))
(\__/) .' ) )) Patrick Douglas Crispen
/o o \/ .~
{o_, \ { crispen@netsquirrel.com
/ , , ) \ http://www.netsquirrel.com/
`~ '-' \ } )) AOL Instant Messenger: Squirrel2K
_( ( )_.'
'---..{____} Warning: squirrels.
