e-mail help

This e-mail help tutorial will cover everything from creating an email, attaching a file, forwarding an e-mail to creating contacts and opening your e-mails. If your a beginner don't worry we will cover it all.

There are many e-mail programs out there, Yahoo has Yahoo mail, Google has Gmail, Windows Live has Windows Live hotmail and your ISP (internet service provider) also has an email program and there are many others. These are all known as web mail, none of the information is kept on your computer and you must be connected to the internet to use them.

There are e-mail programs that run directly from your computer known as client side e-mail programs some of them are Outlook, Outlook express, Eudora and Opera just to name a few.

In this e-mail help tutorial we will look at one web mail provider. Since most of these programs all work very much the same you will need to apply what I am saying and doing to your own web mail.

If your using a client side email program I'm sorry but there are just to many of them to cover here . You can email me with your questions and I will try to answer them for you. You may find that if you follow this tutorial you would rather use a web mail system in that case just do so.

To follow this e-mail help tutorial you can follow every step with me including signing up for an account, when were finished you will be ready to use their mail system. So lets begin, the web mail I will use is Windows Live Hotmail formerly known as MSN Hotmail.

Open your Internet browser in the address bar type http://www.msn.com and press enter on your keyboard. The MSN homepage should appear like the picture below.


Now click on the Hotmail icon ( I have highlighted it red). The screen should look like the picture below.


In the center area under the Windows Live Icon click on the sign up button. Now the screen looks like the picture below.

This page shows you options, scroll down the page and read what services are offered, you can always add these services later. Right now we want the email so choose the button I have highlighted. Now the screen changes to look like that of the picture below.

This page collects all your information, In the first box type the email name you would like for your self and then click the button below, It will check to see if no one else has used that name. If it returns a message saying it has been taken try something else or add some numbers to the end of it.
Be sure not to use numbers like your address or date of birth.

Once you have a good ID move to the next box which is choosing a password. Enter the password you want to use with this account, the stronger you make it the less chance there is someone will be able to access your account.

Next is Password reset options. You can choose to do this or not. To do this you must have another e-mail address once you enter your alternate e-mail address. Choose a question from the drop down box and enter the answer on the line below. This is used if for any reason you can't log into your hotmail account, you will need to answer this question from your other e-mail account and your hotmail account will be reset foe you.

Now enter your Personal information, once completed scroll down and you will see a picture something like the one below.

You now need to type into the box below the picture the letters seen in the box. If you can not see them clearly there are two buttons beside the picture. the bottom right hand button is a next button. This button will refresh the box with new letters that may be easier to see. The second button the one above the previous button is a sound button. If you want press this button and you will hear the letters spoken to you so you can enter them in the box.

Once this is done click on the Windows Live Service Agreement and read it before you click the I Accept button. Once you have read it click on the I accept button. The next screen will give you the option of Classic or Full click on the full button.

You should see a screen like the picture below. Click the picture and review the full size labeled picture.

The e-mail help for this page is in the right hand corner beside the options icon it is a blue circle with a question mark in it. From the labeled picture we now know the major areas of the mail program. If you have clicked on the options icon you have also seen additional options we will talk about at the end of the e-mail help tutorial.

Now we have an e-mail account and we even have one email in our inbox. Lets review how we read our emails. Left click on the email in the list, the contents of the e-mail will be displayed in the right hand preview window.  You can use the scroll bars and move up and down to read the email. Like the picture below shows.
 
If you want to read the mail full screen look at the top right hand corner of the preview window it says Full message view, click on this text and the inbox full of messages disappears and the message fills the screen like the picture below.


When finished click on the "X" in the top right hand corner of the message and the message will return to the preview mode and your inbox frame will return. That is how we preview and read emails that are in our inbox. This e-mail help tutorial is going to be very long so I'm going to break it up into multiple pages. Continue to part 2.