U3A Computing Beginners Class

1. U3A Computing Beginners Class Leader – Brian Moore Week 6 of 10 weeks. Mondays 4:15 to 5:45 pm 4/11/13

2. Email • Very Important use of computers. • Is the main method to send personal messages/letters to individuals or groups. • Can “Attach” files to the message e.g. a Word Document, or a photo but are size limitations. • Has been partly replaced by social networking sites such as “Facebook” and “Twitter”.

3. Access of Email • Two ways to access email. • An Email “client” program. Vista has “Windows Mail”, Windows 7 has “Windows Live Mail”. In a College or Work- “Outlook”.Some technical setup required. Need Username, Password and server details.Or • Webmail – Now the main way, allows access to email anywhere you have Internet access.Still need your Username and Password.

4. Email “Client” programs are installed on your computer. They allows emails to be read even when your internet is not connected, called Off-Line. This was useful when we all had Dial Up Internet access but now everybody has Broadband this is no longer relevant.They do give a more organised layout with no adverts especially Outlook, part of the MS office suite. • Webmail. Is a web site to access your mail. It can be run by your Internet Service Provider for their free account or e.g. Hotmail, Yahoo or Gmail.

5. Typical Outlook 2007 use

6. Look at a Hotmail account • Login hotmail at http://www.outlook.com/ • Hotmail address= mondayu3a@hotmail.co.uk password= u3a1234 • Now uses HTTPS: a secure connection and has extra features - Skydrive. • As is shows on left the basic folders: Inbox, Sent and others. Next is the emails in the folder selected. Then Adverts & Messaging- Turn this off at .... • The blue line at the top has all the controls. click on the cog and for Reading pane click on Right. Now for each email you can instantly see its content.

7. Sending an email from +New • CC – means Carbon Copy. Add email addresses of people who you just want to keep in the picture, with no actions. • Normally all the recipients can see the To: and CC: lists. • Bcc – means Blind CC. The email addresses are hidden from all the recipients. • Type in a Subject - it’s just a Title • In the main box type in your message. • It you want you can add a “Attachment” When all is ready LH click on “Send”.

8. Groups • If you want to send a email to many people often you can create a “Group” formerly “Distribution List” which is just a list of email addresses with a name.First you have to add email addresses to “People”. Then also under New create a New Group.Note the email must already be in People. • This all varies between web mail systems. With different words for the same thing. • Note there is lot of incompatibility between email providers because of commercial reasons.

9. Adding an Attachment • You can add any file with the following proviso. But getting around these is advanced. • Business and Schools/Colleges may well ban adding Word documents which have “Macros” in because they are a favourite place to hide Viruses in. • Also they will probably have a limit to the size of attachments added, typically 6Mb, that's about two full size high definition photos. • It’s all well described in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-mail_attachment

10. Example of adding an Attachment • When creating a new email to add an attachment click on Insert (a paperclip icon) at the top and select using one of three ways1) Files as attachments2) Pictures inline3) Share from SkyDrive • Then find what you want to add and click on open.

11. Practical Log on - Password Change • Please attempt to Login as usual. • You may get a Logon Message – Your password will expire in xx days. Do you want to change it now? • Click on Yes. You will then get a request for a new password – put in u3a1234 and the same in the Confirm New Password. Ignore the other boxes. OK this and you will get a message “your password has been changed.” OK this. • This will happen about every 5 weeks and is for security reasons.

12. Practical • Login Windows and start Internet Explorer. • Browse to www.Outlook.com • All use the same hotmail account = mondayu3a@hotmail.co.uk withPassword= u3a1234. • Send emails to each other. Identify who its from and who its for in the Subject. Ie Email From xxx to yyy. • At first just type in an email address. Then try in Cc & Bcc.

13. If you have your own hotmail account you can use that instead. • Try adding an Attachment by the three ways. Find something from your My Documents. When you receive one with a attachment double click on it to see it. • Explore the 4 tabs from the V arrow just to the right of Outlook with options Mail, People, Calendar, SkyDrive.

14. Make own Hotmail account • If you have time create your own Hotmail account as an alternative to your usual one. • This is useful when you sign up with some organization that insists on sending junk email. You can just abandon it if too much comes. • At https://login.live.com/ Select sign up now.

15. Google Mail = gmail • Create a @gmail account from https://mail.google.com/intl/en/mail/help/about.html and click on Create an account. • As you will see they want quite a bit of information. You don't have to fill in Birthdays, Gender, Phone or current email. And untick “Set google as my default homepage”.

16. Outlook Setup • MS Outlook is the standard “Client” program used in commerce. • Here at St Thomas More it is rather limited as to what we can do. • Start the program from Start, All Programs, Microsoft Office, Microsoft Outlook 2007 and then elect to NOT create an account. • Look at Mail, Contacts, Tasks, Calendar.

17. Some web sites to look at • https://www.pcforseniors.co.uk/Selling a book for £20 • http://www.sendmediscounts.co.uk/ • http://www.datamation.com/applications/why-the-people-feature-of-outlook.com-is-contacts-done-right.html