The Little Mac Book, Tiger Edition [Electronic resources] نسخه متنی

Information you need before you start

Whether you walk through the Setup Assistant the first time you turn on your Mac, or you decide to do it later, there is information you need to have from your Internet Service Provider (ISP) or network administrator. And remember, if you use or plan to use an America Online account as your only connection, you don't need to go through this Internet setup process at all!

If you have a provider other than EarthLink or AOL, have the information your provider gave you before you begin:

User account name and password.

Email address and password (which might or might not be the same as your account name and passwordoften it is not!).

If the account is a dial-up, you need the phone number, plus they might give you several DNS (domain name server) numbers that look something like this: 198.162.34.8.

If the account is broadband, make sure to ask your provider for the connection type and ask if you'll need a router number.

If you are on a local area network (LAN) in a large corporation or school, ask your system administrator for the pertinent information.

Write all of this information down! I guarantee you will need it again someday! And don't forget to write down every password as well.

I actually keep a small Rolodex file of account names and passwords for online accounts, email, catalogs, libraries, Apple, Adobe, eBay, airlines, banking, bookstores, etc.

To add an existing email account you will need:

Your email address at that account.

Incoming mail server name.
This will be something like mail.myDomainName.com or pop.myDomainName.com.

This is not always the same as your provider's name. For instance, I own the domain "ratz.com" and I get email there, so my incoming mail server name for that particular email account is "mail.ratz.com." But my provider is comcast.net.

Outgoing mail server (SMTP).
SMTP stands for Simple Mail Transfer Protocol. This information will be something like mail.myProvider.com or smtp.myProvider.com.

The SMTP is always the name of your Internet Service Provider because that is where your email gets sent out from. No matter how many different email accounts you have coming in, your outgoing mail server is always the one you are paying money to for your Internet connection; it is always your service provider.

Well, technically you can use a different SMTP, such as mac.com, but I guarantee you will have fewer problems if you use your provider's SMTP for every account.

If you have a .Mac (dot Mac) email address, your SMTP is still the name of the ISP to whom you pay for your Internet connection, not Mac.com or Apple.

Account type: IMAP or POP.
Most email accounts are POP accounts. Services like America Online and .Mac are IMAP accounts. Ask your provider to be sure; if you can't, choose POP for now and you can always change it later once you find out.