Cayucos Computer Club AOL E-Mail Tips: On the "My AOL" menu, click the "Preferences" option, you should see the following: The two main Preference areas that affect how your E-Mail works are the buttons labeled "Mail" and "Download". Mail Preferences If you click on the "Mail" button, you will see the following menu: Placing check marks next to each option enables that option, and taking the check marks out disables it (you use the left mouse button to check or uncheck.) Confirm mail after is has been sent: This makes it so a message window appears that lets you know that your message was sent. This can be important since sometimes e-mail does not get sent for one reason or another. Close mail after it has been sent: This closes the "Write" window after you send a message that you have composed. Normally you would want this checked, but if you are going to be sending a similar message to someone else, it allows you to do so without having to retype. Confirm when mail is marked to be sent later: This makes it so a message window appears that lets you know that your message was filed as mail waiting to be sent. Normally there isn't a reason to have this checked. Retain all mail I send in my Personal Filing Cabinet: This makes it so a copy of all mail you send is filed in your "Filing Cabinet" and is a good way to keep records of mail that you send, which can be important if you are sending business e-mail, but probably not critical for personal messages. Retain all mail I read in my Personal Filing Cabinet: This makes it so a copy of all mail you read is filed in your "Filing Cabinet" and is a good way to keep records of mail that you receive and take the time to read. Mail that you delete without ever reading is not saved. Perform a spell check before sending mail: This is handy if your a poor speller, but can get old when you're sending a lot of messages since it forces the spell-checker to run before a message is sent. You can always start the spell-checker yourself for messages you really want to be perfect (the spell-checker is activated by pressing the button that has "ABC" and check mark on it. Use white mail headers: I have not figured out what this option does, if anyone knows please send me a note to bill@cayucos.org. Show address as hyperlinks: This makes it so that e-mail addresses in messages you receive are "hyperlinks", which means you can click on them and a new "Write Message" window will open that is already addressed to the address you clicked on. This should normally be checked since there are no drawbacks. Display next message when current message is deleted: This makes it so the e-mail program automatically opens the next message after you read a message and delete it. This should probably be left unchecked since you would likely end up reading messages that weren't worth reading (i.e., spam.) If you don't get many unwanted e-mails and end up reading every message you receive, then check this one. Use AOL style quoting or Use Internet Style quoting: When you select text in an e-mail message you receive and hit the "Reply" option, the selected text will appear in your reply, and depending on which "style" you have selected, that text will appear differently. "AOL Style" looks like this: <<This is an example of AOL Style quoting.>> "Internet Style" looks like this: <This is an <example of Internet Style quoting Download Preferences If you click on the "Download" button on the Preferences screen, you will see the following menu: Display Image files on download: This makes it so that when you receive a photo via e-mail, it will be displayed as soon as you download it. If you don not have this checked, you will need to open the photo file yourself (using an photo-editing or -viewing program.) Automatically decompress files at sign-off: Often times people will send you several photos compressed ("Zipped") into one file, and having this checked makes AOL's program to decompress ("un-zip") them as soon as you sign off. Delete ZIP files after decompression: This causes the compressed file to be deleted once the files (images) have been extracted. There is usually no need to save the compressed files unless you want to save them as back-ups to the extracted files. Confirm additions to my download list: This makes it so a message window appears that lets you know that have marked a file to downloaded - doesn't relate to e-mail. Retain information about my ### downloads: This is related more to files downloaded from web sites, not e-mail. Unless you have very little room on your hard drive, there is no reason to change this from the default value of 100. Use this directory as default for downloads: The default directory is "C:\America Online 5.0\download", but you can change it a different directory (folder) if you wish. These notes were prepared by Bill Standley, if you have any comments of additions feel free to contact me at bill@cayucos.org. Return to the Cayucos Computer Club Home Page